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

WOW with water again

 Starting off with another hedgehog video of the male roaming and feeding. I'm hoping to set the camera up for daylight shots, but don't hold your breath.

WOW seems to be back to normal again as it is full up with water and there isn't a lot of  mud for the waders to feed. There are some common tern chicks at last - I counted 30 plus last week - and also the first two wigeon of the autumn. No shelduck as they are all in Holland, and the mute swans put in an appearance. I hope they find somewhere else to breed as they have been spectacularly unsuccessful at WOW. I also twitched a roseate tern, sanderling and a curlew sandpiper in the aftermath of storm Ellen plus 40+ razorbills off shore at Kinnegar.  The autumn passage is underway and Kinnegar had good numbers of turnstone and ringed plover as well as all the usual suspects. Brent geese mixed with sandwich terns as summer visitors give way to winter visitors. There was a young shag in the channel and a white wagtail among a mixed flock of meadow pipits and pied wagtails.

The highlight of the last couple of weeks was an unexpected little gull on the beach at Donaghadee. I was there with the family for an ice cream from The Cabin, looked over the wall while the grandchildren were in the playground and bingo - little gull kindly sitting beside a black-headed gull for the purposes of comparison. 

The coastal path has thrown up some nice birds as well. A very late swift  for Northern Ireland (September 8th), a buzzard and quite a few razorbills and guillemots dispersing from the breeding areas. Some of them were quite close to shore in Bangor Marina. 

Photos include a migrant wheatear at Ballyhalbert - one of three seen around the harbour area

Common terns

Chicks chilling out

Common tern

Camouflaged curlews

Ballyhalbert wheatear (David Miller)

Kittiwakes in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I forgot to post this last time. Place was coming down with them. Glad I don't have to powerhose the buildings, lamps and bridges once the breeding season is over.

Lapwings at WOW

2 blackwits and a ruff through dirty angled glass!!

Razorbilll in Bangor marina, one of five with two guillemots.

2020 

151: Curlew sandpiper

152: Roseate tern

153:Little gull

154: White wagtail

Bangor West 

69: Buzzard

Belfast WOW

85: Curlew sandpiper

86: Sanderling

87: Roseate tern

88: Razorbill 

89: Shag 

90: White wagtail

150 up

 Quite an enjoyable and productive trip to England with some birding squeezed in between family comittments. We managed a quick trip to Cresswell and Druridge Pools in Northumberland, a couple of hours at Leighton Moss RSPB near Lancaster , a quick round of Martin Mere WWT in Lancs  and a few walks in Leverhulme, Tonge and Elton Reservoir around the Bolton/Bury area. The weather was kind and the 2020 list crawled up. The local lists have not changed despite a couple of local walks and a quick trip to WOW. 

Richard's garden in Bolton gave a good variety of birds including nuthatch as a regular visitor. He has had a great spotted woodpecker but not while I was there. Here's a selection taken whilst waiting to see if the nuthatch would drop in - it did - but only briefly and the shots are what we poor photographers call "record shots".  I have nicknamed him "Lightning" as he is in and out in a flash. Hopefully the regular food supply will attract both nuthatch and woodpecker regularly over the winter. Bolton also provided a calling tawny owl on more than one occasion and an early walk at Elton finally added great spotted woodpecker to the list and I also learned to listen for the contact call.

Red admiral

Christmas robin

There is rainwater in the gutter, so it's bathtime.

Lightning the nuthatch

.....and again

Goldfinch are regular, up to six at a time, greenfinch a bit rarer

Mrs chaffinch

Long-tailed tits were also regular at the sunflower hearts as well as the fat feeder.

Great tit trying to get peanuts which were wedged in the bark to attract the nuthatch.

Druridge and Cresswell added avocet, barnacle goose, whimbrel and sedge warbler. There was also a nice ruff which had me thinking mega wader!

Lapwing, ruff and dunlin

Common sandpiper, ruff and dunlin

Avocet

Ruff and common sandpiper

Leighton Moss added hobby and marsh tit, two birds which are virtually impossible to get at home, so all in all it was a good trip. I managed to get back in time to find the spotted sandpiper at Castle Espie - a five mnute sighting in a two and a half hour wait, plus an earlier one and a half hour no show. I suppose that 4 hours is worth it for getting a lifer. Unfortunately I could not get a shot of it but there are quite a few on the NI Birds website.  Also managed a lucky wheatear in the Antrim Hills, it flew across the road in front of the car!!

I have borrowed a trailcamera to see what happens in the garden as I have posted a couple of photos of hedgehogs previously. Here we have hedgehog cam showing two hogs, one on the grass and one at the back near the edging. I am now experimenting with different foods. Unfortunately the bird-killing cat seems to think that the food is for him.

2020

141: Tawny owl

142: Avocet

143: Barnacle goose

144: Sedge warbler

145: Whimbrel

146: Hobby

147: Marsh tit

148: Great spotted woodpecker

149: Spotted sandpiper - LIFER 😎

150: Wheatear

Bangor West

68: Manx shearwater

Belfast WOW

82: Chiffchaff

83: Gannet

84: Little egret

Still waiting for waders

Another visit to WOW on July 16th saw much of the same birds with no tern chicks as yet. It is still a bit wet but not flooded and evaporation is kicking in. The following selection gives a flavour of a July reserve and a July garden with finches and tits still raiding the sunflower hearts. No additions to the lists except a Mediterranean gull at Whitehead which was a first for Co Antrim.

July 16th

Arctic tern

Curlew

Godwit & curlew

Moorhen

Common sandpiper

Chaffinch

Goldfinch

Bullfinch

Nice pair of tits

A further visit to WOW this week (July 23rd) and a couple of pictures showing that the water situation is slightly better and  common terns are posing on posts. The tern situation is worrying as this time last year we had fledged chicks and this year we have not seen any at all and the terns appear to still be sitting on eggs. If we do the math we should have had fledged chicks around the week of July 19th providing they laid eggs around the end of May. That plus a lot fewer terns/nests than last year is ringing alarm bells. There are so many variables outside our control especially on the wintering grounds and at sea it is hard to work out what has happened, but clearly something has upset the balance somewhere. On the up side I added gannet, chiffchaff and little egret but am still missing a lot of waders which I should have added in the spring.There was a common sandpiper around as well as swallows and sand martins No more WOW for a couple of weeks as we are off to Bolton on a long overdue visit to the family. Hopefully a bit of birding will be squeezed in.

July 23rd

Common tern

2020

140: Common sandpiper

Bangor West

68: Manx shearwater

Belfast WOW

82: Chiffchaff

83: Gannet

84: Little egret

Autumn passage!

Apparently autumn waders are on the move. I am still hoping for a few late spring migrants like sedge warbler and cuckoo!! I did connect with a family of spotted flycatchers in the Antrim Hills having given up on them. The last time I saw one in Northern Ireland was in June 2013 along the Newry Canal so it was nice to see them again. WOW was wetter than it has been on July 9 and I came up with  arctic tern and common sandpiper. Unfortunately I had a camera malfunction so the photos were all on the phone and digiscoping was not good. The garden is not a lot different than it has been over lockdown and the coastal path has also been fairly quiet. Walks in local areas have also been quiet, birds are harder to see and apart from blackcaps there is very little singing. Autumn in the world of birds is indeed on the way as birds go quiet, hide and moult. Hopefuly WOW will open soon and we have half  a chance of some wader passage from the observation room. Oh to be back with the Thursday club again and arguing over biscuits.

July 9

Arctic tern

Arctic tern

Black guillemots in Bangor

2020

136: Peregrine falcon

137: Puffin

138: Kittiwake

139: Spotted flycatcher

140: Common sandpiper

Bangor West

66: House martin

67: Common tern

68: Manx shearwater

Belfast WOW
77: Manx shearwater

78: Peregrine falcon

79: Sandwich tern

80: Arctic tern

81: Common sandpiper