MULL: Following on from the tantalising report of a probable BLUE-CHEEKED BEE-EATER on Iona yesterday a small group of birders from mainland Britain, some having travelled through the night, arrived for the first ferry to the island in hope of finding this bird. The wait wasn’t long and Dan Pointon and his group located the bird and confirmed the ID as BLUE-CHEEKED. It was at the south outskirt of the village – seen perched and feeding from wires and fence line down to 10-20 metres. Shortly after Jim Dickson & Bob Grove arrived by which time the bird was in a grass field sat for about 10 minutes and brought up a pellet from the bees it had been feeding on. Views were pretty amazing – all happy to see what is only the fourth record for Scotland – previously in Shetland on Bressay in 1997, Highland in 2019 and on Foula, Shetland in 2023.