Passage is picking up with whooper swans and barnacle geese starting
to pass over in increasing numbers, all coming in off the Atlantic ocean to
the west and heading east/south east. Whoopers breed in Iceland and the
barnacles nearly twice that distance in Greenland. Most barnacles stop off in
Iceland on their journey to Scotland, but even so these swans and geese have
travelled over 1000km (600 miles) of open sea to get to Barra which is
the first land they have seen since they left home. They don't rest on the sea
they just do it in one go, and yet even so when the reach here, very few land
on Barra, they just keep on going until they reach the Inner Hebridean islands
such as Islay a further 150km (90 miles) south east. This is awe-inspiring
visible migration and one of the highlights of an October trip to Barra.
Barnacle geese passing over.
Pink-footed geese are mainly in their UK wintering haunts now but there are
still some stragglers passing over Barra.
Redwings passage got serious today with large numbers passing over. I'm not
sure where these birds originate from but logic would suggest that they are of
the Icelandic race and taking the same route as the swans and geese, but apparently this is not the case and they're more likely from Scandinavia.
We watched hundreds of redwings stream past us at Glen just above Castlebay.
We also had our daily dose of yellow-browed warbler here and an adult golden eagle.
Meanwhile at Allasdale Bay we saw our first drake long-tailed duck of the trip
along with juvenile great northern and red-throated divers.
It's hard to beat the scenery around Eoligarry though, and this is the best
place to watch the wildfowl passage. Also today two white-tailed eagles.
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