Wednesday 14th November

Another day of goose counting for me. As part of the International count (I was counting the Gruinart area again). It was a better day, cloudy but clear and calm. We had a total of 18,989 barnacle geese, 818 white fronted geese (all in the Gruinart area), 2 lesser Canada geese hutchinsii on the reserve and best of all, I finally got to see the red breasted goose at Ardnave.
The birds of prey were evident all day, drying their wings from the over night rain. A young white tailed eagle over Corsapol, a merlin further along the road, a hen harrier at the RSPB hide, a kestrel and peregrine at Ardnave and a golden eagle at Killinallen.
Another report from Ken and friends : Yesterday they had - 3 red throated divers, 42 common scoter, 13 long tailed duck and 7 Slavonian grebes on Loch Indaal. A big count of 117 curlew at Port Charlotte, 1 golden eagle, 21 fieldfares and 7 redwing at Finnlaggen. The Iceland gull was at Bunnahabhain again. On the Gruinart Flats 85 meadow pipits and 1 sparrowhawk and finally an otter and 5 purple sandpipers at Bruichladdich.

Thurs 28th Jan

Yesterday, a visitor to our house commented on how nice it was to see some cock pheasants out on the grass. I do not know what he would have said today, as at one point when I did a head count, there were 14 hen pheasants along with 6 males! The most I had seen so far this winter was only 6, will they still be here, come the weekend in time for the "big garden birdwatch"? Probably, some of the pheasants were reared birds, but it was still nice to see that they have made through to now. The other day I saw my first Red legged Partridge for quite a while up at the top of the drive, but probably not a released bird.

This morning as we were going down the road, we had a great sighting of a male Hen Harrier out hunting, not more than 30 metres from us, at one point as we drove along!

James had seen the Lesser Canada Goose, hutchinsii again on the flats at Gruinart.

Sat 16th Jan

There was a sighting of a Gyr Falcon today, it was first seen at Killeyan down on the Oa by Andy Schofield, and then later on it was over at Portnahaven and seen by John Armitage.

James had the lesser Canada Goose, hutchinsii , over at Gruinart this morning and also a Peregrine later on.

George had 47 Greenland Whitefronted Geese up on his fields today along with a few Greylags. He had also seen a couple of Goldeneye at Bowmore yesterday, and a further 4 over in the bay at Port Ellen. Also today, George had a flock of 60 Lapwing flying down Loch Indaal, with intent, could they be thinking of heading over to Ireland?

Mon 10th March

The Lesser Canada Goose, hutchinsii sp, was observed in a flock of Barnacle Geese at Sunderland Farm this morning. JSA

Down at Bruichladdich, also this morning there was a group of 9 Whooper Swan seen flying North, up Loch Indaal and a further 2 were seen this afternoon at Loch Gorm. There are a few reports of small numbers starting to move through. GJ & MAB

The figures are through for the International Count on 12th and 13th of February, which gave us a total of 45,236 Barnacle Geese and 6,416 Greenland Whitefronts. Once again, many thanks to Margaret and Tracey and their team for their input.

There was another sighting of a single Lesser Black-backed Gull over at Gruinart today. MS