Saturday 7th March

A final e mail  from "The Rochdale Birders" with some birds seen over the past few days seen when over here for this visit...
"13 Crossbills at Finlaggan around the house garden, 1 Goldcrest  at Avenvogie, a Female Hen Harrier at Gruinart and also 5 Hares seen boxing at Port Charlotte"

Gary e mailed some sightings seen by himself yesterday....
" Over at Bunnahabhain all three divers, 7 Great Northern, 2 Red throated & 1 Black throated Divers.
Also 7 Common Crossbill in the fir trees."

Sunday 19th February

The Cambridge birders left for home yesterday, but told me before they left that they had seen up to 4 Iceland Gulls and a Glaucous Gull over at Craigens through the week. They also had seen a Greenshank on the flats at Gruinart as well as the Canada Goose, hutchinsii sp there too. Bob yesterday had a male Hen Harrier and a Sparrowhawk from his house. Last night James had frogs on the road, and today the hares were out boxing and he counted 40 Fieldfare. Here at home today, there have 2 different pairs of Buzzards out on the wing, one is the usual pair that have been resident for the past few years, with the other pair casting an eye over the big crag. Margaret this afternoon found some frog spawn in a wee pond up the burn. Carl had been out today too, with 14 Ringed Plover and 4 Sanderling on Machir Bay, 2 Chough were displaying above the dunes, 40 Chough present on towards Coull, Buzzards were seen at Kilchoman and also along at Rock Mountain, a Blue Tit at Foreland, Great Northern Diver at Bruichladdich. There was a Heron at Bruichladdich too and another along at Port Charlotte. By the way, it has been a better day weather wise, the cold wind has gone, but rain is forecast....

Mon 29th March

Another great image through from Danny Arnold, taken last week. The question put to me by Danny was, "Should it not be wrestling Hares, rather than boxing Hares?" We will just have to get some "boxing Hares" for Danny!

Louise was in touch to say that she too had some Siskins on her bird feeders over the weekend, as well as a couple of Goldfinch. On her way to work, as she was on the ferry from Jura to Islay she saw a White tailed Sea Eagle over the Sound of Islay.

Another good piece of news today is that Michal Sur has returned from his 6 month stay on The Seychelles. So it will be good to catch with him and see some of his images. Come to think of it I doubt if Michal will think much of the weather that is forecast for the next day or two!

Tues 5th Jan

Today, James saw an adult Golden eagle when he was up round Ardnave Point, and he also had 10 Snow Buntings up there as well. Back on the reserve at Gruinart and he had seen 2 separate ( 1 Male and 1 female) Hen Harriers. An really early sighting was that of a pair of boxing Hares, it is usually well into February before we normally see them boxing!

Another interesting piece of information from James was about Oran, a 2009 White tailed Sea eagle that was satellite tagged. It has been here on Islay quite a lot of late, it was down on the Oa for 4 days prior to Xmas. From there it was over the centre of Islay for a couple days, up at Gruinart on the 28th, over to Jura on the 29th and 30th. Next stop was Arran on the 31st, and then on the 1st it was on the Mull of Kintyre, could it possibly be the same bird that was on the ice on Loch Gorm on the 29th?

Another piece of interesting news was that Loch Kinnabus is now frozen over, the first time in over 40 years according to one of the locals!