After a few days serious twitching on the Isle of Islay, unfortunately we had to come home. Islay is a beautiful place, a true birder’s dream with very friendly people and some darn decent single malts to explore as well. Overall, we managed 87 different species in a couple of days including several ‘lifers’ which for a couple of enthusiastic amateurs off their home patch so to speak, we didn’t think was too bad! I am sure people on here with greater knowledge and experience could easily manage 100 – 150 plus. Highlights included Hen harrier, very close encounters with a group of 20 or so adolescant Chough, several calling Corncrakes and a Red Breasted Merganser seen from the breakfast table.. A flock of approximately 20 snipe whirling and drumming over the RSPB hide was also pretty special and a rare sight these days. Special thanks must go to Kev for lending me he is detailed notes to the island which proved invaluable, the tip off for the Hen Harrier proving exceptionally good!
Back home the birds are still here aplenty, with the Tree Sparrows, Redpolls and Siskins still coming in and making big in roads into our bird seed. A Robin fledgling this morning was the first sign of new life and a Pied Flycatcher took a look inside of our camera nest box yesterday. This seems to be one of a number of sites he is defending at the moment so I doubt we will be so lucky, but we can but hope.. A Garden Warbler was also singing nearby with House Martins well advanced on the building opposite. The Swallows still seem to be prospecting.
Back to work tomorrow and perfectly on cue the weathermen are promising Summer next week! Ah well, I am sure that will last nicely until just before Jubilee weekend… 😉
Radnor Bird Blog 
Sounds a great holiday – birds & malt whisky – you can’t go wrong in my view. We went to North Uist last year – the birds were great but not like Islay for malts.
Cheers
Pam
Can’t go wrong indeed! However, it’s just as well as there isn’t a great deal of other things to do on the island!!
Well done buddy and thanks.
Sounds great.You need to be careful with Hen Harriers in the nesting season as I heard that a photographer in our area nearly lost his car,camera and computer to the police and rspb a few years ago.
Thanks! The RSPB staff at the visitor centre were also more than happy to forward me to this location on the island as well, so it is doubtful there was any risk of there being a nest nearby.
Thats good.You cant be too careful these days as there are these little cameras fixed in all sorts of places.I heard that the water board are going to hand the centre and everything over to the rspb in a year or two time.
Pity there isn’t one fixed by your website , then we would know who you are!
Clearly you have been misinformed -if you want to make snide comments , then have the courage to acknowledge your authorship. The info given to Alun was from a friend in the RSPB in Islay and thus there was no problem with “little cameras”.