Bird Photography Websites and very wet here in Northern Ireland

Sometimes I despair on two occasions in the last three days I have written my latest blog to erase it by mistake without saving it.
Third time Lucky I hope.

I have been working very hard on my links site for Bird Photographers.I have been trawling the web for sites and then copying and pasting them into a database. I have well over three hundred now and am dividing them up by country. In time I will review each site. I would like to build the site into a reference site for other Bird Photographers to go to, to look for other peoples work. For now here are a couple that are well worth having a look at Alan Murphy from the USA and Markus Varesvuo from Finland.

Well my Bird List is not getting any longer I am at 137 and at the beginning of the year I had hoped to get to 200. I have my doubts whether I will succeed unless I start driving longer distances within Ireland. I could of course go and visit my sister in Scotland at her Cottage/B and B. She has nesting Ospreys within five miles and is only an hour or mores drive from The Rspb site at Lough Garten in Abernethy where I could possibly see Crested Tit,Scottish Crossbill and Capercaille. Or even go and stay in Suffolk with my brother in law who isnt far from Minsmere where I could increase my list considerably Bittern, Avocet etc. I was volunteering today at RSPB Belfast Harbour and I met a guy called Ivan who happenned to be a boyfriend of a friend of a very good friend of mine;its a small world. Ivan reckoned I would probably have difficulty getting to 200 especially as I had dipped at least five or six birds recently. He's probably right.

In the last week we have had alot of rain for Northern Ireland especially in May.(Depressing) In the past I reckon May is the best month of the year in Ireland. Now where I do alot of my birding is at the Castle Island Hide on the Quoile Pondage and in the last week the water level has risen to the highest Ive seen it and in doing so has destroyed
two Gt Crested Grebe nests and two Coots nests and those are the ones I have spotted. The Dept of Environment and Heritage Service(DoE) , in my opinion , run the reserve very poorly when it comes to the bird breeding season. The Quoile Pondage has a barrage at the end of it which is controlled by sluices. All it would take is the DoE and the Water service to liase and keep the water at a certain level. Thats Government departments for you nobody with any balls to make decisions until its too late. it would also probably take two years of meetings to make a decision.

Here's to better weather next week.