Jura revisited

 Jura was a great trip and there were some good birders, good cameras and good craic on the trip. I met John Mason and he also went to Rockabill so we had a bit of a chat. I took him a tour round WOW and showed him how to access Victoria Park, he fired me a few photos for the blog and pointed me at his new Facebook site where he is putting photographs up. I am struggling to share a link but if you put a search for "Jstudios" on Facebook it should come up. Here's a few of his excellent photographs from Jura, WOW and Victoria Park. I threw a flower in at the end. 😎😎

Juvenile little egret at WOW

Female tufty at WOW

Distant black-tailed godwit at WOW

Much closer black-tailed godwits at Victoria Park

Jura sea eagle

The broad leaved marsh orchid is mine!!

Back to earth and the mainland

After the excitement of three islands in two weeks it is time to settle back to patch birding and WOW. The North Down coastal path has settled into its summer torpor with very little new to be seen. The number of walkers, joggers and cyclists doesn't help and the foreshore is full of rock poolers and stone throwers - such is the delight of an Irish summer. I did manage a jay flying across the road and a gannet and two shelduck flying up the lough. A late evening scope turned up a Manx shearwater. Birdsong has dropped off and passerines are well hidden and moulting. The garden has few visitors although the trail cam shows that the garden is well visited in early light i.e. 4.30 am onwards. Magpies, woodpigeon and blackbirds are common. The magpies are looking for hedgehog food left behind by the nocturnal visitors.  Here's a wee hedgehog video.

WOW is full of nesting terns and fledging gulls and it is also drying out as high temperatures and low rainfall kick in. There is usually something of interest to see, a passage ruff, a hunting buzzard or a family of new moorhens being helped by young from the first brood so as you get three generations of moorhens at the one time. There are a lot of swifts and sand martins around, but only occasional swallows and house martins. The mute swans still have their  four cygnets and lapwing numbers are building up to 30+. With falling water and a large fence the swans are going to struggle to leave the reserve and the cygnets cannot fly, or walk out. It does not look good for them at present and we await developments. A couple of photos attached from John Mason who visited recently. He has a good camera and knows how to use it so enjoy  his pictures. The little egret was an unexpected visitor, they turn up now and again. I also added a black guillemot in the channel.

Lapwing

Bee orchid

Sandwich tern

Sandwich tern, common tern and black-headed gull

Ruff

Ruff

Young woodpigeon (no white collar)

Evaporating fast

Tufted duck (John Mason)

Juvenile little egret (John Mason)

No water from Hide 2 but the plants are doing well!!

2021

131: Rose-coloured starling

132: Spotted flycatcher

133: Peregrine falcon

134: Great northern diver

135: Barnacle goose

136: Ruff

137: Storm petrel

138: Sea eagle 

139: Common sandpiper

140: Roseate tern

NDCP

63: Jay

64: Shelduck

65: Gannet

66: Manx shearwater

WOW

65: Swallow

66: Ruff

67: Sandwich tern

68: Common sandpiper

69: Little egret

70: Black guillemot

Island hopping - 3 - Rockabill

 Another day another island. This was a 4 hour trip out of Malahide to Rockabill and Lambay which are in Dublin Bay. They contain significant seabird colonies on Ireland's east coast. Rockabill in particular is a haven for the rare roseate tern (1700+ pairs) with common (1600+) and arctic terns (55) as well as kittiwake(200) and black guillemots (60). It is off limits to people but we had special permission for a small group to land for a couple of hours. The island is only the size of a football pitch and has a lighthouse and accommodation which is used by Birdwatch Ireland wardens from May to September when the terns are present. It is an exhilarating place to go as you are surrounded by the sight, sound and smell of seabirds. You are also under attack and need a reasonable hat and old clothes as you may be shat upon (I was). Forget long lenses, you don't need them, as the terns are seen close up and personal. For once the point and shoot camera and the phone did the job. Lambay Island has a gannet colony plus the usual guillemots, razorbills, puffins, cormorants and shags. We cruised off the cliffs but did not land. We did however see fallow deer and wallabies which are on the island. There is an excellent one hour documentary about Rockabill on Vimeo which is well worth a watch as it will fill in a lot of background and give views which I will never get. 

Rockabill on Vimeo

https://vimeo.com/462712696

I am only going to post a few photos, I took far too many on the grounds that I might not be back. As one of the other guys said, his computer will crash and die when he goes to edit everything he has on his Canon set up. 

Roseate tern

Black guillemots

Lighthouse

Common tern nest, 2 eggs & 2 chicks

Kittiwake ledges

Roseate tern boxes

Roseate tern

Common tern

Common tern and chick

Rockabill

Gannet colony on Lambay

Common tern nest on top of the wall

Under attack!!

I will hopefully catch up on the patches and general birding in a further post, but felt the islands deserved their own space as the three trips were equally memorable in their own way. Rathlin for peace and solitude, Islay and Jura for the sea eagles and Rockabill for the most amazing tern spectacle I have ever seen or am ever likely to see. 

Island hopping - 2 - Islay and Jura

 Another day, another island or two. This time a boat trip from Ballycastle via Rathlin's West light to Islay and then Jura. The upside is the chance to see golden eagle and sea eagle, the downside is the nine hours spent on the boat. The journey out is not that bad as we went via Rathlin and then cruised around Islay before heading to Jura. There is quite a lot of idling at slow speeds while cliffs are scanned and we had three hours on Jura to stretch our legs. Then we went looking for more sea eagles and needed a 3 hour plus journey back when there is not a lot to see that we haven't already seen. Anyway to cut to the chase the golden eagles were not to be seen but we saw sea eagles at two sites. The scenery is quite spectacular and there was a list of 42 birds including sea eagle, manx shearwater, storm petrel, common sandpiper, ringed plover, and all the seabirds associated with Rathlin. With no scope and no digiscoping, bird pictures are not good, but the scenery is nice. 

Caves along the south cliffs

Bull Point

West light

The golden eagles usually nest on the cliffs of the Oa peninsula. We found two nest sites but neither had been used this year. We scanned the cliffs looking for a perched bird and hoping one would lift and soar but we were out of luck. Fingers crossed we moved round to Jura to a sea eagle area and this time we got lucky with a perched bird sitting on a small cliff. It flew off over the top and we followed it round and were rewarded with two birds which gave good views and had the decency to give us nice flight views. At times like this I wish I had a good camera.

Sea eagle area

Golden eagle area 

That faint smudge on the horizon is a sea eagle!!

We walked round Jura and then looked for a second sea eagle site and a nest which we found in a belt of trees along the coast.

Yes we are in Scotland

Craighouse Bay

Craighouse "harbour"

It wouldn't eat Tayto Salt & Vinegar

Distillery closed due to covid!!

Looking for a sea eagle

Go in from the right, do you see the tallest tree? It's in the one beside it to the left.

There it is!!

Island hopping 1 - Rathlin

 Long days and short nights are the perfect time to go island hopping, so we did. It helps if the weather is good - and it is. First stop was Rathlin with two days on the island and a couple of good walks. We got everything we expected to see and had a bonus great northern diver and 5 manx shearwater at Rue point. There was also a barnacle goose with the greylag flock on Ushet Lough. We were too late for calling corncrake but were more than happy with the short break. Other highlights were whitethroat, great skua, peregrine, raven and buzzard.

Church Bay

Rue Point

Rue Point

The sun doesn't always shine on Rathlin

Just ignore the building site