Loch Skerrols

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A new snail

 You can forget about beetles (!), how about a new snail, and not just new to Islay and the other islands, but perhaps even new to Scotland! However, that said, it was almost certainly introduced to Loch Skerrols where Hugh Campbell found it yesterday. It is quite widespread in England, but only as far north as Yorkshire with scattered records further north, but none that I've found so far in Scotland. I have enquired of the relevant experts who are going to check and let me know, but in the meantime we can pretend it is the first Scottish record - until told differently.
It is a River Snail Viviparus viviparus, and nearly 40 mm in total length. It is now residing in the freshwater aquarium at the Natural History Centre in Port Charlotte. The first photo is of it in the water, walking around on the side of the tank. For the second photo, I had taken it out in order to measure it.
Malcolm

Widgeon (Anas penelope) at Loch Skerrols

There are around 500 Widgeon on Loch Skerrols at the moment, with further concentrations at both Loch Gruinart and Loch Indaal.  Smaller numbers can be found pretty much anywhere around the coast of islay at this time of year

Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) at Loch Skerrols

George had told me that there were around 130 Whooper swans on Loch Skerrols yesterday - so I had pedalled over on a perfect afternoon to take a look.  It really was a very dramatic sight - and one which I could not even begin to capture on camera.  Skerrols was alive with wildfowl - hundreds of Widgeon and a scattering of other duck, flocks of Greylag geese and a backdrop of Greenland White-fronts feeding on the fields surrounding Octovullin.  We get a good passage of Whoopers ever autumn, but they do not usually hang around in these kind of numbers for very long before moving off to Ireland which is their winter destination.  There were good numbers of juvenile birds with them - and they all seemed to be mingling very happily with the resident parties of Mutes...
Carl