Saturday 6th December  

A slightly better day, after 21 mm of rain fell at the Airport in the 24 hours up to 6am Saturday morning, with the gale having subsided. 

Only two observations were received, one from Steve Rogers who saw 2 Chough flying over Emerivale towards Port Ellen at 3.15pm. When I was first visiting Islay in the 1960s and 1970s, seeing Chough on the beach in front of Port Ellen was a regular occurrence, but back then The Oa was a much more important for breeding Chough, using the many caves, than it is now.

The other was from Billy Stitchell who found 8 Bullfinches feeding on buds along a track in the forestry near Cluanach. Here's one of his photographs of one of the birds, which he admits is not a very good shot, but it shows the light conditions he had to work with.