• 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, 17th December 2019. Updated throughout the day

Balranald, North Uist
The Snow Goose, 2 ***Cackling Geese***, the ***Todd's Canada Goose*** and 2 Pink-footed Geese were at Loch nam Feithean. 400+ Snow Buntings were still on the machair. The drake Pintail was seen on the sea off Aird an Runair

Loch Sandary, North Uist
A Coot was on the loch today

Rubh' Arnal, North Uist
Two juvenile Iceland Gulls, a Glaucous Gull,74 pale-bellied Brent Geese and several Snow Buntings were there today.

Ruhba Ardvule, South Uist
Counting period: 08:55 - 11:05
Weather: Wind N veering SW f1, 0/8 cloud, bright and sunny. Temp -1C increasing to 2C.

A 2+ hour seawatch this morning produced 1 Long-tailed Duck (N), 2 Red-throated Divers (N), 19 Shag (6S 13N) and 1 Cormorant (S).
Also present in the area were Greylag Goose 130, Wigeon 25, Teal 21, Tufted Duck 13, Long-tailed Duck 38, Red-breasted Merganser 3, Red-throated Diver 2, Great Northern Diver 6, Grey Heron 1, Shag 26, Cormorant 31, Common Buzzard 1, Purple Sandpiper 104, Black-headed Gull 3, Common Gull 63, Rock Dove 7, Hooded Crow 5, Meadow Pipit 1, Rock Pipit 2 and Snow Bunting 1
 
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MisterT

Always Birding
Having not been present at all last winter, it was good to see 8 Greenland White-fronts on the fields here at Askernish today, although 10 years ago there would have been 70+ individuals. Two Pink-footed Geese were also amongst the Greylags and a Water Rail could be heard calling in the stillness of today.

white-fronts.jpg
 

Hawkeye

Eyes and Ears Everywhere
News from Bob Wemyss:-

2 drake and 1 female Surf Scoter in the Sound of Taransay, Harris along with 450 Common Scoter and 350 Eider
 
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