Thursday 28 September 2017

Ruff time at WOW

WOW has been very good for ruff recently. Not only have there been up to ten present but they have been imitating the godwits and coming right up to the window and giving stunningly close views. Sometimes they are so close I cannot get the digiscoping equipment working as they fill the frame. There are over 100 teal and last week we had the first adult shelduck back in. There was also a kingfisher present, seen twice and perched on the post in front of the window just long enough to miss a photo opportunity - as I reached for the button it flew off. The terns are gone as are the swallows and martins but there were 60+ lapwings, 5 redshank and four grey herons.

The coastal patch remains quiet and has not produced a new bird since May. The tern loafing area only "terned" up sandwich, roseates have been conspicious by their absence and I have dipped on common and arctic as well as shearwater this year. I will struggle to hit 70 this year in North Down and am still 6 short of the 100 target at WOW/Kinnegar.


Belfast Lough

Sandwich tern

Adult and young


No apologies for the mass of ruff shots as it was difficult to leave any out. The first half dozen were taken on September 14th

Ruff and blackwits not digiscoped.

Digiscoped!!

Collective noun for ruff? Apparently it is "a hill"


Redshank at rest

Great black-backed gull
 The gull was eating a carcass and very mobile, again it was difficult to set up the digiscope as it was quite big and quite close. The next selection were snapped on September 21st.

Redshank reflection

A hill of ruffs, possibly juveniles



Juvenile ruff?

Adult male?
Thanks to Google I can now go in to WOW and say, "Look, a hill of ruffs" and be greeted with more scorn than normal. It makes a change to our usual counting method which involves liberal use of Ulster-Scots, as in a wheen of curlew,  a lock of geese or a wild lot o' mallard. "Look there's a quare lock of geese about th'day"

Today (September 28) again had 7 ruff and 25 species in all - low tide and no feeders. The bonus was a superb peregrine which appeared on two occasions, but better than that were three WOW ticks in the form of grey wagtail, stonechat and water rail, which was also a 2017 tick. It appeared briefly three times in the cut reed channel before I got the kit set up. The camera remained focused there for three hours but it never appeared again. There were lots of moorhens so here is one I took as practice in case the water rail re-appeared. It was an argy-bargy with a young moorhen which put me on to it. It then had the decency to re-appear briefly twice so everyone got a look at it.

Nice moorhen waiting for the water rail to appear



2017

206: Water rail
 
Bangor West
66: Raven 

Belfast WOW
95: Water rail
96: Stonechat
97: Grey wagtail


Saturday 9 September 2017

Patches grind to a halt

Not a lot to report. I have had three walks in the evening to try and add manx shearwater to the list and have failed each time. WOW has turned up some nice birds but not on a Thursday morning. Water levels remain high and waders are hard to attract. The best on Thursday was over 200 house martin in and around the reserve, a sparrowhawk thermalling and two swift - late birds indeed as I have never seen swift in Northern Ireland in September. There was also a 100+ finch flock in the distance - too far away to be sure of what was in it. The total for the morning was 27 which was 3 more than I got in Italy and San Marino over 6 days!! The beauty of expecting no birds at all in Italy was the excitement of seeing even one. By the end of the holiday I had added 5 birds to the 2017 list including a Bolton tawny owl and a life first in great white egret on Terciello. I also spotted Italian sparrow in Venice, a black kite over the A14 and gull billed tern in Venice lagoon. San Marino came up with two totally unexpected jays. Venice was awash with yellow-legged gulls and Cesenatico managed a redstart in the park and a black-necked grebe swimming around the water feature which runs through the town!! Little egrets were quite common in Venice lagoon and in the park at Cesenatico but they are not the exciting bird they were 30 years ago seeing as I have seen one in the Rathmore Estate in Bangor!! Any additions to lists will now involve a lot of graft and a slice of luck even though there are three months to go - the joys of patch birding.

BNG with the phone, wasn't expecting a megatick en route to dinner.

Cesenatico yellow legged gull

Young gull looking for pizza.
 Interesting pic of the young yellow-legged gull is that it has pink legs, maybe I need to look more carefully at first and second year lesser black backs and herring gulls, or maybe life is too short and I will wait for an adult!

2017
201: Tawny owl
202: Italian sparrow
203: Gull billed tern 
204: Great white egret
205: Black kite
 
Bangor West
66: Raven 

Belfast WOW
93: Greenshank