WOW and Castle Espie

WOW continues to be a pleasure to be at, despite missing out on the Baird's sandpiper. Last week saw reed cutting taking place but I still managed 4 new species plus a little stint this week. The highlights were kingfisher, little egret,meadow pipit and scaup plus good numbers of ducks and waders drifting in for the winter. There are no shelduck yet and in three visits in eight days I have seen common terns with 12 present today.

Serious reed cutting machine

 This machine and a low tide meant we were not expecting much but we still logged 30+ species and four new ticks for the 2016 patch at WOW.

Poser

Castle Espie on a rising tide provided another kingfisher, 14 grey plover and 4 little egrets plus a buzzard in a pine tree right outside the cafe. Thre are good numbers of brent geese on the lough with a handful of shelduck. No sign of the whooper swans yet, too early and too warm.

Brent geese

Kingfisher (on the branch!!)

Distant grey plover

 Off to London for a long weekend and a long overdue "final" visit to Barnes, Rainham and Kensington Gardens. A chance to say farewell to sites I have had the pleasure of visiting over the last eight years when I was travelling to London regularly. Hopefully I will get the odd weekend in London, maybe once a year rather than every 8 weeks. I will update next week and see what totals I have managed on my travels.

WOW patch list:    
91 Kingfisher
92 Little egret
93 Meadow pipit
94 Scaup
95 Little stint
 
West Bangor patch list:
67 Manx shearwater

2016 list 

183 Scaup
184 Grey plover
185 Little stint

More from WOW

Struggling to master the new format so it was easier to do two posts. The terns are easier to see from Hide 2 before the sun moves too far West. Even around 1300 I was getting glare. Late afternoon and early evening would be a nightmare as you would only see silhouettes. The area where the waders roost is also much closer and makes ID easier. Strangely enough the 6 Koniks don't seem to annoy the birds very much. They move out of their way but rarely spook. The ponies are quite good at lifting hidden birds like snipe out of the grass as well.

Tern planks looking west

Reserve bliss

Roseate tern

Roseate tern

Roseate tern

WOW patch list:    
84 White-rumped sandpiper
85 Curlew sandpiper
86 Roseate tern
87 Shag
88 Raven
89 Skylark
90 Pochard
 
West Bangor patch list:
65 Razorbill
66Common tern
67 Manx shearwater

2016 list 

179White-rumped sandpiper
180 Curlew sandpiper
181 Roseate tern
182 Kingfisher

Back to birding at last

Where have you been I hear you say? Why no birding? The answer is wrapped up in family visits to Bolton, so bird free I even left the binoculars out the last time. Too busy baby minding to go anywhere with birds. WOW has also been intermittent as I have missed three Thursdays, but I got back this week and although the terns are heading off the waders are coming back. Apart from that not really a lot to report but there are some nice pictures and the lists have been updated.

Ruff, one of nine scattered about

Raven

Pair of curlew sandpiper, there were up to 8 seen

Birds on holiday?

Not a lot to report recently. A boat trip to the Copeland Islands added puffin to the year list and put the County Down list up to 200. It also provided lots of manx shearwaters, immature gulls and seals. We were able to visit the Observatory and see a shearwater chick in its burrow.

Puffins in the sea

More puffins

Fratercula arctica

Common tern close up

 

Manx shearwater chick

A visit to Rathlin added wheatear and sedge warbler to the year list but not the expected great skua. It flew past all the non birders eating their lunch while I was visiting the lighthouse!! Work at the harbour turned out to be a new deep water berth for the bigger ferry so here are a couple of shots of the old one before it is taken out of service. I remember when it was state of the art and an improvement on an open boat with an outboard at the back.

Castlerock Beach at sunset

Belfast WOW is quiet, most of the gullls have gone and the terns are at various stages of fledging. Some are flying, others still vulnerable. Last week I watched a common tern chick being taken and swallowed by a lesser black-backed gull, possibly one of the breeding pair on the reserve. A wood sandpiper popped up last week but too well hidden and too far away for a photograph. Waders are staring to drift in and it looks like autumn is on the way while we still wait for summer. The poor weather has its compensations however as we have had good numbers of swifts, swallows and house martins giving good views.

WOW patch list:    
81 Greenshank
82 Sedge warbler
83 Wood sandpiper
 
West Bangor patch list:
64 Gannet

2016 list 

175 Puffin
176 Sedge warbler
177 Wheatear
178 Wood sandpiper

Quiet homecoming

After three weeks plus in France I returned home to  a much changed patch. No birdsong, everything keeping out of sight, rampant greenery and very few additions to the patch lists. Nevertheless in the words of Edith Piaf " Non, je ne regrette rien". The passion,  fervour and sheer excitement of the Euros more than made up for a scarcity of birds.

Stade de Lyon

 The trip was not entirely wasted birdwise as I racked up manx shearwater from the ferry, and in various locations en route South I picked up white wagtail, redstart, black redstart, and black kite. Highlight was a stopover in Gap and a day off driving. We took a bus up to a chateau, had a picnic lunch, a walk around the  chateau,  and then walked back down into Gap. This gave good views of a pair of red-backed shrike and eight griffon vultures. Try sorting your bird of the day from those two.

Walk near Gap

View over Gap from the Chateau

 Belfast WOW was a haven of peace and tranquility with breeding common and arctic terns, Mediteranean gulls, black-headed gulls, mute swan, coot, moorhen, mallard, shelduck, greenfinch, goldfinch, chaffinch and lesser black backs. The autumn wader passage has started, sorry,  I know we are still awaiting summer. There were 3 common sandpiper, 60 bar-tailed godwit and 35 knot this week.

Med gull with chick

Med gull

Black-tailed godwit

We are off to Bolton on Wednesday so hopefuly a bird or two there to boost the year list - I am still missing willow tit!!

WOW patch list:    
80 Sand martin
 
West Bangor patch list:
64 Gannet

2016 list 

168 Manx shearwater
169 White wagtail
170 Black kite
171 Redstart
172 Black redstart
173 Griffon vulture
174 Red-backed shrike

Au revoir mes amis.....

Que sera, sera whatever will be will be,
We're going to gay Paree,
Que sera, sera.

Last proper post for a while as we are off to join the army for three weeks, the Green and White army that is, or as they say in France "L'armee vert et blanc". Things have been quiet since I last posted with a couple of visits to WOW where we now have common terns looking like breeding and black-headed gull chicks hatched. Apparently there are two med gull chicks as well but they are hard to spot.

Common tern

The black-headed gull family

One of five tufties

We also did a return trip to the Gobbins to see the seabird colony. We had good views of guillemot, razorbill, kittiwake, shag, cormorant and gannet but dipped out on Puffin. You get reasonably close to the breeding ledges and if you have a better camera than mine you could get some nice shots. Margaret Adamson did so on her blog here:

http://birdingforpleasure.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/through-my-lens-gobbins-walk-part-1.html

This is the first of six posts on the Gobbins and you will see that she did see one more puffin than I did.

With only a couple of walks along the coastal path it was going to be hard to find new birds. Whitethroat could not be found and gannet pushed the list up by one. Basically I was away too much in May, and June is not going to be any better. However three weeks in France might boost the year list.

Kittiwakes on the nest

WOW patch list:    
78 Bullfinch
79 Blackcap
 
West Bangor patch list:

64 Gannet

2016 list 

166 Gannet
167 Kittiwake

A week in Majorca

If you want your life and year lists quickly boosted I recommend a week in Majorca in late April or early May. Not only do you get stunning birds but the temperatures are seriously warmer than they are in Ireland. We stayed for a week in Porte Pollensa within easy reach of the Bocquer Valley which we visited five times. We were a ten minute stroll from La Gola in the centre of the town and a 50 minute bus ride from S'Albufera which must be one of the most stunning reserves on the planet. We were also a ten minute bus ride from L'Albuferata and Can Curasso but due to family matters we failed to get there.

The Boquer Valley is a breeding area for birds and also a short cut for migrants, so anything can and does turn up there. We did a dawn chorus, a full walk from end to end and three evening walks in the lower part.The lower farmed part of the valley has a wide range of smaller birds while the more deserted upper reaches are good for raptors. All in all a pleasant way to spend an hour in the late evening.

Climbing up

Looking back to Porta Pollensa

Evening stroll

Northern end at the Med

Side of the valley - scan the ridges!!

Over the 5 visits we had an impressive list consisting of red kite, booted eagle, eleanora's falcon (life), yellow-legged gull, woodpigeon, hoopoe, crag martin, stonechat, blackbird, blue rock thrush, sardinian warbler, spotted flycatcher, pied flycatcher, willow warbler, balearic warbler (life),  goldcrest, great tit, woodchat shrike,  raven, house sparrow, serin, greenfinch, goldfinch, cirl bunting, corn bunting and linnet. 

We arranged for half a day at S'Albufera not realising how big it is. It would take a full day to do it justice and as there is a lot of walking hiring a couple of bikes would get you round quicker. We intended to get to San Bosc as well but had no chance once we realised how vast the place is. If you look at a map we only scratched the surface around the information centre. A massive thunderstorm forced us to sit in a hide for the best part of an hour so we lost a bit more time there as we had to close the shutters to keep the rain and hail out. Despite this we had an impressive list of 42 species. The highlights were two life ticks in marbled duck and red-knobbed coot, good views of purple swamphen and stone curlew which I have seen briefly before, and a long list of year ticks or birds I had not seen for a while: little bittern, cattle egret, purple heron, glossy ibis, marsh harrier, avocet, black-winged stilt, kentish plover, common sandpiper, hoopoe, nightingale singing, cetti's warbler, reed warbler, and raven. 

A lot wetter than it looks

Black-winged stilt

This one missed us

Purple swamphens

Little egret

Lonely purple swamphen

A fifth life tick was provided by Audouin's gulls which were seen every day on the beach at Porta Pollensa. that spent time crusing along looking for scraps left by tourists and were even seen fighting over an apple!

Audouin's gull

2016 list   
136 Audouin's gull  (L)                                152 Purple swamphen
137 Yellow-legged gull                                153 Avocet
138 Hoopoe                                                 154 Black-winged stilt
139 Sardinian warbler                                 155 Stone curlew
140 Spotted flycatcher                                156 Kentish plover
141 Pied flycatcher                                      157 Nightingale
142 Serin                                                      158 Cetti's warbler
143 Cirl bunting                                           159 Reed warbler
144 Woodchat shrike                                   160 Red kite
145 Corn bunting                                         161 Booted eagle
146 Marbled duck (L)                                  162 Eleanora's falcon (L)
147 Little bittern                                         163 Balearic warbler (L)
148 Cattle egret                                           164 Crag martin
149 Purple heron                                          165 Blue rock thrush
150 Glossy ibis
151 Red-knobbed coot (L)

The total for the week was 64 species which we can do in a day around Strangford, but given the family constraints we did pretty well, and it will be a long time before I manage 5 life ticks and 25 year ticks in Europe in a week!

Obviously no changes to the patch lists but the visit to Majorca put patch listing on the back burner for a week. Hopefully I will be out in the next day or two to add the odd tick - WOW tomorrow, then a visit to Bolton and then back to the NDCP..