1 Across: HIJKLMNO (5)

The title is a cryptic crossword clue which hopefully you will get by the end of this post. If not the answer will be on the subsequent post. Please feel free to post the answer in the comments section plus any other observations you may have.

First a quick trip to Castle Espie on November 6th on a rising tide in the hope of  nice pictures. Unfortunately heavy rain put paid to that and by the time it cleared the tide was well in and the birds had moved on. We did seee grey plover, little egret, greenshank, kingfisher, golden plover and 46 whoopers at Islandhill as well as all the regulars. Bonus was a flock of twite from the Limestone Observatory which we decided were redpoll rather than linnet. We never considered twite as they are relatively rare here, but closer examination of the photographs and a bit of help from NI birds gave us an unexpected bonus tick.

Wet and cloudy

Willow brent at Castle Espie

Wader roost on the saltmarsh with brent behind

Twite

Twite

The Greater Belfast area had serious rain on three days in the last week and at last water levels rose significantly at WOW. From nowhere we suddenly had water and birds - there were over 500 teal, 60 wigeon, 200 curlew, 60 knot, 20 dunlin, 200 lapwing, 150 black-tailed godwit, a snipe  and a shelduck!! This plus the usuals gave us over 30 species for the first time in about 5 months. Added to the excitement of counting we had three birds with rings. The first was a greylag goose with a white 212 on the right leg. We suspect this was one of the geese ringed and collared as part of the study to see where the geese go and how they impact on the Harbour Airport. The other two ringed birds were black-tailed godwit and these were much more exciting.

Ringed godwit GG-ORf

This bird has been seen regularly here since it was first ringed in Iceland in July 2007. We saw it in May of this year and it was seen in Whitehouse Lagoon in August this year, now it is back at WOW at the age of 11. In many ways it was like welcoming back an old friend. I'll post a full history next time. 

The second bird was new to the reserve  so we forwarded the description to the relevant authorities and this is what came up!!

L-GW//W

09.09.02	Holbeach, the Wash estuary, Lincolnshire, E England
25.10.15	Rahasane Turlough, Co. Galway, W Ireland
29.07.16	Snettisham, the Wash estuary, Norfolk, E England
21.08.16	Snettisham, the Wash estuary, Norfolk, E England
23.08.16	Snettisham, the Wash estuary, Norfolk, E England
24.11.16	Dee estuary, Cheshire, NW England
20.08.17	Frampton Marsh, the Wash estuary, Lincolnshire, E England
13.07.18	Snettisham, the Wash estuary, Norfolk, E England
08.11.18	Belfast Lough, Co Antrim, N Ireland

         
Having been ringed in The Wash in 2002 it was not seen for 13 years, suddenly it popped up in Galway and has been regularly sighted since and is now 16 years old. How cool is that for a godwit. This sort of staggering feedback shows us how important ringing programmes are in building up a picture of bird migration and we were well chuffed - to coin a phrase.

As well as bringing in birds to the reserve the rising water levels pushed the birds towards the observation room and gave better photo opportunities than we have had recently.

Redshank

Mallard pair

Black-tailed godwits

Three photos to finish with showing that WOW is back in business and perhaps you can now solve the clue.

November 8th

November 11th

November 11th

2018  
157: Twite

Bangor West
71: Curlew

Belfast WOW
99: Jay

The days start to stretch...........

First a few belated pictures from Round the Lough taken by my pal David. As you know he is a better photographer than I am and has a better camera, enjoy!!

Pied wagtail, stonechat & meadow pipit feeding on seaweed thrown up onto the road

Redshank and 3 greenshanks feeding in a field at high tide!!

Linnets in stubble (if you can see them)

Knot over the lough

Knot banked over

Late roosting egret at Castle Espie

Anyway on we go to last week and it is still light by 5.00 and the RSPB garden birdwatch is kicking in. I help round the local schools with the Big Schools Birdwatch and was at Bangor Central this year. No glaucous gull this year (http://bangorwestndcp.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/ )  but lots of crows and gulls coming to fat balls and bread. At one stage we had black-headed gull, herring gull, wood pigeon, magpie, hooded crow, carrion crow, rook and jackdaw down at the same time. A good opportunity to educate the children about black birds as opposed to blackbirds, which can be confusing to Primary 3. Also confusing is the black-headed gull which doesn't have a black head - why not is the question? I refused to go down the line of enquiry that the head isn't actually black in summer but chocolate brown, we keep that for summer visits to WOW. The highlights were a goldcrest which gave amazing views to one P4 class as it acrobatically worked its way round an alder tree in the eco garden no more than 6 feet above their heads, and 4 long-tailed tits which entertained a P 6 class as they moved through a line of bushes. The attached photos show the odd bird and no pupils - not allowed!!

Compare black-headed gull.......

..... with herring gull

Note ice cream cone bill on rook

Attract grey squirrel with bird seed!!

WOW on Thursday of this week delivered 46 species and seven more for the patch  - knot, great black-backed gull, greenfinch, linnet, wren, goldcrest and siskin. The latter two were 2018 ticks and the goldcrest was a first for the site in around 20 years of visiting!! We had a one legged godwit amongst the millet eaters and good closeups of quite a few birds.

Jake the godwit

Mallard

Dozy wigeon

Moorhen

Can you spot 5 species here?

 Anyway off on my travels again to Bolton, South Yorkshire and Northumberland where we hope to do a dawn to dusk round the Cresswell/Chevington/Hauxley area as per last year. Next post God willing will be mid February when it will almost be spring.

2018

85: Goldcrest
86: Siskin: 
   
Bangor West
48: Redwing

Belfast WOW
54: Knot
55: Great black-backed gull

56: Greenfinch

57: Linnet

58: Goldcrest

59: Wren

60: Siskin