The nights are on the turn!

June is gone and the nights are on the turn! The autumn waders are on the move and the lockdown eases in time for the rain and gales. It has been wet enough to put a bit of water into WOW and a visit on July 2  was a pleasant surprise.

July 2

Terns still sitting

Ringed black-tailed godwit

Common tern

Lapwing

Sandwich tern

Lesser black back looking for a snack of duckling

The highlights were 2 sandwich terns, a passing peregrine which raised everything and a ringed godwit which was ringed as an adult in Cork in 2014 and has only ever been spotted in the Cork area until it turned up at WOW.  There were also 70+ Manx shearwaters off the rough car park at Airport Road West. I totalled 27 species and the gull chicks are all over the place but the terns still seem to be sitting on eggs. There were good numbers of curlew, black-tailed godwit and oystercatcher but no swans, cygnets or shelduck. The only duck spotted was a mallard family at Hide 2 in the reeds. I added common tern and manx shearwater to the North Down patch and the garden is ticking over with regular visits from the bullfinch pair. I even had a bullfinch fledgling as well as fledglings of all 4 tits, dunnock, blackbird, goldfinch, chaffinch and robin. A trip to Rathlin was next on the list and I will do a separate post for that .

2020

136: Peregrine falcon

137: Puffin

138: Kittiwake

139: Spotted flycatcher

Bangor West

66: House martin

67: Common tern

68: Manx shearwater

Belfast WOW
77: Manx shearwater

78: Peregrine falcon

79: Sandwich tern