Tuesday 4th August

Forgot to mention that last week Louise had sent through the final figures for the Corncrakes here on Islay for 2015. The total came to 101 calling males, slightly up on last year and probably the only area to have an increase on the year as most other areas appear to be down! Yesterday evening, James had seen a Swift fly over his house at Gruinart. This morning, Mandy saw a further 2 Swifts down at Lower Killeyan on the Oa, she also had a female Blackcap there as well. This afternoon Mark had a Swift at Kintra, outside Port Ellen and also a ringtail Hen Harrier. Later on, Mark spotted another ringtail, this time on the Bowmore side of the airport.

Wednesday 27th May

Back on Monday, Alistair Hutchison had seen 2 male Hen Harriers whilst out and about on Islay, he had one close to Cladville just out of Portnahaven and the other one was near to Kildalton. On Monday night, some of us went out and did the first run of the Corncrake survey this year, not sure of the overall tally yet. We only heard 6 on our patch, a bit on the low side but some other routes had better figures. It was rather windy and hearing some of the birds proved rather difficult, also the temperature was a bit on the low side too. Apparently, they do like calling when it is cold....Today, certainly not really a day for bird watching as it has been rather miserable, cold and wet, a poor day for the "open day" at Bowmore Distillery and also for Islay Ales, and tomorrow looks not much better!