Thursday 26th March

Gary was in touch this morning by e mail...
"Yesterday 10 Lesser Redpoll over moorland in front & behind house checking out willows."

Steve Percival was as in touch late afternoon, regarding the dead Barnie that Bob found. It was ringed on 19 July last year on the breeding grounds in SE Iceland by Carl Mitchell and a team of Icelanders (as a juvenile, hatched that year). This was the first record of it since ringing.  Bob told me later on, that he felt that the goose had been shot, but hard to be 100% sure as it was fairly well decomposed..

David Wood had seen a Stock Dove down on the Oa today, a new tick for the Oa records.


Malcolm kindly sent me this e mail regarding the policy being carried out by Calmac regarding ferry travel to Islay.
"CalMac at Kennacraig are now asking for confirmation from travellers that they have a permanent address on the island. Even if the great majority have realised for themselves that they shouldn't be travelling here, it might save a wasted journey for a small number." 
I believe that as of tomorrow, we are on a single ferry crossing with 2 return trips per day and only a single return trip on Sundays.
Also on the travel front, I believe that HIAL the overall company responsible for operating the airport, has said that all the airports operated by them will be shut for passengers from Sunday onwards....

Tuesday 2nd October

Apologies to Tom and Jo, I said in last night's entry that they had seen a Turtle Dove up the back of Bridgend, my mistake it was a Stock Dove.... Today there have been more Whoopers around, 63 were counted between Coull and Rockside, none wearing any collars as far as I could make out. The 2 Snow Geese had moved along the road with some of the Greylags to Sunderland Farm this afternoon, with a large number of Greylags on Loch Gorm itself. Over at Gruinart, Mary had seen around 70 Greenland Whitefronts at the top of the loch. The rainfall figure for September here at home was 5.5", and we reckon that we are still slightly drier than at the same time last year.... by the way there have been quite a few heavy showers today, catch up time already???