Birds seen as I walked along Seacliffe Road in February

These are the birds I saw in February as I walked along Seacliffe Road in Bangor as I made my way home.  It was a lovely sunny day and I never walk along this road without seeing some birds. I was encouraged to see a Black Guillemot in breeding plumage as they will all soon be coming back to Bangor to start breeding along the pier.

Herring Gulls. Adult and 1st years

Turnstone

This is the first Black Guillemot I have seen in summer breeding plumage.  Photo taken on 4 February.

Reflections near the slip

This is a photo of the rocks that are a tiny island that I saw the birds on.

Top - Oystercacher.  Middle - Redshank.  Sides Purple Sandpiper

There is 1 Oystercatcher on left and the rest are Ringed Plover with black rings around their necks, Dunlin have dark legs and quite a white belly and Purple Sandpipers have yellowy legs and slight streaking on the breast.

Ringed Plover

Dunlin and ringed Plover

Ringed Plover and Purple Sandpiper

1st year Herring Gull

Adult Herring Gull

Redshank and Purple Sandpiper above and below

Now this shot above has a Turnstone in it.  Can you ID it from the rest?

Can you now tell the difference of these 3 birds?

  Ringed Plover, Purple Sandpiper and Dunlin.

I hope you enjoyed walking with me along this road and are now able to ID these waders.  By the way, I did ask you if you could ID the Turnstone in shot 19.  It is on the far right in the photo.

Thank you for visiting and leaving comments.

Walled Garden in February - Birds and Plants

Last week I posted on the Walled Garden in Bangor in January and told you I had also been to it in February, so today I am showing you the birds and flowers I found there and also a little bit about the history of the garden.

Haemaillis mollis

Euphorbia

Hellebore argutifolius

I showed you the beans (above) and the  peas (below) last time and this is 1 month later.  The bean plants certainly have grown bigger but I did not see much difference in the peas yet.

This is the original bandstand that was moved from the Pickle area of Bangor and brought to the walled Garden.

Wood Pigeon

The head gardener had quite a number of caged feeders for the birds and there was quite a number of birds using them, however it was not easy to photograph them a I could not get any cover and so was quite a distance away from them.  This is a Dunnock above.

Chaffinch - female

Blue Tit and Goldfinch above and below.

Goldfinch and Chaffinch

Gourds above and below.

These beds are all planted up for the spring. Last year they had Tulips in them and I am hoping for the same this year.

Chaffinch

A wonderful splash of the Cornus (Dogwood) stems.

 I love the way to droplets of rain are on these leaves.

This old fashioned Rose is bursting forth.

 This Dunnock is camera shy!

Skimmia japonica

 Mahonia

Now wouldn’t this do your heart good to see this beautiful plant 

 during the winter.  It did mine.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoyed seeing the Walled Garden in February.  Perhaps I will be able to sneak in again in March to see what I can find.

Thank you for your comments on any of my blogs.