Saturday 17 October 2009

Sat 17th Oct

Another great day weather wise. Thinking back to yesterday, and late afternoon we went down to the hide at the reserve at Gruinart. We must have spent almost a couple of hours, the light was fantastic, and how can you describe the birds? It was all there for us to see, Barnies, Greylags, Whitefronts, with Godwits and Snipe directly out in front of the hide, Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Shoveler, Mute Swans and Lapwing were present too. Thrown in for good measure was a Peregrine and also a ringtail Hen Harrier, which needless to say woke the ducks up for a few moments. The Geese were all up in the air several times, and what a sight and sound that was! It certainly was a great experience.
There have been a few Whoopers passing through the last few days, James had 6 fly past him yesterday, there were a few at Rockside this morning and Malcolm heard some flying over Bruichladdich this morning while it was still dark.
Talking of birds on the move, some more small groups of Redwings have been seen, and today DJ's wife Isobel had 40 Fieldfare in tucking in to the berries. There had been quite a lot in the Ballygrant woods this afternoon eating away good style.
One set of visitors yesterday were fortunate to see 2 Golden Eagles and then later on 3 Otters, and today other visitors told me of a close sighting of less than 20 feet away of an Eagle, and of another 2 Otters, infact one of the Otters was actually swimming with their dog! All these sightings had been at different places round Islay, not at the same place

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