Islay Birds

Thursday 17th & Friday 18th April 2025

On Thursday, Cuckoos were reported at Kildalton Churchyard by Peter Gill and at the Finlaggan road end by Gary. In the evening, Clive saw 10 Curlews disappearing high and to the north while 11 Whimbrel passed through.

Undoubted bird of the day on Friday was a male Marsh Harrier seen by Clive flying SE passed Kilnave, while other sightings included a Whinchat seen by Peter Gill near Carnduncan, a Blackcap was heard on the woodland walk at Gruinart by Alastair, and Hannah Stanger saw Common Sandpiper in Lagavulin Bay. Hannah also saw two Cormorant nests on the south side of Eilean a'Chuirn, the most easterly of the SE Islay Skerries, which is exactly where Peter Roberts spotted three young in a nest back in 2019, itself the first proven breeding of this species on Islay since the 1988-91 BTO Atlas. It's nice to see the population has doubled!

A few Barnacle Geese remain, with Gary seeing two at the Gartmain burn, while Clive had 55+ at Ardnave, presumably waiting for a bit nicer weather before heading, belatedly to Iceland. The two days haven't been too bad with some rain and some sun, but the forecast for the weekend doesn't look nice.

Although this blog is about birds, regular readers will have noticed that it sometimes strays into moths and, as a keen mother, I'm not going to resist posting two photographs of a very unusual moth, the Belted Beauty, taken by visitor Christian Heintzen at Ardnave. They are of a male and a female, the difference between them being very striking as the female is wingless. The species is restricted to the Inner and Outer Hebrides and to areas of machair and sanddune. On Islay, it has been found at Ardnave, Killinallan and Machir Bay.