Islay Birdwatching Videos

Islay is well known in the birdwatching community for its excellent opportunities to watch rare species of birds including Golden Eagle, Choughs and if you're very lucky a Corncrake. During the winter months thousands of Geese descend on Islay, creating some spectacular views.

I'm not a full-blown birdwatcher by any means, nevertheless I've started to develop an interest in watching some of their aerial acrobatics. This in turn led me to start to try to capture some of it on video.

Tens of thousands of Barnacle Geese come to Islay in early to mid October. They fly thousands of miles from north east Greenland via Iceland to Islay, where they stay over the winter until April.

This video shows the best places to view the geese on Islay, in particular at the RSPB reserve Loch Gruinart and at the top of Loch Indaal near Bridgend. Many scenes of the geese coming to roost in the evenings, also scenes of them feeding during the day.

I've kept the video as original as possible, as it was quite windy during the week it was recorded some wind noise is inevitable. But may be that just adds to the atmosphere?

During a walk at the Kilchoman Crags on the west coast of the Isle of Islay, Scotland, I spotted 2 buzzards. I managed to capture some views of them on video. This video combines footage of the area with the Buzzards flying above, hopefully giving a good impression of where they live and hunt as well as the buzzards themselves.

While Buzzards are not rare birds of prey and there are more interesting birds (e.g. Golden Eagles, Choughs, the large number of Geese) on Islay this is my first attempt at (amateur) wildlife video. Hopefully I'll be able to capture other birds on video in the future.

I hope you enjoyed the videos, if you did feel free to embed them on your website using the code provided by YouTube.