Camargue

Off tomorow - Monday - with Kevin Allenby from Birds of Britain to recce the Camargue for a possible spring birding trip.
Back with a report on Friday.

Snow Eagle

A cracking cold day with such crispness and plenty of snow. High clouds and then ones full of snow. Yellowhammers on pheasant feeders at Ardtalla, a probable Black Necked Grebe(!) at Seal Bay and then a male Hen Harrier and time to watch Barnies in the snow - fabulous. Best of all a Golden Eagle with a white, white background. So ends our last Goosefest of 2008 - brilliant.

Birds of the Day!

On our return this evening when I asked - what was your bird of the day? I received five different answers! That is how diverse the day was. Starting at the ICCI we had; Whooper Swan, Barnacle and Whitefront Goose, Wigeon, Scaup, Long Tailed duck, Red Breasted Merganser, Knot, Redshank, Godwits, Oystercatchers, Slavonian and a single Great Crested Grebe to name a few and then we headed out to Ardnave. Two Lesser Canadas on the way. There, of course, were skeins of Barnies , Purple Sands, Tufted duck and Dabchick (not common for Islay) Twite as well as a handful of Snow Buntings.So... Bird of the day - what would your have been?

Bird of the Day?

On our return this evening when I asked - what was your bird of the day? I received five different answers! That is how diverse the day was. Starting at the ICCI we had; Whooper Swan, Barnacle and Whitefront Goose, Wigeon, Scaup, Long Tailed duck, Red Breasted Merganser, Knot, Redshank, Godwits, Oystercatchers, Slavonian and a single Great Crested Grebe to name a few and then we headed out to Ardnave. Two Lesser Canadas on the way. there , of course were skeins of Barnies , Purple Sands, tufted Duck and Dabchick (not common for Islay) Twite as well as a handful of Snow Buntings.So... Bird of the day - what would your have been?

Geese Roost High Water

This was the start of our last Goosefest of 2008. It was a wee bit blowy today and in order to get our eyes in we watched Whitefronts and Barnacles along the high road. Spectacular in their bright green habitat and sunlight hills beyond. the sky danced with clouds and then we headed off around Loch Indaal to keep up with the light. Red Throated Divers, Purple Sandpipers,  Turnstones and velvety Pale Bellied Brent along the shore line. Later we watched Chough, Merlin  and a Kestrel. A cracking Ringtail had us all excited as we watched it hunting sending up Snipe, thrushes and Skylarks too. Night followed quickly and we enjoyed seeing the Barnies in to roost at Bridgend with a high water merse before catching a handful of Woodcock heading out to feed. A brilliant, if a little baltic day!

Crazy day

Crazy day! The wind was from the north west and cold with it and our photographer was up for anything! We headed inland beyond Skerrols and were rewarded with fantastic views of a Sparrowhawk hunting over the wetlands. It perched on a fence stob and some fabulous images were taken from just 20 metres away.  The landrover is a super hide! We then met up with the beat keeper and congratulated him on his management of this land for Islay Estate  - plenty of wee finches )chaffies, Linnet,  Rockdoves and Red Stag on the hill. Returning to Indaal we watched Scaup, Great Northern Diver and a Long Tailed Duck.  Later as dusk fell we rounded off with Woodcock, Barn Owl and a lovely coffee at Debbies where our photographer met with Carol Ogilvie who illustrated plenty of wildfowl books by her husband Dr Malcolm Ogilvie - he had one from

the USA which she duly signed and drew a lovely Barnacle goose for him. What a day ...Crazy!

3d in 1 bin

Waking up to rain and picking our client form the airport things did not look too good birding wise - however the cloud lifted and we headed around the loch.  Photographing Purple Sandpipers outside 'Debbies' and then the same with a lovely flock of Pale Bellied Brent geese. Just off the rocks we had Great Northern, Black and red Throated in one 'bin' full! The light played peekaboo but a male Hen Harrier at Carn Duncan and a couple of Merlins made the flat light bright for us!