A sunny, moderately pleasant day on Saturday before Storm Ashley hit today with, at times, very strong winds from the south, plenty of rain at times.
Yesterday Gary T. was up at Bunnahabhain finding a Crossbill, while Clive Mc. counted 370 Lapwings at the top of Loch Gruinart. Down at Currie Sands, Portnahaven, Mary Redman had a couple of Choughs, a Kestrel and 12 Whooper Swans flying over. David Wood ventured to Loch Gorm where he found a first Pochard of the autumn/winter, plus 19 Black-tailed Godwits and 75 Lapwings, then 48 Brent Geese on Loch Indaal.
Neil Mc. with his Naturetrek group were on Jura where he had, amongst other birds, no less than 5 White-tailed Eagles, 2 Golden Eagles and 12+ Yellowhammers. A male Long-tailed Duck seen by the group at Craighouse is only the 4th documented record for Jura since 1972.
Amazingly, despite the appalling stormy weather today, people did go out birding:
James H. did a count of the geese on the RSPB Gruinart reserve in the morning before it got really nasty and found 13,670 Barnacle and 377 Greenland White-fronted Geese plus 890 Golden Plover. Neil Mc. was at Skerrols confirming the continued presence of the male Ring-necked Duck, plus a distant sighting in the ferocious conditions of a female Lesser Scaup along with 2 Greater Scaup, 25 Whooper Swans, 40 Siskins in the adjacent woods and 5 White-tailed Eagles. The latter were presumably taking some shelter from the storm, but annoying the wildfowl on the loch. Later, Neil reported 5 Greenshank and a Carrion Crow paired with a Hoodie at Gruinart, 3 Pink-footed Geese near Port Ellen and a scattering of c.50 Whooper Swans and 6 Little Egrets across the island. Clive Mc. flushed a Woodcock, sheltering from the storm, in his garden up near Garra Eallabus on Gruinart.
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