Saturday 4th May

A cracking wee Linnet taken today over at Gartbreck by the Argyll birder. Yesterday, Mary had a Whinchat over at Claddach Loch at Portnahaven, closer to the village she also had 2 Common Sandpiper. Mary had a phone call earlier from her folks who live on Kerrera, which is one of the islands just off Oban and they had just had a Nuthatch on their feeders! New visitors in, Andrew and Jane had seen a pr of White tailed Sea Eagle from the ferry. The Argyll birder had been out and about today, starting off with a male Hen Harrier at Foreland. He had 3 good flocks of Golden Plover, one of around 200 at Machrie beside Machir Bay, another 200 at Ballinaby along with 16 Ringed Plover and 5 Dunlin. Up at Ardnave there was a count of 365 Golden Plover. The Ring necked Duck was still present on Ardnave Loch with 21 Tufted Duck there too. At Gruinart, a White tailed Sea Eagle , 1 Blackwit, 11 Dunlin, 70 Barnies, 1 Greenland Whitefront, 25 House Martins, 150 Sand Martins, 20 Swallows, 8 White Wagtails and a male Hen Harrier were present. Gartbreck held 58 Blackwits and Loch Indaal, Bowmore 56 Barwits, 3 Little Tern, 6 Sandwich Tern and 4 Arctic Tern were noted. this evening Bob counted 80 Shelduck on Loch Gruinart

Monday 1st May

A great day over here with plenty of different birds seen today. It all started off with the Argyll birder spotting this Little ringed Plover, only the second one ever here on Islay, we believe. Mary found a Ring necked Duck at Ardnave Loch as well as a Long billed Dowitcher there too. Not to be outdone, James had a Tree Pipit on the reserve at Gruinart. Peter and Pia had a male Yellow Wagtail beema sp also on the reserve, from the new hide this afternoon. Peter also had 15 Ringed Plover at Coull and then around 200 Golden Plover at Ballinaby, the Argyll birder counted a total of 212 Plovers present there. The Argyll birder also had a Whinchat at Grulinmore and several groups of Whimbrel, 11 at Ardnave, 18 at Bruichladdich and 98 down at Nerabus. Bob this evening counted 30 at Octomore. Peter also had 3 Grasshopper Warblers and a Whitethroat at Foreland. James had a Merlin at Ardnave this afternoon, and we had one at Coull this morning which put the flock of Golden Plovers up. Yesterday Michal had a male Hen Harrier displaying down on the Oa. He also had 2 Golden Eagles,a Red Grouse, a Sedge Warbler and several Willow Warblers. He also seen "loads" of Meadow Pipits and also Skylarks there too. Bob had a Golden Eagle yesterday up behind Sunderland. Bob's friend Chris had 95 species seen on his 2 day trip to Islay.

Wednesday 23rd January

A better day, later on that was, as first thing this morning we had some frost, even at midday, it was quite icy outside with the rain that had fallen turning to ice on the untreated roads.....I went down with Bob to do a count on Loch Indaal, from Bowmore to Gartbreck. The sky did not look to promising but we decided to give it a go... after around 40 minutes or so into the count, the light got poorer and it had started to rain making use of our bins and scope a difficult job, so we gave up! But before that we had the following birds counted, 20 Shag, 2 Heron, 20 Common Gull, 1 Black headed Gull, 10 Greater Black backed Gull, around 1,500 Barnacle Geese, 38 Mallard, 317 Teal, 121 Wigeon, 17 Red breasted Merganser, 11 Eider, 2 Goldeneye, 8 Mute Swan, 1 ringtail Hen Harrier, 24 Common Scoter, 30 Oystercatcher, 30 Curlew, 1 Golden Plover and 3 GND. 2 of the Common gulls in flight were having a tussle as one of them had a sandeel in its' beak, then up came one of the Blackbacks who hounded the the smaller Common Gull into dropping the said sandeel with the blackback picking up the food parcel in mid air no bother! The Barnacle geese figure was a high count as the geese were resting up below the high water mark after an almost full moon when they quite often feed through the night! Later on Bob had gone to look at Loch Skerrols on his way home. There he counted 2 Coot, 8 Mute Swan, 32 Greylag, 50 Mallard, 57 Wigeon, 81 Teal, 5 Goldeneye, 4 Tufted Duck and a male Ring necked Duck. Along the road up to Knockdon, Bob saw 3 Red legged Partridge and a male Merlin.