Winter hangs on

Despite the date of late March winter is still with us as we have had a bit of snow and cold temperatures for Northern Ireland in March. The patch lists are ticking over with a few winter birds still around and some residents which have been missed so far. The local patch added a flyover raven and an offshore guillemot - both expected on the patch  at some stage in the year. WOW keeps turning up a few species which I hadn't managed so far - grey wagtail, little egret, kingfisher, pintail and the first genuine migrant in the shape of a Mediterranean gull. There are now six knocking around so we hope that breeding will occur again this year. There are still winter ducks and waders but they will gradually move on as the black-headed gulls move in to nest. We had around 600+ gulls this week starting the mating/nesting rituals and staking their claim on the two islands. We are rapidly reaching the stage of trying to see what is NOT a black-headed gull. One of the Mediterranean gulls was ringed and it turned out to be a Dutch bird ringed in 2015. It was seen twice in England in 2015 and earlier this year in Munster and it suddenly pops up in WOW and is looking like it might stay and breed. We have also had re-sightings of three black-tailed-godwits ringed at WOW two years ago. We were all terribly excited!!

First Med gull spotted on March  9th

Dutch Med gull

With a friend

There were of course a wide variety of other birds present. so here is a selection. 

Grey wagtail

Teal

Coot

Godwit

Elsewhere I had a trip up to Lough Neagh and finally connected with the male smew at Gawley's Gate. I trust you are not expecting a stunning photograph. It was a long way away and I have attached a "record shot" which is a photographers way of saying, "Here is a rubbish shot of a bird to prove that I saw it" 

There is a small white dot below the second post, that is the smew.

A very pixelated zoom shot of said smew. 

As usual there are better shots on NI birds when it was a lot closer to the shore. In my defence it drifts offshore if there are swimmers around, and there were! We popped down to Reedy Flats and connected with the greylag geese flock which also had 6 Greenland white-fronted geese and two barnacles. No need to go to Islay then. (Spoiler alert!!)

Twite (Ivor Greer)

A trip to Bushmills added kittiwake and glaucous gull along the coastal path between Portrush and Portstewart to the year list and a nice view of a twite at Magheracross viewpoint. Ivor thought it was worth a phone shot through the windscreen, I told him he was wasting his time, but he wasn't!! 

I also felt obliged to visit the Ward Park waxwings which have been around for over a month, not a tick of any description - just a lovely bird or three. 

2023

118: Nuthatch

119: Smew

120: Greenland white-fronted goose

121: Barnacle goose

122: Mediterranean gull

123: Kittiwake

124: Glaucous gull

NDCP

54: Raven

55: Guillemot

WOW

65: Grey wagtail

66: Pintail

67: Kingfisher

68: Little egret

69: Mediterranean gull

A trip to England

Essential child care gave the opportunity for a long weekend in Northumberland and our now traditional dawn to dusk birdathon. Then on via the scenic route to Bolton and we were able to squeeze a bit of birding in between playgrounds, Burger king and Minecraft.

Red kites over the road at Gatehouse of Fleet was a good start on the way across. A trip to St Mary's Island at high tide gave purple sandpiper, grey plover and sanderling. Saturday dawned bright and sunny but the forecast rain and cloud arrived around 11.00 and made for a damp cold finish to the day. With my pal David - he of the good camera and the rustic bunting in his garden - we followed our traditional route starting at Linton Lane and going via QE2 Country Park to Woodhorn, Lynemouth, Snab Point, Cresswell and Cresswell Pond. Linton Lane had two marsh harriers and very good views of grey partridge sitting under a hedge. We usually see them disappearing quickly into cover. The highlight at Cresswell  was an early avocet. Apparently they usually arrive late March. We have never seen one on our February visits before.  We also had a good selection of ducks and waders including 2 ruff and 6 snipe out in the open as well as large flocks of pink-footed geese.  We then went via Widdrington (red-legged partridge) to the Druridge Bay Country Park for lunch (and bird feeders) before checking the sea for red-throated divers and common scoter. Then north to Hadston Scarrs, Hauxley and Amble. We spent 15/20 minutes ambling round Amble harbour as we realised we had not yet seen a pied wagtail. In rain and gathering gloom we gave up, walked back to the car and there was a pied wagtail on the footpath beside the car!! Other highlights included at least 6 albino pheasants, in fact there were pheasants everywhere. We reckoned they must have all been newly released. I also added a kestrel to the year list - it is at least 6 months since I saw one at home as well as Canada goose which always needs a trip to England. We ended up with 70 species which is what we hope for before we set out. Bearing in mind the deteriorating weather we were happy enough. All in all a good day with cracking views, good birds and good company. 

The attached photographs are mainly David's, I have noted the ones I took in case it isn't patently obvious. I ended up phone scoping the waxwing as I omitted to lift the camera - apologies for the dodgy shots. 

St Mary's Island (Derek)

Pink-footed geese

Cresswell Pond

Mixed waders

Avocet

Snipe

Lapwing (Derek)

Derek's snipe!

Derek's avocet, dunlin & curlew

Grey partridge

Long-tailed tit

The scenic route to Bolton goes via Langdon Beck and a black grouse lekking area so it became 115 for the year. Bolton added nuthatch on the feeder, tawny owl calling around the house and a single waxwing 5 minutes from the house. Known locally as the Bolton one (or Bolton Wanderer) it has been around for about 10 days and has two berried trees all to itself in a housing estate so it might be around for a while. I took the grand-children to see it and they were mildly impressed by its cool Mohican.

The new dormer gives a good view of the garden and the feeders. I have tried several times to put a wee arrow to show where the feeders are but Blogger has defeated me. If any readers know how to do this please let me know.  The feeders are hanging above the wee green bush just to the left of the poplar tree at the end of the fence. The nuthatch uses the tree to approach the feeders and I have seen woodpecker, jay and treecreeper on the tree as well. This time I managed a few shots of birds at the feeder. The tawnies call from the wood behind, heard but never seen. 

Overview

Collared dove at the niger feeder

Magpie

A very fast nuthatch flying right!!

Great tit

A few Bolton wanderer shots to close and then it is back to WOW and the coastal path for 6 weeks.

2023

102: Wren - should have been added on January 17th!

103: Red kite

104: Grey plover

105: Sanderling

106: Pink-footed goose

107: Canada goose

108: Marsh harrier

109: Kestrel

110: Red-legged partridge

111: Grey partridge

112: Pheasant

113: Avocet

114: Ruff

115: Black grouse

116: Waxwing

117: Tawny owl

118: Nuthatch

NDCP

53: Grey heron

WOW

64: Cormorant

2022 - a tale of fractured rib, Covid and osteo-arthritis.

Time for an update and a wrap of 2022.  Things have been slow as the year wound down in the wettest November on record. Overall the year started well but a series of health issues (see title) limited the amount of birding I could do and the walking definitely slowed down and occasionally stopped altogether. Now that I have come to terms with limited mobility I will hopefully be able to work round the issues and might even do a bit more birding from the car or allow more time to walk slower and rest more often when looking for migrants. 

WOW added a few species to the list but is well off the 100 target I normally look for. Lack of walking for spring migrants didn't help and the feeders were either empty or down for a lot of weeks so I missed the odd tick there. Photo here shows a frozen WOW in early December. Most species went elsewhere and the coot and shoveler were concentrated in the two areas of open water.

I finished on 88 with a late rush of stuff I should have ticked earlier in the year plus an unexpected female pochard. Glaring omissions included peregrine, little stint, redpoll, bullfinch, reed bunting, blackcap, sedge warbler and chiffchaff. How could I miss a blackcap at WOW!!

Female pochard x 3

The local North Down patch finally added a red-throated diver, and finished on 67.  70 is the target but look what I missed - jay, siskin, greenfinch, redpoll and Mediterranean gull, -  again the main issue was the inability to walk the coast in spring and autumn. I can't remember the last time I walked into Bangor along the coast, never mind through the town to Ballyholme.  However a fieldfare on a neighbour's tree was an unexpected surprise. The big news patch wise was finally getting waxwings on the patch - only 5 minutes walk from the house. They spent over a week in a berried tree in Maxwell Road and it was nice to catch up with them along with every birder and photographer in Northern Ireland, plus one from Dublin who made a 5 hour round trip to see them. I took a lot of pictures, so here are three.

Hooded crow at sunset

A wet Christmas week in Bolton added nothing to the year list although the new dormer roof looks promising as I can easily view Richard's feeders and the trees at the bottom of his garden. Santa brought a nice tripod which will stay in England and help Bolton birdwatching.  I had nice views of treecreeper and nuthatch in the poplar tree but no woodpecker this time. 

2023 will kick off in the garden on January 1 and the annual round the lough trip on January 2. 

2022

193: Willow tit

194: Waxwing

(This includes 42 from Florida)

NDCP

65: Red-throated diver

66: Waxwing

67: Fieldfare

WOW

82: Pochard

83: Goldcrest

84: Stonechat

85: Red-throated diver

86: Rock pipit

87: Long-tailed tit

88: Buzzard

Week of surprises

Quite a bird filled week as you will see when you read on. It started with me helping Bangor Central Primary with their big schools birdwatch as I did last year. Oystercatcher and carrion crow proved the best birds in 2016, this year went one better with a glaucous gull - just goes to prove the old adage that anything can turn up anywhere (within reason). This bird hasn't been picked up around Bangor and I haven't seen it on the patch - the school is about 500m away. We had entertained three classes and had the usual collection of gulls and corvids plus robin, blackbird, woodpigeon and coal tit when we stopped for break. That meant about 300 pupils running round the playground shouting and yelling when a mob of gulls flew in to grab leftover bread lying on the grass. We had up to 60 black-headed gulls, about 10 herring gulls and this great white brute. I thought glaucous straight away but dismissed the thought as highly improbable, but as time wore on I was convinced that is what it was. When the other gulls flew off it stayed on, when we resumed feeding after break it bullied the smalller gulls and came within 2 metres of the pupils. I fired off a photo to NI birds and bingo we had glaucous gull on the garden birdwatch list. You can catch up with the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK-ED6qwP-4

It was still around when I left at 12.00 and I was able to get a few photos as well as the video.  Apparently it is a 1cy bird - ie first calendar year.

 Wednesday saw me finally catching up with the waxwing invasion. Three visited Grange Park about 400m west of the patch boundary. Despite climbing to the top of the scaffolding, currently erected for plastering purposes,  I was unable to add them to the patch list, I could see the trees they were in but not the birds!!

Was up as high as the chimney

Looking south  for waxwings

Later that day I walked back along the coast and added three ticks to the Bangor West patch including carrion crow, already seen in Bangor Central earlier in the week.

Interesting to see two black guillemot in full summer plumage as well as others still in their winter finery.

Thursday rolled round and WOW beckoned with a lesser scaup reported off shore along with 40+ scaup. I finally nailed it on a third visit on Friday and also added goldeneye, merganser, eider and black guillemot. You can see some nice photos on the NI birds blog here:

http://nibirds.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/bird-news-wednesday-18th-january.html

These plus a few ticks on the reserve pushed the total up to 51 for the year. All in all a good week's birding. The anticyclonic gloom made photography difficult but unusually a curlew came across to the south side near the observation room. The low tide kept numbers down but I still managed 32 species on the reserve and another 10 at Kinnegar.

Bangor West

41: Carrion crow

42: Guillemot

43: Shag

Belfast WOW 40: Mute swan
41: black-tailed godwit
42: Coal tit
43: Reed bunting
44: Black guillemot
45: Eider
46: Greater scaup
47: Lesser scaup
48: Tufted duck
49:Goldeneye 
50: Red-breasted merganser
51: Ringed plover

2017

87: Guillemot
88 Glaucous gull
89: Waxwing
90: Scaup
91: Lesser scaup