• 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

Patch Birding Yvonne's Patchwork Challenge 2020

YvonneB

OH Bird Recorder
I'll be participating in Patchwork Challenge again this year with the aim of beating my 2019 number of species (90) and my 2019 score (116 points). The first time I did PWC was 2012. For more information about the challenge see the PWC website at www.patchworkchallenge.com

1st January 2020
A challenging day, battling the weather and set to be worse tomorrow... Birds are listed in the order they were seen

1. Blackbird - first bird of the New Year before it was even light
2. Starling
3. Rock Dove
4. Greylag Goose
5. Raven
6. Redwing
7. Reed Bunting
8. Herring Gull
9. Buzzard
10. Lapwing
11. Common Gull
12. Golden Plover
13. Curlew
14. Oystercatcher
15. Gannet
16. Cormorant
17. Red-breasted Merganser
18. Whooper Swan
19. Greenland White-fronted Goose
20. Tufted Duck
21. Mallard
22. Wigeon
23. White-tailed Eagle
24. Great Black-backed Gull
25. Shag
26. Goldfinch
27. Bar-tailed Godwit
28. Long-tailed Duck
29. Ringed Plover
30. Sanderling
31. Teal
32. Little Grebe
33. Mute Swan

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White-tailed Eagle doing a flyby

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A dreich and dreary day, Loch Hallan (a couple of distant Whooper Swans)
 

YvonneB

OH Bird Recorder
2nd January 2020

A dreary day with winds gusting to around 50mph and occasional squally showers made for difficult birding conditions! I managed to add a handful of birds to my patch list which now stands at 38 species.

34. Greenfinch
35. Turnstone
36. Eider
37. Great Northern Diver
38. Chaffinch

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Doesn’t really do justice to how windy it is out there today
 

YvonneB

OH Bird Recorder
18th January 2020

41. Rock Pipit
42. Stonechat

On my walk I was rather shocked to see the damage that Storm Brendan had done to the dunes between Askernish and Frobost. In places I would estimate that around 10 feet of dune has been washed away.

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And even more dismayed to see that buried in the dunes is a whole host of plastic waste, buried in the layers :(

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YvonneB

OH Bird Recorder
Well, after an extended break I can at last start and add some species to my Patchwork Challenge again though I think this will probably go down as the worst year ever species-wise on the patch.

52. Pied Wagtail
53. Swallow
54. Lesser Redpoll
 
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