Weather - mild with showers.
Portmore Lough - bluetit, long-tailed tits (flitting back and forth all afternoon), tree sparrows, great tit, blackbird, juvenile pheasant & male pheasant, collared dove, cormorant, magpies, black-headed gull, sparrowhawk, buzzard, rooks, chaffinches, coal-tits, fieldfare (my first of the season), water rail caling, golden plover calling, mallard, woodpigeon, goldfinch, 2 greylag flying but no sign of the main flock.
Oxford Island - mallard, magpie, tufted ducks, ruddy ducks, gt crested grebe, pochard, black-headed gulls. I was surprised at how few birds there were about.
Kestrel on motorway.
Yesterday was a lovely Autumn day - sunny but cold. I headed down to the hide at Quoile Pondage - lapwing, mallard, pochard, teal, pintail, shoveler, mute swan, gadwall, kestrel, magpie, comorant, black-headed & herring gull, rooks. I then headed to the WWT's Castle Espie reserve. After a lovely cup of coffee I headed past the collection into the 'wild' bit of the reserve, and saw pochard, mallard, pintail, gadwall, greylag, goldeneye, mute and whooper swans, moorhen and a solitary female eider. From the hide looking over Strangford Lough, tide was in, I saw an estimated 2000 brent geese and approx 100 wigeon (on the wing).
All is well in my world the geese and wintering ducks and swans are back.