Bangor West Patchwork Challenge: Back to the patches

Saturday, 27 May 2017

Back to the patches

Last week's good weather saw me back to patching the coastal path and WOW. A walk along the coast added gannet, house martin, and meadow pipit, while I watched two ravens displaying over Castle Park.

WOW and Kinnegar finally delivered the little gull which I have managed to miss for the last two weeks. The black-headed gulls have fledglings and the common terns are on the island now that the CDs and tape have been removed. A lot of the terns seem to be nesting on the far shore as they clearly couldn't wait long enough. There are at least three pairs of Mediterranean gulls and Arctic terns have been seen but we are unsure if they are nesting as they are hard to find in the blizzard of gulls and terns on the two islands. A passing buzzard was mobbed by everything in sight including a lapwing so we may have a nest. There is also a lesser black-backed gull nest. The gulls and terns don't seem to bother too much with it, yet when a passing lesser black-back gets close to the island there is mayhem.The two mute swans are still on the nest and have been for some time, we suspect they may have lost the first clutch and are having a second go as there was a period of 10 - 14 days when the nest was unattended. The feeders remain busy with fewer of the usual species about. This week we had chaffinch, bullfinch, goldfinch, redpoll, linnet, reed bunting and great tit. We have also had hooded crow, wood pigeon and moorhen scavenging underneath.