Birding at Ballyhalbert Lakes

It was Day 5 of Eileen's visit and my class joined us for a morning's birding.  Jimmy, one of our members wanted to take us to a group of small lakes at Ballyhalbert.  So we left Bangor, stopping at various places along the County Down coast.  The first port of call was Groomsport village where we saw Oystercatchers,Turnstones, Shags and Redshank on the rocks, Cormorants flying by, 1 Common Guillemot diving for food and Gannets quite a distance out at sea.  It was a special day for Jimmy which I wil tell you about in a minute.

 

 

Redshank

 

 

Jetty at Groomsport harbour.  Do you see the Redshank?

 

 

A Buzzard flew overhead.

 

 

There are always Gulls sitting around the harbour.  This is a Herring Gull.

 

 

This is one of her young.

 

 

This is another of her young still begging for food.  She paid no attention to it!

 

 

 

Black headed Gull

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went further on down to Donaghadee where we stopped for coffee.  It was Jimmy's 80th birthday and I had got 8 cup cakes with candles which I tried to light about 80 times in the wind (I did it in the end) but it was a great surprise for him.  He is a real gentleman and has taught me many things about birds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, Donaghadee lighthouse is in the backgound at the end of the Pier.  I am trying to light the candles in the back of the car!

 

 

Jimmy

 

 

We reached the small  lakes and found these 2 young Swans.  The water was quite brown and someone has dumped a waste bin in the water!

 

 

We wished we had had some food for them but we had eaten everything when we celebrated Jimmy's birthday at the last stop.

 

 

 

 

This cygnet had something buldging in its neck so we hoped it would be OK.

 

 

 

 

These were Crab Apples but I thought they looked lovely against the blue sky.  There were about 5 small lakes and other than Moorhen, Mallard and Little Grebe, there was nothing else on them, however it was extremely peaceful and I would think a good place to come to sit to watch butterflies and dragonflies in the summer.  There were quite a number of small birds.

 

 

This is a fun shot of us trying to take a photograph of this butterfly but yet not going to close to spook it.

 

 

This is the last Speckled Wood I have seen this year. (18 October)

 

 

 

 I hoped you enjoyed our morning's bird outing.  We left my class to travel on further and tomorrow I will tell you  where we went and what we saw.

Thank you for visiting. My computer seems to behavig at present but I am off on the train early this morning to walk along the whole of the towpath from Moira to Aghalee.  You may remember that Eileen and I walked along a bit of it when we were going to Portmore Lough.

Have a  lovely day and evening for those down under.