Great northern diver, Salford Quays

There's seems to have been an influx of great northern divers recently and here's another juvenile which has been on Salford Quays for a few days.

What a bird!

Goosanders. I've seen female red-breasted mergansers display this kind of submissive behaviour to males before, but I've never noticed it with goosanders.

A seasonal visitor from Lapland at the office Christmas social

It was our  office Christmas social today, and for a change we headed off to Hilbre Island in the Cheshire Dee. We certainly picked our day, it was glorious in comparison to recent weeks, relatively mild with light south easterly winds and even some relative brightness which in the afternoon almost culminated into that rarest of weather phenomenons known as sunshine.

Hilbre Island has always held a special place in my heart, it's a very beautiful place, with wide open views, and there's a real feeling of remoteness out here. There were lots of waders in evidence today, thousands of oystercatchers (including a leucistic bird) roosting on Middle Eye, as well as curlews, turnstones, ringed plover, redshanks, knot and a single grey plover. Every now and then a peregrine dashed through the flocks, scattering them in all directions. Also roosting on Middle Eye over the tide, at least 100 pale-bellied brent geese with a single dark-bellied bird.

At the north end there were plenty of common scoter flying back and forth, and then one of our group spotted a cracking adult drake long-tailed duck, complete with long tail, flying low over the sea. One of the best long-tailed ducks I've seen in a long time. A single rock pipit was hanging around the north end, and a second bird was at the south end. Eight purple sandpipers were roosting over the tide with turnstones at the north end.

But for me at least, the best was yet to come on the walk back to West Kirby. I was hoping to get a photo of the leucistic oystercatcher which we'd only seen distantly on Middle Eye from the observatory, and this meant I was constantly stopping and scanning the oystercatcher flocks and so I'd fallen well behind the rest of the group. I was a good 100m behind when I got to Little Eye and almost immediately spotted a bunting feeding on the sand. For a brief millisecond I thought snow bunting, but immediately realised that it was actually a Lapland bunting. The light was beginning to go, but I was able to fire off a few half decent photographs to show to the others when I caught them up! It was the perfect end to a highly enjoyable day.

Year: 266 (Lapland bunting)

Lapland bunting on Little Eye

Purple sandpipers. I don't know much about the plumage variations of purple sandpipers but I'll have a guess and say that these are adults.....

Whereas this I would assume is a 1st winter because of the white edged (median?) coverts.

Ringed plover and turnstones.

Rock pipit

The team!

Below are a few more Lapland bunting photos.

GND and GWT in the rain

It poured it down for most of the day today, making it a challenge to get even a short distance from the car without gettting soaked, and it was such a dull day that it didn't go properly light until about 9am and it was nearly dark again by 3pm. Still, we made the most of the day, and headed first for West Kirby, where there has been a juvenile great northern diver on the marine lake for the past day or two. It showed as well as any great northern diver I have ever seen, but no sign today of the long staying red-throated diver. Also here, about eight red-breasted mergansers and 20 pale-bellied brent geese flew over the sea.

Then we headed for the relative comfort of the hides at Martin Mere, where there has been a green-winged teal seen on and off for a week or two. It was two days since it was last reported, and that was from the In Focus hide which is the closest one to the building and therefore involved the least walking in the rain. However as we ate our lunch in the car, we got news that it had been relocated at the Ron Barker hide, which is just about as far away from the reception as it can be! Even worse, when we got to the hide there were no other birders present, so we had to find it again for ourselves in amongst the masses of Eurasian teal and wigeon which were feeding on the flooded rushy grassland on Sunley's marsh, and the rain was now bouncing down making viewing difficult. Fortunately it didn't take us too long to relocate the bird and we watched it for about two hours before the rain finally eased up and we decided to take the opportunity to call it a day.

Year: 265 (green-winged teal)

This is todays bird at Martin Mere.

This is not todays bird! It's the Caerlaverock green-winged teal from last November.

Pennington Flash

A very dull, wet and windy afternoon at Pennnington Flash and unsurprisingly not much about. The shag seems to have gone from Pengy's but the water rail was still there and showed quite well, also bullfinch and willow tit around the feeders here. On the flash I counted 15 goldeneye but only two goosander, though I'm sure there must have been more.

A bedragled heron in the rain.

Lough Beg, County Derry

Immediately after breakfast I had a walk down the lane to have a closer look at the lough. It wasn't easy, it's rained an awful lot here recently and the ground is saturated and very boggy. Lough Beg lies just north of Lough Neagh and is basically a flood plain of the Lower Bann river which flows through it from Lough Neagh. It's an RSPB reserve, but not a particularly easy one to visit, being surrounded by private farmland.

The view of Church Island from my B&B at dawn.You can just see whooper swans through the trees.

The church on Church island is actually a folly, built by a past Lord to improve his view from the nearby country hall. In the summer you can walk out to it, but not today, the lough is as high as I've ever seen it.

Whooper swans, the star attraction. Sometimes there can be as many as 200 in the field outside my B&B, but today there were about 300 on the water, with thousands of ducks.

Pale-bellied Brent Geese

Lots of pale-bellied brent geese today in the pouring rain, also a late Sandwich tern and a few red-throated divers.

Magilligan Point, Lough Foyle, Derry

What started as a dull and drizzly day this morning ended in bright sunshine late afternoon. I was working near Coleraine today, so took the opportunity to head to the coast. It was a bit quiet on the sea, but I did manage to find a great northern diver close inshore.

Visiting an old friend at Carrickfergus

Just been out to the car and in the pitch black I can hear the calls of whooper swans less than half a mile away on Paddy's dub on Lough Beg. What a great place this is! I'm in Northern Ireland again this week.

It's been a long day, I was on the road to Liverpool airport at 4.30am and by 7.30am was in my hire car and driving away from Belfast airport on my way to today's job. Seven hours later I'd finished my habitat survey and decided to call in at one of my favourite places, Carrickfergus on the banks of Belfast Lough.

Scenically it's a very pretty, picturesque town with an imposing and historic Norman castle on the edge of the harbour.

I first came here two years ago to see a ring-billed gull,  and it was the same bird which drew me back again today. Having already seen two ring-billed gulls this year, the first summer at Preston dock and an adult here in Northern Ireland at Portrush, I don't suppose I'd have been too bothered if I wasn't also so fond of Carrickfergus.

I picked up the bird almost immediately, sitting on the quay with a flock of common and black-headed gulls. They allowed quite close approach and I was able to get a few shots of the bird with common gulls alongside for comparison. Meanwhile on the water there was a very confiding black guillemot in winter plumage.

Ring-billed gull is slightly larger and a shade paler than common gull with a more robust bill. Notice also the differences in head shape and the pale eye ring of the American bird. Common gull has a more gentle face.