Saturday, 9 April 2016

8th April


A few hours birding at the Point of Ayre in the morning produced a few bits with the highlights coming as the big high tide flooded a small area of saltmarsh / reeds flushing a Short-eared Owl, a Jack Snipe and at least 4 Water Rails out of cover.   Other birds included a single Wheatear, 5 Little Egrets, good numbers of Stonechats and Skylarks in the dunes, a distinctive all-white, leucistic Herring Gull roosting within a huge Gull flock on the beach at Gronant Dunes (tried for a while to turn it into an Iceland Gull) and a slight trickle of Finches heading west along the coast including Linnets, Goldfinches, Siskins and Greenfinches along with a couple each of Swallow and Sand Martin.

                Drove on a bit further and walked up the Little Orme where there were no migrants but it was really good to see good numbers of seabirds back on the cliffs including Kittiwakes, Razorbills, Guillemots, Fulmars, Cormorants and Shags along with a pair of Peregrines, 4 Ravens and a pair of Chough.
 

Skylark



Stonechat

Jack Snipe

Water Rail

Wheatear

Leucistic Herring Gull
 
 
 

 

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