Sun 7th June

The weather may have been a bit of a disappointment yesterday, but today it was back to normal, with the sun shining. So much so, that I made a start to clipping the sheep, so the ewe hoggs are going about a bit lighter, and hopefully, some more haircuts tomorrow please!

Back to birds, and James gave me some sightings since Friday. On Friday itself, he had a Ruff and a Gadwall on the reserve at Gruinart. He also saw his first Marsh Fritillary of the year. Up at Ardnave yesterday, and he had seen some Little Terns, a single Bar tailed Godwit, 22 Sanderling and 12 Dunlin. Through the night, into the wee small hours, James had done a Corncrake count on the reserve, and had 13 calling birds and also a Water rail. This afternoon James had seen Small Copper Butterflies on the wing, Green Hairstreak , some Four Spotted Chaser dragonflies and an early sighting of a Golden ringed dragonfly.

Mon 19th May

This is one of the Whinchats that we saw on Sunday evening whilst out on a run round Loch Gorm. Down at Blackrock today, there were 3 Whooper Swan, and further along the road 5 Whimbrel flew past us. MAB

Over at RSPB Loch Gruinart reserve today, James had a single Whooper Swan, while on the floods, he had 4 Moorhen, a pair of Gadwall and also a male Garganey. Yesterday, 2 Spotted Crakes were heard calling while on Friday, James saw 2 Four Spotted Darter Dragonflies and also noted the first of the Flag Iris in bloom. JRH