Bird News for Thursday 30th August

An impressive 4600 Brent Geese were on Strangford Lough this morning. 2500 were at Mount Stewart with the rest near the Maltings. It is highly unusual for such big numbers to be this early (John Wilson Foster/Francis Duffin)

At Lough Beg a Wood Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper and 6 Ruff were at Mullagh (David Steele).

A Kilcummin Head seawatch, from 0630 - 1400, by Brad Robson and Joe Donaldson had 1 Sabs Gull, 1 Pom Skua, 1 Leach's Petrel, 1 Strom Petrel 1 Balearic, 8 Sooty Shearwater, 23 Bonxies, 4 Arctic Skua, 33 Brent. 2 Arctic Tern 130 Sandwich Tern and 3 Puffin.

A seawatch at Bloody Foreland in Co Donegal had a Balearic Shearwater and 3 Long-tailed Skuas. A Little gull was at Derrybeg. An unidentified dark raptor was over Dunlewey and was possibly a Black Kite. (Chris Ingram)
The second summer Ring-billed Gull remains at Groomsport.

Our thanks to Alistair Prentice for this lovely image of a pair of Knot.