• When here in the Outer Hebrides and looking at a bird, have you ever wondered how rare it is? The status of all species can vary enormously from island to island. How rare is Shoveler on Barra, has Stock Dove been seen on Harris, does Dotterel occur on Benbecula in the autumn, and how common is Blue Tit on North Uist? Well, fret no longer! The Status and Distribution of birds here on the Outer Hebrides has been completely updated and summarised for every species and each of the main islands and outliers. Available as an online resource at https://status.outerhebrides-birdreports.org/ or via our shop

    New - now available as an ebook

Hawkeye

Eyes and Ears Everywhere
Western Isles / Outer Hebrides bird sightings for today, 3rd January 2019. Updated throughout the day

Borve, Isle of Barra
The small Canada Goose is still on the machair there

Ruhba Ardvule, South Uist
Counting period: 08:35 - 10:35
Weather: Wind S F3, 8/8 cloud, dull. Temp 7.1C.

A 2 hour seawatch this morning produced 7 Eider (S), 7 Long-tailed Ducks (S), 4 Red-throated Divers (S), 1 Great Northern Diver (S), 7 Gannets (6S 1N), 47 Shag (1S 46N), 5 Cormorants (3S 2N) and 1 auk sp (S).
Also present in the area were Greylag Goose 19, Shelduck 3, Wigeon 96, Tufted Duck 9, Great Northern Diver 6, Hen Harrier 1*, Common Buzzard 1, Lapwing 300, Purple Sandpiper 4 and Hooded Crow 2
 

YvonneB

OH Bird Recorder
New Year's Birding, day three, and today we broke with tradition and headed across to Barra. From the ferry on the way across it was fairly quiet but managed to add Kittiwake, Slavonian Grebe, Black Guillemot and White-tailed Eagle to the list.

Once on Barra we headed up to Eoligarry and had a walk along the beach to find the small flock of Snow Buntings which were fairly active about half a mile away from the car park. 7 Brent Geese were present on Traigh Mor.

We worked our way slowly around the island and stopped in a layby and scoped the Barnacle Goose flock that is on the fields near Borve. We were able to pick out the parvipes type Canada Goose through the scope.

We had a good day, despite the cold and grey weather and it was good to see @Ian Ricketts while we were travelling around.

Great also to see @Bruce and Kathy - thanks for the very welcome coffee and crumpets at the end of a good day - hopefully we can reciprocate one of these days if you venture over to Uist :)

Year list now standing at 76 species. To be continued tomorrow...
 
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