Port Oriel

A bright mild day seen me head for Clogher Head/Port Oriel this morning.  What a difference a day makes, same time yesterday I was out on a wet, windswept Bull Island.  The Bull threw up some curlew sandpipers and the blue winged teal which has returned for the 4th or 5th autumn/winter was as usual associating with the shovelers.  However the highlight was a fox out on the marsh slowly sneaking upon some roosting gulls at high tide.  The rain came, the car beckoned and I never got to see whether the fox had dinner!

Back to today, the port was busy enough with trawlers going in and out and that of course means Gulls.  Common, BH, GBB and herring gulls all on show.  The herring gulls lazily sunning themselves on the rocks below the upper car park.  The inner harbour had twenty guillemots, two razorbills and a lone cormorant on show. 

Above the harbour a noisy mixed group of about thirty common and arctic terns must surely be set for the off any day now, not to mention the three swallows that shared the air space with them.

Outside the walls of the harbour on the seaward side there were plenty more auks on show, including a flyby by five black guillemots.  A gannet was circling and diving a few hundred meters off shore and there was plenty of movement back and forth by cormorants, gulls and an occasional shag.  A grey seal was showing well near the rocks just below the harbour wall, keeping him company was seven GC grebes.

Moving up to the headland there was plenty of smalls on show, wren, robin, dunnock chaffinch, linnett, a single redpoll and a yellowhammer heard but not seen.  A sparrowhawk flushed some sparrows but it disappeared from view as quick as it appeared and I didn't see if its efforts were rewarded.

A grey wagtail was sat on a wall on the drive back down the hill to the village.