nibirds: Bird News Sunday 4th January

The Black Redstart was still at Newcastle harbour. 3 male and 4 female Goosander were at Lough Island Reavy (Ian Graham)

A Little Egret was again in Orangefield Park, East Belfast (Rhona Galway)

On Strangford Lough, at Greyabbey Bay were 6 Slavonian Grebe and at Ringburr Point 3 Black-throated Diver and 6 Great-Northern Diver. (Richard Weyl)

This afternoon Loughbrickland had a pair of Kingfishers, 5 Cormorants and a Common Snipe. Corbet Lake had 59 Whoopers, 30 Tufted Duck, 73 Teal, 1 Pochard, 1 Goldeneye and 3 Redshank (Fulton Somerville & Janet McKevitt)

The Green-winged Teal was still at Ballycarry and a drake Garganey was 1.6km north on the east shore (Birdguides)

Five Long-tailed Duck were at Cultra (Wilton Farrelly)

The Spotted Redshank was at Whitehouse Lagoon (Birdguides)

5 Common Scoter, 3 Great Northern and a Red-throated Diver were at Carnlough. 4 Long-tailed Duck were at Greenisland Sea Park (Gerard McGeehan)

An adult Mediterranean Gull was at Newcastle promenade and the Black Redstart at the harbour (Dermot Hughes).

At Larne Lough a Greenshank, 5 Goldeneye and 25 Greylag were at Glynn and a Kingfisher at Ballycarry Bridge. 3 Bullfinch and 7 Tree Sparrow were at Island Magee (Billy Hamilton)

As well as the Black Redstart at Newcastle harbour, there was as a Kingfisher and offshore there were around 20 red throated divers. At Minerstown, there was a flock of around 30 Twite and a yellow-wing-tagged Red Kite. A male Great-spotted Woodpecker was at Tullymore Forest Park. There was a Long-eared Owl and Woodcock at Holymount Forest outside Downpatrick this evening (James O'Neill)

Thanks to Tom McCreery for the pic of the Black Redstart and Stephen Maxwell for the pic of three Ruddy Duck:

Black Redstart - Tom McCreery: