Well the weather was all it was forecast to be - strong south easterly winds with rain. Ideal for migrants, so dragged my reluctant children out on a couple of occasions as there was bound to be something good in the plantation. Despite getting soaked and cold all we could manage was a couple of ring ouzel in among many mixed thrushes,  30 plus goldcrest, woodcock, several chiffchaffs and two blackcap, this would be a good haul if it was not for the fact that within half a mile of the reserve there weren't firecrests and black redstarts both of which we have not seen on the reserve this year!Oh well if it was easy there would be no challenge! Lets hope that something was blown in but has been cowering in the bushes in the foul weather and needs to feed up over the next couple of days giving us a chance to find it!

Our resident eagle has continued to impress visitors and scare the living daylights out of the geese. The most unusal record though must be of a slavonian grebe on the pools in front of the visitor centre for the last couple of days. They are scacre visitors to the Loch itself but I cannot find any other records of thtem dfor the visitor centre pools.

 

Dom