Colour-ringed Little Egret & Surf Scoter

I'm not normally one to twitch, but this afternoon I headed up the Antrim Coast to have a look for the Surf Scoter which has been around since last Wednesday.

It didn't take long to locate the North American visitor, it was the only bird in the small, picturesque harbour at Carnlough.

The journey was definitely worth it when I got speaking to a local birdwatcher who told me that he had seen a colour-ringed Little Egret on Larne Lough back in August.  Having literally just gotten off the phone to Tony Cross in Wales, I immediately thought it might’ve been one of Tony’s birds from Bangor, north Wales.

A quick phone call confirmed that it was indeed one of Tony’s birds, and it was born this year – it didn’t waste much time moving north!



Photo by Cameron Moore

 On the way home I stopped off at a couple of villages and identified three potential ringing sites where I will attempt ringing when I get a bit of time.

There were a couple of big flocks of Black-headed Gulls, including this metal ringed bird at Glenarm.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to read the ring as the bird didn’t sit on the railings long enough.  Hopefully though I'll catch this bird at some stage over the winter and slip a nice colour-ring on the other leg!