Another Lough Beg boat trip kick started autumn birding with the highlight being an osprey which has been present for a few days giving good views. Initially seen sitting on a dead tree it sprang into life as we headed south and did a flyover the boat!! Other birds included 5 great white egrets, 2 green sandpipers, multiple kingfishers, 20+ whooper swans including several families and a common sandpiper. Thanks to Anthony McGeehan for the osprey photograph, I am afraid my osprey images are not seeing the light of day. I recorded 24 species. The March trip recorded 22 if I take off the passerines seen on a walk along the canal. There are lots more image on the JBirds Facebook page, including 5 glossy ibis which were seen on the morning trip. Here is a link.
(1) JBirds - Birding by Boat | Facebook
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| Osprey by Anthony McGeehan |
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| Great white egret in flight |
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| Kingfisher |
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| Whoopers in flight |
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| Church Island |
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| Mainly mallard |
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| Grey heron (1) |
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| Mute swan |
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| Grey heron (2) |
I got a Cockle Island update from Anthony as well as an osprey photo. There were still one or two arctic terns around in late August feeding chicks - possibly pairs which had re-laid a second clutch when the first one was destroyed during the electric fence fiasco. Between 80 - 100 pairs bred and all of these were inside the electric fence. Anything attempting to build outside the fence (common terns and oystercatchers) was probably predated by the otters. An oystercatcher which failed to breed twice was also seen feeding a nearly fledged arctic tern chick with lugworms, crab and cockles. This is most unusual behaviour and there does not appear to be any records of cross species feeding of any kind in the literature. Hopefully the National Trust will learn lessons from the breeding season and put their electric fence up properly and on time in 2027.
I walked the coastal path and forgot to put the SD card back into the camera so only a scenic phone shot and no new birds either.
WOW has been a bit same old, same old. I was away for three weeks and came back to much lower water levels and the same late summer birds as when I left. I have added greenshank, ruff and sanderling to the list plus a gannet off Kinnegar. The sanderling pitched up at Kinnegar when I took a visiting American birder there to look for ringed plover. Unfortunately we dipped on them as the tide was too high, but two sanderling landed briefly and got added to the list. Other than that the wee fish have attracted 11 herons and two little egrets and there are the usual waders - curlew, dunlin, redshank, lapwing, and black-tailed godwit.
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| Exposed mud |
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| Lapwing |
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| Black-tailed godwit x 2 |
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| Redshank |
Time for another YouTube offering. This time it's a birder called Harry Boorman who is doing a big year. Seeing as he is on 269 birds the pace has slowed a bit but he does shoot some nice footage. In this video he is on the Scilly Islands doing pelagics, If you go back to videos posted in early 2026 you will see him getting more common stuff.
2026 list
162: Egyptian goose
163: Osprey
NDCP Patch
61: Manx shearwater
Belfast RSPB patch
81: Pochard
82: Sanderling
83: Greenshank
84: Ruff
85: Gannet
