17th August,2009.

A day necessarily combining birding and domestic calls, although it meant I could cast around more widely than usual. Quite pleasant weather with some good viewing conditions.

Almost calm conditions over the outer loch (Indaal ) enabled a good examination for divers. It was actually devoid of birds!! An odd gull and nothing else, which was a surprise. We appear not to have had any summering Great Northern Divers this year, although ,of course, birds could move on to the open sea as conditions improve. Whilst odd reports arise from time to time, feeding Shag way out in the loch's centre are likely to have confused the unwary, but even these were absent!!
In the inner loch waders are improving in numbers almost daily and various groups of Dunlin and Ringed Plover were present along with larger species too far out to gain a view of given the tide state . As yet duck have not begun to arrive and a few mergansers and Eider were the only representatives. The lone Barnacle Goose , wary as ever even after a lazy summer, strutted along the strand , quite separate from the gathering of 500+ Grey lag Geese on the edge of the Merse.

At Gruinart waders were again much in evidence and the tide state more convenient for viewing. Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Sanderling , Redshank, Greenshank, Knot, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed godwit, Curlew and Oystercatcher.....a veritable bonanza that kept me going for ages!.
A lone Osprey sat out the tide on an emergent sandbank, diligently preening for ages and then simply resting after what, one imagines, might have been a long flight previuosly.

At home Siskin and Lesser Redpoll families feed with Goldfinch and Reed Bunting and single Northern Wheatear, Whinchat and a Common Whitethroat were nearby. "White" wagtails are now more obvious, with some really handsome individuals, doubtless arrived from Iceland.