Loch Ryan 19/ix/23

 Bands of rain, strong south-westerly, high tide 15.23.

There were five Pale-bellied Brent Geese at Bishop Burn late afternoon among about 120 Mute Swans. The Brents always remind me of Dublin where I grew up. A thousand or so Pale-bellies used to winter in Dublin Bay at that time, especially on the north-side near my home. The Bull Island provided high tide sanctuary and the surrounding mudflats had plentiful Zostera seagrass for feeding. In more recent years, they have taken to cropping amenity grasslands in local urban parks, seemingly unphased by human activity. They have even become an argument against the development of parkland for housing. I know that Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland also hosts a flock and that’s just a short hop across the North Channel from Wigtownshire, so I will be interested to see how many turn up here. Recent D&G Annual Bird Reports give counts over 300 for Loch Ryan.

Today’s gathering of swans seems to be a pretty high count for this site, whereas the 180 Wigeon off Balyett, while an increase from a week ago, is still quite low compared to mid-winter numbers of recent years. A single male Scaup was unusually close to shore among the wigeon, while a couple of dozen Red-breasted Mergansers were hanging around off Bishop Burn with a handful of Eider. Waders were in short supply with no exposed mud for feeding and I spotted no high tide roosts at this southern end of the loch, probably due to dog-walking disturbance.

Comments

  1. Chris Baines20 September 2023 at 08:27

    We saw the Brents last week and usually see the small fock at Garlieston most Winters.

    ReplyDelete

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