Garrulous Jay
Well-known member
This is an account of a trip I made with my wife and adult daughter last week (last week of October 2015). So it was a general purpose trip rather than a pure birding trip. We wanted to see geese but also to see the sights and visit some distilleries for which the island of Islay is rightly famous. We managed 5 (Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain and Jura. Our trip took us from Ardrossen to Arran, onto Skipness at the top of the Kintyre peninsula, then from Kennacraig to Islay where we stayed for three days which included a trip to Jura then back to Skipness and then home.
The weather was good ranging from dull and overcast but dry to downright tropical with bright blazing sunshine. We were in Scotland for eight days and never once did it rain (except in the night). A good result.
We drove up from our home in North Devon on a Saturday night hoping to avoid all the usual mayhem on the M6 near Birmingham. We left at 7pm and drove very sedately knowing we had until 09.45 the next morning for our ferry to Arran. The journey was just as we had planned; totally relaxing and uninterrupted. We made about 3 stops for coffee and to change drivers and arrived in Ardrossen at around 5.30am on Sunday morning. (10.5 hours) We paid to go into a long term car park, found a quiet spot in the corner, broke out the pillows and sleeping bags and settled down for a few hours sleep.
09.45 and we were leaving Ardrossen harbour on an overcast but bright morning with flat sea conditions. Almost immediately we were into numbers of red-breasted mergansers and shags and before long we were seeing guillemots and black guillemots. I took some photos of divers and upon later examination and enlargement, some turned out to be great northern in both Winter and Summer plumages. At one point I had about 8 in one field of view. We landed on Arran and spent most of the day looking at the sights and mountainous countryside. The one bird which was most obvious through sheer numbers was redwing. There were huge flocks everywhere and this pattern was to repeat itself throughout the coming week in Skipness and all over Islay. In some places, the fields were literally full of redwings. I’m guessing that they were moving down to the rest of the country and over to Ireland and were just refuelling here before moving on.
Arran was not particularly productive birdwise but we did see some grey seals on the rocks between Brodick and Lochranza and red-breasted mergansers seemed to be surprisingly numerous everywhere we went.
We spent the next few days in Skipness and saw many more mergansers here and on a trip to Carradale, I saw an impressive flock of Eider near the harbour.
On the 25th we drove to Kennacraig for the 2 hour ferry ride to Islay. A highlight of that morning drive was the sight of a wedge of 23 whooper swans flying in perfect V formation up the valley. On the way to Islay the sea was very flat as it had been on Sunday and I saw many guillemots, mergansers, eiders and divers. Coming into Port Ellen there were lots of shags and cormorants on the rocks. We drove straight to the Ardbeg distillery (well worth a visit) before driving around the Oa peninsula in the far south west of the island. Nothing exciting to report here, the usual species for the area were all present: meadow and rock pipits, stonechats, hooded crows, pheasants, redwings, fieldfares, blackbirds, chaffinches and flocks of twite.
We drove up the B8016 rather than the more obvious main road which goes past the airport and got our first taste of geese. There were thousands of barnacle geese all along this route, on either side of the road and using the car for a hide it was possible to stop almost anywhere and scope or photograph from the driving seat. We also saw a few white-fronted geese (maybe 50 or so) and fewer still grey lags, along the way. At about 5pm we arrived at our accommodation which was Loch Gruinart House. We were warmly welcomed by Jack, who it turns out, is an RSPB reserve manager for Islay. Self-confessedly not a birder, Jack was, nevertheless, a fund of information about where to go and what to do. This was especially useful as I am disabled with limited mobility and Jack was able to point me in the direction of hides I could drive up to. He also recommended a nearby eatery where we had our evening meal that night. We awoke to the sound of barnacle geese and realised that there was a huge flock right across the road from the house and as we sat watching them, four roe deer walked down the lane right past the front of the house. We drove the short ride to the RSPB reserve chasing a hare along the road in front of us and went to the visitor centre and announced our intention of driving to the hide. No problem and soon we were looking at thousands more barnacle geese and also good numbers of wigeon, teal and mallard. There were large flocks of golden plover wheeling around and plenty of lapwings and a few ringed plovers. The hedgerows were alive with common birds like sparrows, dunnocks, wrens, chaffinches, goldfinches and the fields were covered with feeding redwings and fieldfares. At one point a flock of wigeon, numbering in the hundreds took to the skies and I photographed them not realising until a week later, that I had caught on camera, the reason for their panic. A falcon can be seen tearing into them. Possibly a peregrine or a merlin as we had just had a close encounter with a merlin on the fence posts on the way up the lane. The i.d. is difficult as it is seen from behind and I leave better birders than me to choose which it is. (see attached photo)
On the Thursday we went to Jura for a few hours and saw an otter at the Port Askaig ferry terminal and a few red deer on the island but apart from that, we saw relatively few birds save for a couple of pairs of stonechats. Geese especially were notable by their absence save for a few grey lags near the distillery. Jura is much wilder than Islay and has relatively little good pasture. The landscapes are very brown with a predominance of long purple moor grass which is not really to the barnacles' liking.
Back on Islay, the Port Askaig to Bridgend road held lots of white-fronted geese. But we wanted to get back to Gruinart as we had been told about 200 whooper swans up at Ardnave Loch which is on the western shore of Loch Gruinart. We went straight there and had a grand time watching the beautiful swans in bright sunshine. The lochen was also full of wigeon. The promised feeding of choughs which takes place nearby proved to involve more walking than I was willing to undertake so we gave that a miss and settled instead for another trip to the hide to watch the geese feeding and a final drive around Loch Gorm which was a beautiful evening but turned up nothing new.
The last day on Islay was my birthday and and I was determined to see a chough. We set off after breakfast and drove past down to Port Charlotte passing the Bruichladdich distillery (well, not quite passing - it was actually quite an expensive stop)! We passed the little Loch Gearach where there were about 100 grey lags resting and on to the little cove of Kilchiaran. As we scoped the beach below us, a pair of beautiful choughs showed well, working the green areas of grass near the beach. They paid particular attention to a mini landslip where the soil was exposed and spent about 15 minutes digging in the soft black earth. A perfect birthday present! We drove back to Port Charlotte via Bowmore seeing thousands of Barnacle geese on the beach as we drove, as well as the usual oystercatchers and gulls. At one point we stopped to admire a flock of about 30 scaup floating just off the beach. We made a short diversion to Ardbeg to pick up a bottle and then drove up to Port Askaig which was where our ferry was sailing from. One more stop at Bunnahabhain had to be done and we then left Islay behind weighed down with our haul of single malts!
The ferry journey back was not productive as the light was fading and it was a little blowy making a long stay on deck too uncomfortable. Back at Skipness we stayed for another day, the only birding success being a flotilla of five black throated divers seen just offshore at the beginning of Loch Fyne and a fine view of a long eared owl flying into a stand of conifers near Port na Chro cottages, just north of Skipness House. We drove back to Devon on a Sunday. We stopped for breakfast at the bottom of Loch Lomond and had a few more driving breaks but still had to endure the normal snarl-up around Birmingham which really slowed us down. Our journey home took us 13 hours (576 miles), compare this to our stress free 10 1/2 hour journey up there - a good reason to consider travelling overnight.
We saw 66 species on our trip which was a cultural break for my wife and daughter as well as a birding trip for me.
These were:
Great northern diver
Black throated diver
Gannet
Cormorant
Shag
Grey heron
Mute swan
Whooper swan
White fronted goose
10Grey lag goose
Barnacle goose
Brent goose
Wigeon
Teal
Mallard
Scaup
Pochard
Common Eider
Red-breasted merganser
20Common buzzard
Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine falcon
Pheasant
Oystercatcher
Ringed plover
Golden plover
Lapwing
Dunlin
30Common snipe
Curlew
Turnstone
Black headed gull
Common gull
Herring gull
Great black backed gull
Lesser black backed gull
Guillemot
Black guillemot
40Rock dove
Stock dove
Wood pigeon
Collared dove
Long eared owl
Skylark
Meadow pipit
Rock pipit
Pied wagtail
Wren
50Dunnock
Robin
Stonechat
Fieldfare
Redwing
Blackbird
Magpie
Jackdaw
Rook
Raven
60Carrion/Hooded crow
Chough
Starling
House sparrow
Chaffinch
Goldfinch
66Twite.
The weather was good ranging from dull and overcast but dry to downright tropical with bright blazing sunshine. We were in Scotland for eight days and never once did it rain (except in the night). A good result.
We drove up from our home in North Devon on a Saturday night hoping to avoid all the usual mayhem on the M6 near Birmingham. We left at 7pm and drove very sedately knowing we had until 09.45 the next morning for our ferry to Arran. The journey was just as we had planned; totally relaxing and uninterrupted. We made about 3 stops for coffee and to change drivers and arrived in Ardrossen at around 5.30am on Sunday morning. (10.5 hours) We paid to go into a long term car park, found a quiet spot in the corner, broke out the pillows and sleeping bags and settled down for a few hours sleep.
09.45 and we were leaving Ardrossen harbour on an overcast but bright morning with flat sea conditions. Almost immediately we were into numbers of red-breasted mergansers and shags and before long we were seeing guillemots and black guillemots. I took some photos of divers and upon later examination and enlargement, some turned out to be great northern in both Winter and Summer plumages. At one point I had about 8 in one field of view. We landed on Arran and spent most of the day looking at the sights and mountainous countryside. The one bird which was most obvious through sheer numbers was redwing. There were huge flocks everywhere and this pattern was to repeat itself throughout the coming week in Skipness and all over Islay. In some places, the fields were literally full of redwings. I’m guessing that they were moving down to the rest of the country and over to Ireland and were just refuelling here before moving on.
Arran was not particularly productive birdwise but we did see some grey seals on the rocks between Brodick and Lochranza and red-breasted mergansers seemed to be surprisingly numerous everywhere we went.
We spent the next few days in Skipness and saw many more mergansers here and on a trip to Carradale, I saw an impressive flock of Eider near the harbour.
On the 25th we drove to Kennacraig for the 2 hour ferry ride to Islay. A highlight of that morning drive was the sight of a wedge of 23 whooper swans flying in perfect V formation up the valley. On the way to Islay the sea was very flat as it had been on Sunday and I saw many guillemots, mergansers, eiders and divers. Coming into Port Ellen there were lots of shags and cormorants on the rocks. We drove straight to the Ardbeg distillery (well worth a visit) before driving around the Oa peninsula in the far south west of the island. Nothing exciting to report here, the usual species for the area were all present: meadow and rock pipits, stonechats, hooded crows, pheasants, redwings, fieldfares, blackbirds, chaffinches and flocks of twite.
We drove up the B8016 rather than the more obvious main road which goes past the airport and got our first taste of geese. There were thousands of barnacle geese all along this route, on either side of the road and using the car for a hide it was possible to stop almost anywhere and scope or photograph from the driving seat. We also saw a few white-fronted geese (maybe 50 or so) and fewer still grey lags, along the way. At about 5pm we arrived at our accommodation which was Loch Gruinart House. We were warmly welcomed by Jack, who it turns out, is an RSPB reserve manager for Islay. Self-confessedly not a birder, Jack was, nevertheless, a fund of information about where to go and what to do. This was especially useful as I am disabled with limited mobility and Jack was able to point me in the direction of hides I could drive up to. He also recommended a nearby eatery where we had our evening meal that night. We awoke to the sound of barnacle geese and realised that there was a huge flock right across the road from the house and as we sat watching them, four roe deer walked down the lane right past the front of the house. We drove the short ride to the RSPB reserve chasing a hare along the road in front of us and went to the visitor centre and announced our intention of driving to the hide. No problem and soon we were looking at thousands more barnacle geese and also good numbers of wigeon, teal and mallard. There were large flocks of golden plover wheeling around and plenty of lapwings and a few ringed plovers. The hedgerows were alive with common birds like sparrows, dunnocks, wrens, chaffinches, goldfinches and the fields were covered with feeding redwings and fieldfares. At one point a flock of wigeon, numbering in the hundreds took to the skies and I photographed them not realising until a week later, that I had caught on camera, the reason for their panic. A falcon can be seen tearing into them. Possibly a peregrine or a merlin as we had just had a close encounter with a merlin on the fence posts on the way up the lane. The i.d. is difficult as it is seen from behind and I leave better birders than me to choose which it is. (see attached photo)
On the Thursday we went to Jura for a few hours and saw an otter at the Port Askaig ferry terminal and a few red deer on the island but apart from that, we saw relatively few birds save for a couple of pairs of stonechats. Geese especially were notable by their absence save for a few grey lags near the distillery. Jura is much wilder than Islay and has relatively little good pasture. The landscapes are very brown with a predominance of long purple moor grass which is not really to the barnacles' liking.
Back on Islay, the Port Askaig to Bridgend road held lots of white-fronted geese. But we wanted to get back to Gruinart as we had been told about 200 whooper swans up at Ardnave Loch which is on the western shore of Loch Gruinart. We went straight there and had a grand time watching the beautiful swans in bright sunshine. The lochen was also full of wigeon. The promised feeding of choughs which takes place nearby proved to involve more walking than I was willing to undertake so we gave that a miss and settled instead for another trip to the hide to watch the geese feeding and a final drive around Loch Gorm which was a beautiful evening but turned up nothing new.
The last day on Islay was my birthday and and I was determined to see a chough. We set off after breakfast and drove past down to Port Charlotte passing the Bruichladdich distillery (well, not quite passing - it was actually quite an expensive stop)! We passed the little Loch Gearach where there were about 100 grey lags resting and on to the little cove of Kilchiaran. As we scoped the beach below us, a pair of beautiful choughs showed well, working the green areas of grass near the beach. They paid particular attention to a mini landslip where the soil was exposed and spent about 15 minutes digging in the soft black earth. A perfect birthday present! We drove back to Port Charlotte via Bowmore seeing thousands of Barnacle geese on the beach as we drove, as well as the usual oystercatchers and gulls. At one point we stopped to admire a flock of about 30 scaup floating just off the beach. We made a short diversion to Ardbeg to pick up a bottle and then drove up to Port Askaig which was where our ferry was sailing from. One more stop at Bunnahabhain had to be done and we then left Islay behind weighed down with our haul of single malts!
The ferry journey back was not productive as the light was fading and it was a little blowy making a long stay on deck too uncomfortable. Back at Skipness we stayed for another day, the only birding success being a flotilla of five black throated divers seen just offshore at the beginning of Loch Fyne and a fine view of a long eared owl flying into a stand of conifers near Port na Chro cottages, just north of Skipness House. We drove back to Devon on a Sunday. We stopped for breakfast at the bottom of Loch Lomond and had a few more driving breaks but still had to endure the normal snarl-up around Birmingham which really slowed us down. Our journey home took us 13 hours (576 miles), compare this to our stress free 10 1/2 hour journey up there - a good reason to consider travelling overnight.
We saw 66 species on our trip which was a cultural break for my wife and daughter as well as a birding trip for me.
These were:
Great northern diver
Black throated diver
Gannet
Cormorant
Shag
Grey heron
Mute swan
Whooper swan
White fronted goose
10Grey lag goose
Barnacle goose
Brent goose
Wigeon
Teal
Mallard
Scaup
Pochard
Common Eider
Red-breasted merganser
20Common buzzard
Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine falcon
Pheasant
Oystercatcher
Ringed plover
Golden plover
Lapwing
Dunlin
30Common snipe
Curlew
Turnstone
Black headed gull
Common gull
Herring gull
Great black backed gull
Lesser black backed gull
Guillemot
Black guillemot
40Rock dove
Stock dove
Wood pigeon
Collared dove
Long eared owl
Skylark
Meadow pipit
Rock pipit
Pied wagtail
Wren
50Dunnock
Robin
Stonechat
Fieldfare
Redwing
Blackbird
Magpie
Jackdaw
Rook
Raven
60Carrion/Hooded crow
Chough
Starling
House sparrow
Chaffinch
Goldfinch
66Twite.
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