Birding on Islay

My wife and I have just come back from 5 nights on the Island of Islay. This is well known for the quality of its winter birding and we enjoyed our time seeing 107 species during our days there. As well as posting this blog I made a YouTube video of the highlights which you can watch below.

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Evident from the start of the visit was the number of wintering geese on the island. By far the most numerous were the Greenland Barnacle Geese.

But we did also see quite a few Greenland White-Fronted Geese (photo below), Greylags, Pink-Footed Geese and Light-Bellied Brent Geese.

A lifer for me was a single Red-Breasted Goose that we saw on our last day.

This was a lovely bird and quite easy to pick out. Certainly easier than the Cackling Goose that we also saw at a distance.

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We did see quite a lot of mammals on the island including Red, Roe and Fallow Deer, Rabbits and Hares, Hedgehog one night too.

One day I took a lovely walk along the coast and managed to get some photos of Red Deer (Stag and Hinds) on the beach which was quite a different setting to see these magnificent mammals.

On the Oa Peninsula we also saw several Feral Goats. These are descended from introduced goats but now living wild and free.

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Also on the Oa Peninsular were large flocks of Twite several of whom came to the feeders at the RSPB carpark. Also on Oa we saw a late Wheatear.

A bird that is known to live and breed on Islay, but few other places in Scotland, is the Red-Billed Chough. This is a really characteristic bird in its feeding and flight behaviour. We were eh, chuffed, to add these to our year list.

We saw a good number of Fieldfare and Redwing too recently arrived from further north.

Another bird we enjoyed seeing was a female Brambling in a flock of mixed finches.

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We had good scope views of several birds around the coast including Little Gull, Black-Throated Diver, Slavonian Grebe, Common Scoter etc. More numerous than all of these were Red-Throated Diver some of which were close enough in to allow reasonable photos.

There were lots of waders around the coast including Redshank, Greenshank, Curlew, Bar and Black-tailed Godwit, Oystercatcher, Turnstone and Ringed Plover.

Another bird which seemed pretty numerous on Islay were Little Egret. We counted 9 in one bay at one point.

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Perhaps the birds we most looked forward to seeing when planning the trip were the raptors and in particular the eagles and the island certainly came up with the goods. We saw numerous Hen Harriers (both sexes) which were additions to the year list.

We also saw Merlin, Peregrine, Kestrel, and Buzzard on several occasions.

We only had good views on 1 Golden Eagle (on the Oa Peninsula) but we did have great and extended views.

This contrasted with White-Tailed Eagle which we saw every single day, a combination of resting on the sand or mudflats or soaring above us as we drove. A huge bird and great to see.

Well that is some of my highlights from our time on Islay. Recommend a visit.