Well, we're done and dusted and making good progress on the hip surgery. Happy to sit behind a scope but still too early to go looking for exotic birds. I can't drive for 6 weeks and although Tanya is happy to scoot round Bangor, Ards and East Belfast, Portmore Lough, Glenwherry and Oxford island are a bridge too far. The garden has produced linnet and bullfinch and flyover swifts. WOW has also provided swifts and common terns as well as a pair of nesting Mediterranean gulls and a couple of arctic terns. There was also a very distant wood sandpiper last week. We agonised over it and ruled out lots of waders but I called it in to NIBirds as a "possible" and Bob Watts hot-footed over and confirmed it. Good photos were at a premium but there is one here:
https://nibirds.blogspot.com/2024/05/bird-news-thursday-16th-may.html
Probably the most interesting "sighting" was when the Merlin App said it had picked up a mistle thrush from the back garden. I haven't seen one of these on the patch in the last two years and despite looking round the area I couldn't see one, so it will remain a mystery. I fired off a few shots last week just to keep the blog ticking over so here we go. The three ducks were sitting in front of the observation room and there were about 20/30 terns scattered around the reserve, one of which came over to pose.
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| Shoveler |
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| Mallard |
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| Gadwall |
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| Med gull |
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| Common tern |
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| Arctic tern |
2024
132: Swallow
133: Swift
134: Common tern
135: Arctic tern
136: Wood sandpiper
NDCP
54: Lesser black-backed gull
WOW
67: Swallow
68: Swift
70: Arctic tern
71: Wood sandpiper
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