We're WOWing again

After seven months the news is good - WOW has re-opened with all the Covid secure measures in place. Hopefully it can stay open long enough for me to get there and do a bit of warm, caffeine fuelled, toilet accessible and socially distanced birding. Today gave 36 species including two for the patch - raven and stonechat. Other notable ticks were buzzard, little egret, knot, snipe and shelduck. No wigeon or coot. The grass is too long for the former and the latter have gone off for their winter break. This curlew came over to the side nearest the observation room - a rare event indeed. It was good to be back and long may it last.

Curlew

View from the observation room

 Walks along the coast have been enjoyable with autumn kicking in. The garden produced a garden/patch tick in the form of a rather splendid cock pheasant which hung around my garden and the neighbouring garden for over two hours. Fortunately there was no sign of the bird-killing cat. I have also had a baby hedgehog in daylight - about an hour or so before sunset. Not a good sign as it was probably desperate for food. It needs to weigh 600g to survive hibernation and I feel it has a way to go on this front.  We also had superb views of a goldcrest in the fuschia just outside the door - less than a metre away but so active it was a nightmare to get a photo at all never mind a good one. It just kept moving and wing fluttering all the time, so in most shots it was just a blur.

Pheasant

Spot the goldcrest

There it is!!

 2020 

154: White wagtail

NDCP

69: Buzzard

70: Stonechat

71: Pheasant

WOW

90: White wagtail

91: Raven

92: Stonechat

Autumn kicks in

 I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of golden narrow leaved ragwort.  

At least that is what Wordsworth would have written if he'd lived on Airport Road as opposed to the Lake District. He may even have tried to work the bearded milkcaps into verse two as they were everywhere, a feat I am not even going to think about.

As you can tell there is not a lot to report birdwise over the last few weeks. The lists remain static despite visits to WOW and walks along the coastal path. Winter visitors are drifting in but most of them made the lists before lockdown. It was nice to see sandwich terns and brent geese on the beach at Kinnegar, one preparing to head to West Africa and the other fresh in from Greenland via Iceland. There are still a few late common  terns on the planks at WOW but realistically only Hide 2 is giving any photo opportunities and even this often has rain, condensation, poor light and photobombing reeds and grasses. My attempt with the trail-cam in daylight focused on the feeders has produced over 700 photos of the feeder moving in the wind. To quote my 4 year old grand-daughter re one of her gymnastic moves, "I'm working on it". The place to be is Myroe Levels which has a host of goodies or else one of the sea-watching points such as Ramore Head, Malin Head or Fanad Head. Carnalea and Airport Road are not yet on the must-see places for migrating birds. 

Teal

Shoveler

Common tern adult & chick

Camouflaged curlew

Mute swans, two of four young cobs which turned up.

Late tern chick from October 1st

 

Stop press:  On Tuesday  a coastal walk turned up a couple of stonechats and a female sparrowhawk rock hopping at high tide. For a split second I was thinking kestrel or peregrine, but it turned out to be a sprawk giving lovely views but not a tick!! Anyway lets have a hedgehog video to cheer us all up.

2020

154: White wagtail

NDCP

69: Buzzard

70: Stonechat

WOW

90: White wagtail