A walk down the track very early morning showed odd Whinchat, Northern Wheatear and Willow Warbler to be around suggesting they'd taken benefit from the relative clear conditions overnight.
A little later, on the coast, the flat, grey silent sea, coupled with no wind, produced an almost surreal effect, as if being viewed on a canvas, from an environment so usually fused with dynamism and sound. Gannet and Manx Shearwater were moving past, but only a couple of Kittiwake and a few auks despite the calm conditions. A single Bonxie appeared far out, but never really showed to advantage.
Outer Loch Indaal held a small number of Guillemot, an odd Razorbill and a few Common Scoter. More encouraging was a pair of Red-throated Diver with their youngster, which they'd obviously brought down from a hill lochan breeding site somewhere. The Inner Loch was somewhat bereft of birds in the sense of it being a period of low tides with the shoreline interface being at a distance away, further compounded by heat haze!
The day really had been designed to complete BTO WeBS counts (waterbird counts) for which several waters were covered, but nothing exceptional seen. Grey lag Geese numbers were present at different sites with no large concentration noted except for around 700 at Gruinart. Apart from that the day was given over to warbler sightings with numbers of Willow Warbler and Common Whitethroat still around and an odd Sedge Warbler and even a passage Chiffchaff being in evidence.
No comments:
Post a Comment