Wed 11th Nov

Remember the poser about the snails yesterday, well one of you readers out there reckons that the collective name for snails is a "rout", any other suggestions?

Some birds news now, I have not heard of any recent sightings of the Cattle Egret since Albert and Hazel Percival saw it last Friday, but there again it disappeared for a few days before showing up again.

James had a couple of Brambling yesterday on the track leading to his house at Grainel. Also yesterday afternoon, and also on the reserve, a visiting birder over for the week, had seen the Taverner's Canada Goose, and was well pleased. He had spent a lot of time scanning through numerous flocks of Barnies! Today, down at Bruichladdich and George saw a late Swallow in the morning, as well as a few Woodcock.

Mon 2nd Nov

Thank goodness the rain did stop, we had 1.75" up to 9 am today. The footbridge across the burn down at the Machir Bay was not to be seen as it was underwater, and today the burn was back down almost to its correct level, with no sign of any damage done, I thought that the banks might have got washed away in places, but thankfully no!

Back to the birds, and a great day for Whooper Swans, just after 9.30 am and we had 83 fly directly over the house. There were several other large groups, James had a total of 81 birds at Gruinart, while Malcolm had 2 groups, 38 just after 1pm, and then 46 around 16.40. James reckons that Malcolm's first group were originally from Gruinart. We had 33 just below the coal yard, and had counted 138 in total through the day along with several smaller groups.

Apart from the Whoopers, one of the vols at RSPB had seen a Kingfisher down at the mouth of the River Sorn as it enters Loch Indaal below Bridgend. One of the other vols had a Brambling on the track leading to Grainel. On the game crop at Grainel, there were 150 Twite and 50 Linnet. There was also the sighting of a Merlin chasing after the Twite! James also had a Taverner's Canada Goose on the reserve at Gruinart today.