Lough Beg boat trip

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

Osprey by Anthony McGeehan

Great white egret in flight

Kingfisher 

Whoopers in flight

Church Island

Mainly mallard

Grey heron (1)

Mute swan

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. 

Exposed mud

Lapwing

Black-tailed godwit  x 2

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. 

The UK's ultimate seabird adventure

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

Cockle Island, Groomsport

I went on  a visit  with Anthony McGeehan and Ronnie Doggart to see the arctic tern colony at Groomsport and find out what the National Trust (NT) aren't doing to help the terns. The Cockle Island tern colony has about 80+ nests but lacks an electric fence to deter predators and signs to warn people off. The NT have put a "raft" out to encourage the terns to nest but as you can see from the pictures it doesn't really do a lot.  At a pinch it could hold 6 nests and it is easily accessible to any predator wanting a look at it. Fortunately the terns have no interest in it at all. They have not bred since 2022 and the sandwich terns upped and left last year and nested at Belfast RSPB. It appears that despite being an SSI and hosting a red listed bird species, the NT are not that interested in what happens there although they do talk a good talk they do not follow up with actions. 

Cockle Island and "Tern raft"

Known to locals as the salmon farm!

No terns on it at all and easy access for predators

Tern nesting site 

NT trail cams

Arctic terns currently on eggs

Nice red-breasted merganser (F) in the harbour

If you have any links to the National Trust, Ards and North Down councillors or MLAs please bend their ear to try and get some action to protect the terns.  The biggest help would be an electric fence, but warning signs on the harbour, a rope cordon on the island,  and a few motion activated predator warning lights would also be a great help. Feel free to comment or email me if you think you can offer any help. We will hopefully have breeding success this year but all ideas are useful even though they might be filed away for 2027.