The Home Bargains fat balls edition

 Like all other garden birdwatchers I feed a variety of foods over the winter. I mainline on sunflower hearts with two feeders, one of which is squirrel proof. I also feed niger seed, fat blocks, suet pellets and kibbled peanuts on hanging feeders. Every morning I scatter mealworms and a groundseed mix from Vine House Farm - robin and friends mix if you are interested - not cheap but it all gets eaten and there is no mess. I have recently been feeding out of date mince pies but these are quickly snapped up by the herring gulls. Like most folk I bought a tub of suet balls from a local store, some were eaten quickly others had to be broken up eventually and scattered on the ground for the crows and pigeons. My son was feeding his birds on Home Bargains (HB) fat balls and they seemed to be disappearing at a rate of knots so I decided to try them as well. The difference was astonishing - they went like hot cakes, so now I only put one in the suet feeder and top up with different ones. I quickly noticed that no matter where in the feeder I placed the HB suet ball the birds always went for it first. Observation shows that all four tit species, and blackcaps go there first. If the magpies, rooks, hoodies and jackdaws appear they also do the same. Even the blackbirds which do not usually bother with the suet feeder as they can't really hang on for long will have a go at it. Evidence is below.

The HB variety is one from the top and is clearly a different colour!

Great tit and blackcap

Blackcap (F)

Blackcap (M)

Blue tit

Jackdaw

HB have also started selling suet blocks and they appear to use the same recipe so these are also going fast.  They are a different colour, they contain black sunflower seeds, and they do smell different and before you ask, no - I haven't tasted them!! Comments welcome as to why birds go straight to the HB fat balls first. 

Recent patch additions are goldcrest in the garden plus lesser black-backed gull, knot and robin at WOW

2024

105: Redpoll

WOW

56: Lesser black-backed gull

57: Robin

58: Knot

NDCP

43: Goldcrest

Day trip to Cairnryan

You read it correctly, I took a day trip to Cairnryan with the NIOC and a minibus tour of birding sites in and around Stranraer. The logistics involved a 0520 alarm, meeting at the Stena terminal at 0630, the 0730 sailing to Cairnryan and then various stops in and around Stranraer to look for raptors and seabirds. We finished at a harrier roost at dusk (1730) before heading back for the 1930 ferry to Belfast. I arrived back in Bangor at 2230 17 hours after leaving. 

Thanks to the NIOC and Gary Wilkinson  (for organising and driving). Despite my lack of mobility I was well looked after and the nature of the trip meant I could take a full part as there wasn't a great deal of walking involved. Bird wise we started on the ferry at first light, then drove round Loch Ryan with various stops at viewpoints where we could set up scopes and scan. With 13 ace birders on board as well as me, we didn't miss much. I decided to forget about the digi scoping and just enjoy the birds. There were plenty of photographers aboard and hopefully they will post on the J Birds Facebook page, when they do you will get a link to view them. Here's a few shots from the phone

Lunch stop at the Wig, scopes still primed for action

White Loch, Castle Kennedy

Broadstone Road viewing Loch Ryan

I managed 66 species on the day and definitely missed at least 10 spotted by others in the group, such as robin and pied wagtail. The list included 16 year firsts and three to add to my Scotland list. Difficult to pick a bird of the day when we saw 6 raptors (4 red kites, 2 buzzards, 3 hen harriers, 2 peregrines, 2 sparrowhawks and a kestrel) and 6 geese. (brent, barnacle, white fronts, pinkfeet, Canada and greylag). However two golden plovers and two grey plovers at the Wig were beautifully lit by a low winter sun and it would be difficult to go past these birds for top spot. Mind you four common scoters less than 50 m from the shore was a good spot as well. 

Back in the local patches there has not been anything to add to the WOW list. The ringed black-tailed godwit appeared again but the bird feeder in the garden came up trumps with a pair of siskins and a pair of redpolls on successive days. I genuinely can't remember the last time I saw either of these in the garden, certainly not last winter. I usually pick them up on the feeders at WOW but haven't seen any this winter. Traditionally they pop up on feeders in February/March when natural food is running out so there is still time to see them at WOW. The attached photos were a bonus as I have been setting the digiscope stuff up to get photos of the garden birds for this blog, and this week it came up trumps. Both of these guys will count towards the Irish Garden Bird count as well. There are three weeks to go and still time for the bullfinch to drop in. 

Greenfinch - never more than one

Siskin (M)

Linnet

Jackdaw

Siskin (F)

Redpoll (F)

Chaffinch & Redpoll (F)

2024

87: Purple sandpiper

88: Siskin

89: Fulmar

90: Gannet

91: Golden plover

92: Kestrel

93: Red kite

94: Scaup

95: Common Scoter

96: Peregrine falcon

97: Great northern diver

98: Grey plover

99: Pink-footed goose

100: Canada goose

101: Barnacle goose

102: White-fronted goose

103: Woodcock

104: Hen harrier

105: Lesser redpoll

WOW

55: Great black-backed gull

NDCP

40: Greenfinch

41: Siskin

42: Lesser Redpoll

 

It's still January

 Came across this little poem which I thought summed up where we are this month:

       Thirty days hath September,

        April, June and November,

        Unless a leap year is its fate

        February has twenty-eight

        All the rest have three days more, 

        Excepting January

        Which has six thousand one hundred and eighty - four.

Anyway the evenings are stretching out and we have only had one cold spell here in balmy Bangor. Cold spells  are designated as such if my pond freezes over. This happened on four mornings last week. The local Bangor patch has added a kingfisher at the Long Hole and a greenfinch turned up on the feeder. The coastal path added ringed plover, common gull and pied wagtail. Here's a selection of garden visitors including one of the 5 herring gulls which fly round waiting for out of date mince pies. Other birds will take the crust and the crumbs when they are broken up but the gulls are quickly in and swallow them whole. It's nice to see the song thrush in the garden, I don't get too many and it is a regular visitor as are the house sparrows. 

Long Hole Kingfisher

Mrs Blackcap

Collared dove

Coal and blue tit

Mr & Mrs house sparrow

Mr Blackcap

Song thrush

Herring gull

Blackcap

WOW continues to rack up species as you would expect in a new year. I am now up to 55 for the RSPB patch  having added 15 species including linnet, wigeon and stonechat. The full list is below. 

I promised a report on the ringed black-tailed godwit which was ringed as an adult female in April 2021. It has been resighted 10 times since then, six times at WOW,  once at Whitehouse Lagoon on the north side of Belfast Lough, once on Kinnegar beach and twice at Island hill which is at the northern end of Strangford Lough. It has not been seen in Iceland where it should go to breed. Some of the other birds ringed in the same catch have popped up in North Wales and Norfolk but this individual has not been re-sighted outside Northern Ireland.  

The buzzard is a regular visitor and hunts a range of prey but last week it perched up with something different. It took us a long time to work out what it was but it turned out to be a single glove which had been left out by one of the volunteers who do work on the reserve. The picture is awful, but be assured it is one of our gloves. 

Moorhen

Mallard pair

Ringed godwit - history above.

Teal

Red-breasted merganser

Buzzard and glove.

Little grebe

2024:

85: Ringed plover

86: Kingfisher

87: Purple sandpiper

WOW:

41: Long-tailed tit

42:Dunnock

43: Gadwall

44: Buzzard

46: Pied wagtail

46:Dunlin

47: Song thrush

48: Stonechat

49: Wigeon

50: Rook

51: ringed plover

52: Linnet

53: Robin

54: Meadow pipit

55: Great black-backed gull

NDCP:

36: Pied wagtail

37: Ringed plover

38: Kingfisher

39: Common gull

40: Greenfinch

2024 - first impressions

Well blogs are a bit like buses - you get none for ages and then two come along at once. Clearly there is a reason for this as I am a bit OCD about lists and this is the easiest way to record how the year has started. (It could be worse I could be CDO which is worse than OCD because the letters have to be in the right order!! )

As I hoped David Miller and I kicked off 2024 with our traditional dawn to dusk birdathon round Strangford Lough. We started at the Flood Gates in Newtownards to watch the sunrise and started off the list with brent goose, oystercatcher, shelduck, lapwing, dunlin, knot, curlew, blackbird, woodpigeon, robin, starling, magpie, hooded crow, black-headed gull, herring gull, common gull, teal and little egret. We were disappointed not to find any pintail at all in an area where they have wintered for the last 30 years. A stop at Barr's Bay added a cacophony of rooks and jackdaws, a feeding greenshank and a pied wagtail, plus cormorant and shag perched on offshore rocks. The saltmarsh near Anne's Point was full of wigeon, teal and mallard plus a passing grey heron and Greyabbey bay south added mute swan, goldeneye, red-breasted merganser, great black-backed gull and great crested grebe. A stop at Kircubbin had rock and meadow pipit and a nice pair of stonechats near the yacht club as well as a mistle thrush perched up on the wires. House sparrows chirped in the bushes and eider ducks called offshore. We diverted to Abbacy and Bishop's Mill for our first walk. There is always a good mix of waders and passerines and we hit paydirt while looking for snipe with 2 snow buntings and a passing sparrowhawk. We then added dunnock, song thrush, collared dove, great tit, blue tit and chaffinch. Having said how good the river was for grey wagtail, one popped up to preen on a rock. The drive along the shore to the ferry added fieldfare and carrion crow.  We crossed the ferry and added guillemot and black guillemot from the ferry and stopped at Castleward Bay for gadwall and another greenshank. The Great Dam added greylag geese, coot and tufted duck as well as a nice wigeon flock. By this time bright sunlight had been replaced by lowering cloud and poorer light and lunch at the Castle Island hide was a welcome break. Unfortunately the Quoile has not as many birds as it once had. There were only 2 goldeneye, no tufted and no pochard, but we did get a lonely whooper swan, 5 redwings, buzzard, pheasant, a pair of ravens, little grebe, pintail and shoveler.  A walk to the Yacht Club added bullfinch,  goldcrest and wren before we drove round to Quoile Castle. The feeders added goldfinch and coal tit and then we were extremely fortunate to see the long-staying long-tailed duck at the Steamboat Quay We had looked for it down towards Castle Island, couldn't see it and decided it wasn't about and on heading off met three other birders along the path. I was getting ready to tell them it was not around when the following happened.

Me: "Are you looking for the long-tailed duck?"

Birder "Yes it's diving here in front of us"

It was showing well with a load of black-headed gulls and we had totally missed it. As the light was dropping fast we headed for Shore Road and the chance of a mixed finch flock on the set-aside field. This turned up 15 yellowhammer, with house sparrows and chaffinches  By the time we reached Killyleagh we had run out of light as the rain set in and the tide had pushed in to the Lough so there wasn't a lot of dry areas to look for birds. As in previous years we missed a few we should have got and found a few surprises - snow bunting, yellowhammer and long-tailed duck. I ended up with 71 species for the day. The most notable omissions were moorhen, both godwits, greenfinch, linnet and tree sparrow. Anyway a fine day and some good stories and memories and three photos from David Miller

From the ferry as the warm front moves east over us.

Long-tailed duck

Long-tailed duck

Since then I have added long-tailed tit, blackcap and linnet in the garden as well as a trip to Islandmagee to see waxwings.  There have been large flocks in that area and we found 15 near Ballycarry Bridge. A quick trip up to David's feeders in Carnalea added tree sparrows. The first morning at WOW in 2024 started the WOW patch with 40 and also added a few ticks to the year list - turnstone, black-tailed godwit, bar-tailed godwit, 30 snipe, moorhen, great spotted woodpecker and greenfinch. 

WOW also had a female sparrowhawk, a female red-breasted merganser as well as all the usual suspects - teal, shelduck, mallard, shoveler, lapwing, curlew, redshank, coot, woodpigeon, hooded crow, starling, great, coal and blue tit, goldfinch, chaffinch, little grebe, black-headed common and herring gull, blackbird, magpie, grey heron, while Kinnegar added oystercatcher, cormorant, greylag goose, tufted duck, mute swan, black guillemot, great crested grebe and brent goose.  

Returning woodpecker

Returning ringed black-tailed godwit*

Finally the Irish Garden Bird Survey continues and this year has put 21 birds on the North Down patch list - Blackbird, song thrush, hooded crow, woodpigeon, collared dove, jackdaw, magpie, starling, herring gull, blackcap, goldfinch, chaffinch, linnet, house sparrow, dunnock, robin, long-tailed, blue, great and coal tit and sparrowhawk (twice!!) 

An amble along the coastal path added a few species which I expected to see - oystercatcher, redshank, turnstone, moorhen, rook, eider, black-headed and great black-backed gull, brent goose, shag, black guillemot, grey heron and cormorant  but there was also a fly by red-throated diver which is a bit harder to get. That leaves the NDCP patch at 35

* I'll add a note about the ringed godwit on the next blog.

2024:
71 species from the trip round the Lough as outlined above, followed by 
72: Blackcap
73: Long-tailed tit

74: Linnet

75 Waxwing

76: Turnstone

77: Black-tailed godwit

78: Bar-tailed godwit

79: Snipe

80: Moorhen

81: Great spotted woodpecker

82: Greenfinch

83: Red-throated diver

84: Tree sparrow

WOW

40 species from Thursday January 4th as outlined above.

NDCP

35 species, 21 from the garden and 14 more from the coastal path as outlined above. 

2023 round up

I had this up and ready to post when my good friend and fellow birder David told me he had a brambling in his garden, so I hung on till New year's eve and hot footed it up to Carnalea this morning and dipped out. Heading out after lunch and a phone call to say the brambling is showing well so up we went and got number 161 for the year at the second attempt. Thank you David - and it would be churlish of me not to put on some of his recent photographs taken at the feeders in his garden which is where the rustic bunting appeared two years ago. 

Sparrowhawk is a regular visitor!

Chaffinch with brambling

Brambling

Brambling

Tree sparrows every winter

So back to the quick and short round up of 2023 which is coming to an end soon. The totals were as follows

The year list finished on 161 plus the 26 birds seen in Alaska, claiming 187.

The North Down patch ended on 70.

The RSPB/WOW/Kinnegar patch ended on 94.

Both patches notched up one more each since the last post and they were unusual birds. The garden produced a treecreeper and WOW turned up not one but two great spotted woodpeckers - a male and a female. The two woodpeckers were coming to the peanut feeder at WOW and to be honest I am not sure I have had better views anywhere. I have seen them in England but not as close and not for such a prolonged view. Views in Northern Ireland tended to be brief and frustrating, but not any more. These two guys performed and also gave good flight views as they flew in to the feeder and then away. As usual both patch lists had serious omissions as did the 2023 list but let's concentrate on the positives. 

The Irish garden bird survey continues to entertain with numbers and variety. As well as the treecreeper I also had a jay in the garden and two visits from the sparrowhawk. The song thrush is still around and goldfinches and greenfinches have put in appearances. I also have regular visits from house sparrow and linnet. Blackcaps have provided 2 females and a male.

Blue-billed teal is still around WOW

Unseasonal greenshank

Male GSW

Male GSW

Female GSW

The female appeared on a grey wet drizzly day while the male pitched in on a bright sunny day. We have had quite a few of the former recently which has made photographs challenging at times. Some days I have looked out and decided not to bother, just enjoy the birds!! 

Here's hoping for a bird filled 2024 and here's hoping David and I  can kick off with the annual January 1st Round the Lough to kickstart the list. I have pencilled in a trip or two to Bolton as well as Tyneside, and hopefully I will get back to Islay again. A lot of this was will depend on the orthopaedics - but I can always sit in WOW or the back room with a pair of binoculars and as David says - "Anything can turn up anywhere"

2023

160: Willow tit

161: Brambling

+USA/Canada: 26 = 186 for the year

NDCP: 

70: Treecreeper

Belfast RSPB

94: Great spotted woodpecker

Approaching the solstice

 Need a quick update on what has been happening since the last blog as I have been out and about but there are no additions to the lists. 

WOW has been very quiet since the grey phalarope although the blue-billed teal is still around. Cormorant, heron and egret numbers have levelled out as the law of diminishing returns kicks in. We had three ringed godwits. The two black-tailed godwits were returning birds which were ringed here in 2021. The bar-tailed godwit was a Norwegian  bird which has been seen around the area a few times. All three were too far away for pictures. The main news from WOW is that D3 has been fenced off. This is the area beside WOW which has been ear marked for  a new cruise liner terminal. Planning permission runs out next year so they need to be seen to be doing something, so it has been fenced off. We are hoping they will retain the existing shelter belt but the current plans show a 1.6m path to access Hide 2. RSPB and local birders are arguing for a wider belt which would retain the trees, but basically it is the Harbour Commissioners land and they can do what they want. The last photo shows the shelter belt we would like to retain. The existing fence is to the left and as you can see 1.6m isn't very much! If you have time and energy you could write to the Harbour Commissioners about this. 

Unringed black-tailed godwits

Not much room for manoeuvre here

The sight which greets you at the gate

Yes they blocked it all the way down

See explanation above

David and I did the Montgomery hide on a rising tide in November. Usual cracking morning with the highlights being 5 grey plover, 5 greenshank, 500 knot and 600 golden plovers. I had 32 species all told, and all the following photos are David's. Interesting fact is the eider duck in the last photo which neither of us saw on the day!!

Approach along the stream

Teal

Distant knot

Distant knot in flight

Since my last visit they have huge nets over the captive birds to try and prevent bird flu coming in again from the wild birds. Looks like a giant aviary, not a pretty sight and must have cost a fortune. Bird flu forced them to close last year from October to January and they lost all their Halloween and Christmas footfall/income. They are also cutting back on feeders for the same reason so it is not as pleasant a visit as it once was. 

The coastal path highlight was a guided walk with the local Facebook group "For another path" to look at birds we might see along the path. This group has been set up to mobilise local opinion and lobby the council as to what improvements might be in order. It was a pleasant morning with 18 species noted, the highlights were 3 red-throated divers and a very odd plumaged eider duck which caused a bit of debate. 

The Irish garden bird survey started this week and I have been recording the maximum number of species seen in the garden over a week. A few interesting facts are as follows:

The only finches recorded so far are 2 chaffinches.

The blackcaps are back for the winter.

The coal tits are decimating the feeders and caching their food.

5 linnets turned up at the feeder.

5 house sparrows have also been about.

The sparrowhawk visited briefly.

A single song thrush has been a regular visitor.

It is a sobering thought that the return of this survey means that winter has arrived, a fact which was emphasised by the temperatures suddenly dropping to 3 - 5 degrees here in Bangor. Because we are close to the sea we do not get the colder temperatures recorded inland. However there is no doubt that there are more birds coming in to feed than there were a couple of weeks ago when temperatures were in double figures and there were still insects around. C'est la vie - BUT it is only 3 weeks to the solstice and the nights will be on the turn. 

2023

160: Willow tit

NDCP

69: Lapwing

Belfast RSPB

93: Stonechat