• 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 9th October 2021. Updated throughout the day

Hirta, St Kilda
The ***Buff-bellied Pipit***, ***Snowy Owl*** and **Short-toed Lark** were all seen today. Also present on the island were 2 Pale-bellied Brent Geese, 55 Snow Buntings, a Pink-footed Goose the Greenland White-front, Long-tailed Duck, and Slavonian Grebe. 4 Storm Petrels and a Leach's Petrel were found grounded, all were later ringed and released. 41 Pink-feet were also seen heading South.

Butt of Lewis
Five Snow Buntings were feeding in short grass on the clifftpos this evening

Coot Loch, Benbecula
A *Black-necked Grebe* was seen there this afternoon. This is only the fifth record and the first since 1993. Eight Whooper Swans were nearby at Loch Mor

Ardivachar, South Uist
Three Sandwich Terns headed inland towards Loch Bee at 14:30

Rubha Ardvule, South Uist
Counting period: 09:05-11:15
Weather: Wind W veering WNW f3, 8/8 cloud and murky with rain for most of watch, easing later. Temp 13c.

A 2+ hour seawatch this morning produced 4 Eider (1S 3N), 3 Red-throated Divers (S), 3 Great Northern Divers (S), 59 Gannets (57S 2N), 12 Shag (4S 8N), 2 Cormorants (S), 221 Black-tailed Godwits (S), 12 Kittiwakes (S), 4 Guillemots (S), and 6 auk sp (S).
Also present in the area were Greylag Goose 18, Tufted Duck 8, Red-throated Diver 2, Cormorant 13, White-tailed Eagle 1, Common Buzzard 1, Sanderling 3, Snipe 1, Common Gull 60, Great Black-backed Gull 4, Herring Gull 92, Merlin 1, Hooded Crow 2, Meadow Pipit 3, and Rock Pipit 4

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Snowy Owl (C) Craig Nisbet
 

MisterT

Always Birding
An early WeBS count today was less interesting after all the rain and the loch loosing all the muddy margins. The only birds of note were 2000+ Wigeon, 71 Shoveler, 102 Whoopers roosting in the southwest corner of the Loch and 38 Black-tailed Godwits on the west side. South Ford was completely flooded at high tide with no exposed mud but 77 Grey Plovers and 212 Bar-tailed Godwits were roosting there. All was not lost as the day was rounded off by seeing the Black-necked Grebe at Coot Loch, a nice find by @Andrew

IN8A4435b-n grebe coot lock sep-21.jpg IN8A4445b-n grebe coot lock sep-21.jpg
 
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