Bits and bobs, WOW and Cockle Island

A few bits and bobs from the trip to England. Glastonbury has breeding peregrine falcons on the church tower. Heard a juvenile screaming one evening and two nights later saw two adults and two juveniles playing chasies round the town centre - awesome. Also had good views of red kites at various locations including two over a National Trust property near Bristol.

Phone shot!!

Egyptian geese at Pennington Flash

Great tit at the Flash - no feeders!

Woodpigeon at the Flash

Pied wagtail at Lytes Manor (NT)

Chilean and lesser flamingos at Slimbridge

Chilean flamingos at Slimbridge

Back to a much cooler Northern Ireland and WOW. All the usual suspects including 3 ringed common terns. Ronnie chased these up and they were all ringed in June 2024 in Dublin Port. Apparently second year terns visit breeding colonies but don't breed. One was a first resighting, one had been seen in  Hafan y Môr, Gwynned in Wales in September 2024 and one was seen in Seaforth, Lancashire last month.

Gadwall pair

Unringed common tern

Starling pretending to be a tern

A trip on the Strangford Lough ferry and a chance to check out two house martin nests on the ferry. The fact that the ferry is constantly crossing the narrows doesn't annoy the house martins who are successfully raising young. Not competent enough to put arrows on the pictures, but the two nests are above the window under the ledge.

House martin nests

Close up.

Finally an update from the arctic tern colony on Cockle Island Groomsport. Despite the National Trust mismanagement the terns have bred successfully and there are flying young for the first time since 2022. There were around 80 nesting pairs so fingers crossed we have a good number of fledged young. 

2026 list

161: Little ringed plover

162: Egyptian goose

NDCP patch

61: Manx shearwater

Belfast RSPB patch

81: Pochard

Ham Wall in the heat

Next stop was an  RSPB reserve near Glastonbury which is comes highly recommended by birders and seemed to good to miss as we were in the area. It is a very large  reserve but if I were you it might not be best to visit in July as it is the time to get your optics serviced.

• No birds are singing.
• The heatwave was pitching at 34C, passerines had vanished.
• It has large reedbeds which were over 2m high so it was difficult to see over them. 

The plan was to do the main path and a couple of the loops but once we started walking we realised this was overambitious in the heat. Suffice to say the day was cut short and birds were few. We logged 24 species and the best was a nice reed warbler, a dozen cattle egrets, a great white egret  and a red kite. 

Glastonbury Tor

Peacock butterfly

Sand martin hide which the sand martins don't use, there's a cattle egret bottom right. 

Typical view - coot, mallard and mute swan - maybe. 

No year ticks, no lifers  and no patch updates either, but we went to the coast at Burnham-on Sea for a sea breeze and an ice cream. 

Slimbridge WWT

Before heading off to England I did a quick visit to the Antrim Hills for a spotted flycatcher. I had to work for it but saw it eventually.

Small grey blob in the middle. 

I have always wanted to go back to Slimbridge since I had a brief visit about 12 years ago. I was hoping for crane and Bewick swans back then and dipped on both.  This time we were in Birmingham to support the grandchildren in a trampolining competition and rather than go to Portugal for a week on Jet2 we decided to explore a bit of England we hadn't been to very much as Portugal was too hot!! This did not work out as planned as the south of England threw up its second heatwave of the year. I have experienced similar temperatures in Turkey and Tuscany in the past but never anywhere in the British Isles. Suffice to say we had to cut back on what we did, as walking in 30C was neither enjoyable nor sensible and birds tended to stay in the shade. 

Estuary tower view 

Slimbridge is the HQ where Peter Scott started serious conservation work and is on the edge of the Severn estuary. It is primarily a winter attraction, but we ended up there in July. We headed for the estuary tower via three hides which gave black swan and barnacle goose. The view was stunning but relatively bird free. Disappointed, I saw a door off the stairs and went in to find two locals who were watching a bittern. We got good views and I asked about cranes which I was hoping to see and they pointed out to the grassy area and there they were -  a family of four which we had managed to miss from the higher viewpoint. The cranes were a  LIFER  😎.  We did other hides and picked up a few bits and pieces but finally found the Hogarth Hide and the South view hide which overlooked the South Lake. This added spotted redshank, 3 ruff, little ringed plover, avocet and green sandpiper.  It also gave excellent views of a female crane and one chick. Add on reed warbler plus all the usual bibs and bobs and we hit 37 species. Considering it was July and 30 C,  I can't complain.

Lapwing

Loafing gadwall

Black swan

"Rosie" and chick

"Rosie" and chick

Spotted redshank

Spotted redshank

Ruff

Little ringed plover

Avocet

No patch updates obviously, but it seems to have been quiet (and cooler) at home. 

2026
156: Spotted flycatcher
157: Black swan
158: Barnacle goose
159: Bittern
160: Crane 
161: Little ringed plover

Patch update and a LIFER

It says patch update but it is mainly WOW with one bird on the North Down patch, an update on Cockle Island (again) and a stunning lifer in the Cooley Mountains.

We'll start local with an expected Manx shearwater  - or ten - off the coast near Bangor. 

WOW continues to deliver 30+ species of a morning. At present it has several hundred black-headed gulls, 150+ common terns and 80+ sandwich terns which are all in the process of breeding. We have confirmed breeding as well from coot, moorhen, mallard, tufted duck and shelduck. We also had a visiting roseate tern which gave quite good views if a bit distant and a male pochard also dropped in.  Ronnie got a "record shot" of the roseate so he gets the credit for that one. The temporary tern island is in place and work continues on D3. 

Roseate tern  (Ronnie Doggart)

Shelduck family, nest boxes, temporary island and piles on D3

Black-tailed godwit

Arctic tern

Shelducklings

Common tern

Mediterranean gull

Sandwich tern

The sandwich tern was ringed on Blue Circle Island in Larne Lough in June 2021 and this is the first re-sighting. An amble round Castle Espie added a singing reed warbler, a bird I normally get in England. 

A female red-footed falcon was showing well in County Louth in late May/early June. It's about 75 minutes away and I don't normally twitch birds, but it hung around and eventually I was tempted and I fell. We followed a google pin up into the Cooley Mountains, drove round a bend and there were a group of birders with scopes and cameras filling their SD cards as the bird moved between a fairy thorn, a fence and the ground. My problem was I had left my SD card in the laptop so after six shots the camera was full!! Apologies for  another record shot but it was a stunning bird.

A quick update on the Cockle Island arctic terns has good news and bad news. The good news is that there are chicks but the bad news is that the electric fence had fallen down in places and the NT chose to fix it in the middle of the breeding season. It was put up far too late in a bit of a hurry so it hasn't done the job. We live in hope!! Another two photos from Ronnie Doggart  show arctic tern chicks including one in a box kindly sponsored by Anthony McGeehan. 

Chick appreciating the shade from Anthony's box

Chick wishing Anthony had bought a second box. 

2026

152: Peregrine falcon

153: Red-footed falcon - Lifer  😎

154: Roseate tern

155: Reed warbler

NDCP patch
60: Swift

61: Manx shearwater

Belfast RSPB patch

79: House martin

80: Roseate tern

81: Pochard

Gobbins boat trip

A late evening run to the Gobbins with Brian Meharg gave a lot of birds and a lot of scenic views. Despite a lack of sunshine it was good weatherwise, mainly dry and not too lumpy. This trip  is never "as expected". I have done it quite a few times and no two trips are ever the same. This year we saw all the usual species but added Manx shearwater and peregrine which are not guaranteed. Only one gannet but 25+ puffins. We also noticed two dead auks which were lifted from the water and brought back for scientific analysis to see why they died. They were not underweight and had no obvious injuries. It was fascinating to get a close up view of both birds in terms of shape, colour, bill etc.. I had the good camera but only a  55mm lens this time, but I am quite pleased with the results. Just for clarification the first shot was taken on a Gobbins trip in 2009, just to illustrate the varying weather conditions this trip can produce!! It is better than any of the 2026 shots.

There is a wee update on Cockle Island as of June 17th at the end.

2009 sunset with gannet

Blackhead lighthouse

Lesser black-backed gull

Setting sun over Islandmahee

Minesweeper off Bangor

Auks for Science

Razorbill

Guillemot

Puffin ledge, you need 600mm for this one

Herring gull

Guillemot

Muck Island

Muck Island

Cockle Island arctic tern update.

Things moved quickly since the last post and I will try and summarise it briefly.

• An otter was spotted on the trail cam.
• The Trust sent a team to erect a two strand electric fence and keep off notices (for humans, not the otter!). This caused major disturbance as the terns left their nests. Two cockle pickers were observed after the notices were erected and again this disturbed the colony.
• It is probable that some nests were lost.
• Good news is that the terns settled and chicks have been seen. 
• I'll update on future posts and do a wrap at the end of the breeding season.

2026

150: Corncrake

151: Manx shearwater

152: Peregrine falcon