West Kilbride & Seamill :: 02 January 2012

It has just not been the weather for being out while visiting West Kilbride, other than to coffee shops and the Sales. The rain and wind has been constant with full gale/storm force just before the New Year. In the storm we also repaired the garage from the damage inflicted during the storms at the beginning of December.

Today is the first day there has been time and no rain to have a walk on the beach. The wind however is strong - westerly or southwesterly, predominantly 5 to 7, increasing gale 8 to storm 10 at times - making the real-feel temperature closer to -5C than the balmy 5C forecast. The wind of course restricted the birds seen, as did the sea conditions. Still the species count was 28, including: greenfinch, meadow pipit, bullfinch, house sparrow, chaffinch, collard dove, rock dove, goldfinch, starling, rook, carrion crow, jackdaw, wood pigeon, magpie, sparrowhawk, kestrel, buzzard, oystercatcher, curlew, redshank, black-headed gull, herring gull, lesser and great black-backed gulls, gannet, mallard, great tit and blue tit. Hopefully the year will improve from here, weather-wise, and the bird count will increase.