This is the time of year  when I spend endless hours walking the local hedgerows hoping to find roosting Long Eared Owls. On the 12th I was in for a surprise as I spotted not a Long Eared Owl but a Short Eared Owl staring at me from amongst the ground cover. It made no attempt to fly so I took some photos and realised it was very wet from the heavy rain of the previous night. I managed to catch it and was reminded how sharp its talons were! Upon examination there was nothing wrong with the  bird except its flight feathers needed drying out. For this to happen I decided to place the Owl on a branch five feet off the ground. I set my camera up fifteen feet away and walked off for twenty minutes to see if its feathers would dry out. Unfortunately when a Short Eared Owl sees a human being it screws its eyes up as can be seen in this weeks gallery shots.  I was hoping that if I came back later it would be more relaxed and produce a better photo. I  checked through the binoculars some distance away and could see it had relaxed so I set off back to the camera. Just as I got there the Owl looked at me as if to say thank you and flew strongly away – you can’t win them all!!

This is the first Short Eared Owl I have seen locally for 29 years. During the big influx of 1986 a dozen Short Eared Owls spent winter on Hopwood Golf Course  and I had them all to myself! That would not happen today.

The number of birds feeding in the garden is gradually increasing and they are now attracting the attention of our old male Sparrowhawk. This weeks gallery clearly shows that like good wine he is maturing with age. Click here

You would have thought that when you visit a place for the 102nd time there would be no surprises awaiting you but you would be wrong. Islay last week was exceptional in what it produced. Firstly we had a fall of Redwings from iceland that was unbelievable in the number of birds involved. This weeks gallery photos were taken alongside a crofters garden. At the same time Whooper Swans were arriving from the same direction and in one day we counted 328 spread across the island. One loch alone held nearly two hundred Swans which was the most we have ever seen on Islay in one place.

We used the acute senses of our Cocker Spaniel to home in on two Grey Seal pups which is more than we have ever found before. A morning on Jura produced three dog Otters within five minutes and then a female with two young later on. These broke our long standing day record of five but even so failed to produce any photos!

The best was yet to come when a walk on a heather moorland at dusk found eight Hen Harriers going to roost. It had always been a dream of mine to find an unknown roost of Hen harriers and it finally happened. How can it ever get better than that?

Oh and in-between all the above we managed to call in virtually every cafe on the island, one of them three times!! Click here for gallery

There is little doubt that one of the greatest bird spectacles in Europe in Autumn is watching thousands of Barnacle Geese coming to roost on the sea-lochs of Islay at the end of the day. As they descend to their own chosen spot on the estuary the noise is deafening. With them will be their young of the year having been guided by them from their breeding grounds in north-east Greenland. All these Barnacle Geese are joined on their journey from Iceland by thousands of Whooper Swans who may be spending winter at places like Martin Mere near Southport.

This last week we have been on Islay watching this migration spectacle which also includes hundreds of thousands of Redwings. On the 25th the village of Portnahaven on Islay’s south-west coast had a massive “fall” of Redwings with every garden occupied by birds that had just fallen out of the sky. Within a day these birds had moved on and may soon be in a garden near you.

Geese and Swans comprise the blog and gallery this week which includes our Cocker Spaniel Rusty who had a ball of a time on Islay’s beaches.
click here. More photos next week of a truly special place.

Every Autumn Britain is invaded by millions of Goldcrests from the forests of Scandinavia Some feed in our garden and have to run the gauntlet with our now resident juvenile male Sparrowhawk. He is a clever predator and now knows that after he flies through the garden any bang means a bird has hit our window and may lie stunned on the ground making easy pickings for him. This is what happened this week except that the Goldcrest involved made it to the hedge and escaped his clutches. While it recovered I was able to approach it and take some photos. See Gallery for Goldcrest and some other garden birds. Click here

So far this autumn I have only seen one Fieldfare locally – where are they? On the 24th at four in the morning a Tawny Owl was watched in our garden pine as it eyeballed the ground watching for mice that were feeding on what the birds had left behind during the day.

Every autumn is different in the amount of fruit produced by our hedgerow trees and with the exception of one or two tree species this years crop is quite poor. The main exception has been the hazel which has produced a very heavy crop of hazel nuts which should keep our Squirrels happy. The fruit of one particular tree, the Hornbeam, is eaten almost exclusively by one of our most illusive birds the Hawfinch. With their incredible bills they are the only bird species able to reach the kernels. This weeks gallery includes photos of male and female Hawfinches feeding on the ground taken a couple of years ago. Sadly it has recently been proved that most hawfinch nests are predated by Jays and as a result there are less than a thousand pairs left in Britain so these photos may be the last I ever take of an incredible bird species. Click here
With the recent east winds Redwings are now arriving in good numbers with my biggest flock so far being fifteen. Other birds are on the move with a female Stonechat present along a local hedgerow on the 17th.
In the garden the House Sparrows have peaked at seventeen with eight Long Tailed Tits moving through on the 16th. So far this month no Bullfinches have fed in the garden so hopefully they are still in the woods eating all those blackberries .

With the perfect weather of the last few weeks I decided to visit Southport to search for waders. Although a long way off and continually disturbed by dog walkers I did manage some distant photos. One of the Sanderling had colour rings on its legs and a green marker so I shall have to find out where this bird was captured – perhaps on its breeding grounds in Greenland or even further afield. Click here

On Hopwood during the week was a flock of more than forty Siskins happily feeding away in the Alders and Birches. I finally saw my first Redwings of winter on the 9th October, at dusk, when a group of eight flew over a friends garden in Cheshire.