Sun 7th Feb

Up on Ardnave Loch this afternoon were 14 Swans, and on checking them through, we noted 5 Mute and 9 Whooper. Also present on the water were some Wigeon, a few Mallard, and a few Tufted Duck also. Further round on the water's edge was a group of Oystercatcher. Not that I looked too hard but there was no sign of any Chough about, possibly further out on the dunes or down on the shoreline. There were quite a lot of Curlew in one of the fields. The Little Egret was present on the floods in front of the hide at Gruinart. There was a good showing of Geese at Coull, but none to be seen round at Ballinaby at all.

Sat 6th Feb

I was speaking to Malcolm this morning, and the topic of the Goose count came up. Malcolm had done the count round Loch Gorm this week, and there had been relatively high figures for Gorm, so the figures will probably balance themselves out with the low count that James had yesterday on the reserve. We will just have to wait on the figures through from Tracey!

Some visiting birders in off the ferry this afternoon had seen an adult Mediterrean Gull down beside McArthur's Head as the ferry entered The Sound of Islay. One of them was well pleased as he saw his first "Scottish" Chough as 4 flew past just when they arrived. There were 13 birds in total going to the roost.

Fri 5th Feb

18 Fulmar were on the crag yesterday, a possible sign that the weather is in for a turn, and today they have flown back out to sea again.

Down at Gartmain yesterday afternoon, on the way into Bowmore, there were 105 Sanderling, 48 Oystercatcher, 121 Bar tailed Godwits, 30 Lapwing, 34 Mallard, 2 Wigeon, 7 Common Gull, 8 Curlew and 6 Eider off shore.

Today, there were 3 groups of Pale bellied Brent geese totalling 34 on the way to Bruichladdich and down at Sunderland Farm 16 Blackbirds were in a field.

James had the Little egret out on the floods out in front of the hide this afternoon, and also a Peregrine flew over at the same time. There were 200 Lapwing along with 5 Snipe present. James also managed a Goose count for the reserve, the totals were 3,153 Barnacle Geese, 267 Whitefronts, 22 Greylag and the lesser Canada Goose, hutchinsii. James said it was a low count.

Thurs 4th Feb

The other day when I had my camera with me, I managed to get these Greenland fronted geese as they flew over. Usually it is the Barnacle Geese that are "caught in camera". The light was good, blue skies what else do you want in January?

James had the Little Egret over at the reserve at Gruinart yesterday again, it is good to hear that is still around. He also had a Merlin out too.

Now to look to another island, this time Shetland, and I took an hour off to watch Simon King on BBC2, does Simon always wear a hat?? The program and photography was first class, a great advert for Shetland and everyone involved.

Wed 3rd Feb

Catherine sent me through a count of the birds on Loch Gruinart that she had carried out the other day. 71 Shelduck, 200 Wigeon, 20 Mallard, 1 Goldeneye, 269 Oystercatcher, 4 Ringed Plover, 45 Golden Plover, 9 Lapwing, 3 Knot, 23 Sanderling, 561 Dunlin, 197 Bar tailed Godwit, 217 Curlew, 47 Redshank, 16 Turnstone, 106 Common Gulls, 29 Herring Gulls and 3 Greater black backed Gulls. Thanks Catherine for the figures.

Back here at home, and this morning there were 25 Fieldfare in the trees in the wood for a few moments before they flew off. Might have spoken too quickly yesterday, as today it was rather miserable with dirty showers for most of the afternoon!

Tues 2nd Feb

A great day out here today, nice blue skies with the odd cloud, only downside was the temperature, add on another 20 degrees or so and we would still complain!

Believe it or not although the weather was great, the numbers of birds have not been that good. Down at Bruichladdich this afternoon, there was precious little, a single Redshank, a solitary Turnstone, and a Great Northern Diver. Along towards the pier were 3 Eider and that was about it apart from the odd gull. Sorry folks!

Mon 1st Feb

Another month in, January may have been cold and frosty, but it was relatively dry with less than 2" of rain, a dry month for us least!

As promised, here are our Big Garden Birdwatch figures which we carried out yesterday. In all we had 11 species, and the actual birds were as follows. 1 Robin, 6 Blackbird, 7 House sparrow, 3 Goldfinch, 1 Blue Tit, 22 Chaffinch, 1 Great Tit, 5 Greenfinch, 2 Hedge sparrow (Dunnock), 4 Pheasant and 2 Starling. We did our count around the middle of the day, on hindsight if it had done it later, possibly mid afternoon, we could have counted more!