Mon 15th Feb

A visitor over on holiday was in touch earlier this evening to say that 4 Dolphins had been seen off Port Charlotte at 8.30 this morning, now I know what the Doctor meant when she commented on looking for Dolphins....

The same visitor had also seen a male Merlin over towards Craigens this afternoon, but the strong wind had prevented him from getting any images as the car was being buffeted by the wind. Further on there was the Little Egret down on the floods at the reserve at Gruinart, up the hill at the Grainel road end, there was a large flock of Skylark and finally round at Ballinaby a flock of over 200 Golden Plover were present.

It now appears that the dead Gyr Falcon, that was found by John and Lindy MacLellan yesterday, is probably the same bird that was seen earlier on several times down at Portnahaven.

Sun 14th Feb

A day of pluses and negatives, this afternoon while I was out up towards the former church at the top of the hill, 20 Chough flew overhead, a great site to see, that was the plus. The negative was in an e mail through from Malcolm that a Gyr Falcon had been found dead on the strand, it was on the lean side and had been dead for a few days. Whether this was the same bird that was down at Portnahaven and the Oa, or was it a completely different bird as there has been speculation of 2 birds being present.

Fri 12th Feb

James has just returned from the annual RSPB staff conference which was held at Pitlochry. A great time was enjoyed by all and James met in with some of his former Islay colleagues, Gus Keys who was site manager on the Oa was there. Gus is now site manager based down in Wigtown and looking after Ailsa Craig, Mull of Galloway, Wood of Cree and Ken Dee, quite a spread! Helen Moncrieff from Shetland was down, Helen spent a year at Gruinart while Catherine was up on Egilsay. The other person was Rory Crawford who was on Islay last summer and is now based at HQ in Edinburgh. Back to the birds, and while he was there James had seen a Great spotted Woodpecker, 26 Bullfinch, numerous Long tailed Tits, Treecreeper and some Red Squirrels and a single Grey Squirrel.

Thurs 11th Feb

I had been speaking with Louise the other day just after the "big garden birdwatch", and just generally talking birds. Louise was saying that she has a male Blackcap on her feeders at home over on Jura. At the same, she has not had any Siskins this winter, come to think of it neither have we either, so a wee job for tomorrow is to get in touch with friends that stay up the back of Bridgend to ask if they have any with them. The Robin out in the garden was singing away good style today, we certainly have been having a great spell of weather of late, but for how before it breaks down?

Wed 10th Feb

Here is one of that Goose again, to the untrained eye (that's me) it looks like 16F, but as we all now know it really was J6F. Malcolm e mailed Tony Fox who co-ordinates the Greenland Whitefront program. Tony was quick to reply. This goose was initially caught and rung in West Greenland in July 2008. It was seen overwintering in the Machrihanish area on the Mull of Kintyre last winter, and this is the first record of it this winter. It was interesting to read through the history of another goose, J3H, it too was rung in July 2008, again in West Greenland, and it overwintered on the Islay last winter. Back in November 2009, it was here again on Islay, down at Cladville at Portnahaven. All that information came through from Tony who is in China, the power of e mails...

Still on Geese, and Tracey emailed the figures for the Goose count carried out last week, there were 43,510 Barnies and 5,625 Whitefronts. Thanks again to Tracey and the team for the numbers.

Tues 9th Feb

We managed to get this image of a Greenland Whitefront with a neck collar this afternoon. When we first saw it, the goose was less than 20 metres away, but got spoofed and flew off before we could read it, and landed further away from us! When it first landed we took several images of it with its' neck erect and we read the collar as 16F, and it was not until we got home and had a further look at the images, to see in fact that it is J6F. To cut a long story short, I have spoken with Steve Percival who does the ringing of the Barnacle Geese here on Islay, and Steve will try to find out the history behind J6F.

John Armitage e mailed through today to say that the Gyr Falcon had been seen on the Oa yesterday. Catherine had the Little Egret on the floods on the reserve at Gruinart again this morning.

Mon 8th Feb

This morning the birds in the wood were making the most of almost a Spring like day, most of them appeared to be singing away, quite content. Although we never noticed any Chough up at Ardnave yesterday, here at home over the past few days, there have been some birds seen and needless to say, heard as well! There was a pair of Raven out over the crag this morning, so possibly the first of them starting to think about breeding again.

James had seen 2 Greenshank on the reserve at Gruinart today, and our visiting birders were well pleased with having good sightings of a Golden Eagle.