Antrim Marina - Thursday 22nd January 2026...

Antrim Marina - Thursday 22nd January 2026

I was only two minutes away from Antrim Marina, when I decided to turn the car around and head back home to Ballymena.  Just prior to this, I had called into a filling station in Antrim to purchase two loaves and began to feel unwell.  Feeling a lot better, though not perfect this morning, I returned to Antrim Marina.  The way things panned out, I would have been better staying at home.

Arriving at 11am, by 2pm, I was so bored, this weeks weekly visit was cut short.  Studying a wintering population of Black-headed Gulls - where are they?  Around 30 gulls were present on my arrival, and numbers dropped slightly soon afterwards and never recovered.  So far this winter, I have recorded 27 colour-coded birds and several other gulls have failed to return.

I had to wait until 11:53 to record my first gull which was -  2FKA  which had been ringed here as a juvenile in the Autumn of 2024.  Today's total finished on a very disappointing 5 gulls, leaving me with 22 absentees today and no new returnees.  The 5th gull recorded at 12:46m was -  2AAN .

You know you're going to have a bad day, when the ever present resident -  2CJT  is also absent.  Low numbers were not only noted amongst the Black-headed Gulls, but with other species as well (read below).  The only bit of joy I had today, was at 12:30, when a pair of legs hit the roof of my car, followed with the sound of a hungry juvenile Black-headed Gull.  For a few weeks now, this youngster normally hits the roof on my arrival.  It is so tame, it takes bits of bread from my hand.  Little does it know, it is about to be caught and ringed.

In an email from Suzanne Belshaw, she had recently visited the lake at Lurgan Park in County Armagh.  Normally, high numbers of Black-headed Gulls can be found there, but on her visit, just six were seen.  These low numbers at Antrim and Lurgan makes one wonder what is going on!!!

Colour Ringed Black-headed Gulls Recorded at Antrim Marina on Thursday 22nd January 2026

2FKA	2FIF	2CSK	2BRA	2AAN

As I was about to depart from the Marina during last week's visit, a metal-rung Black-headed Gull caught my eye.  With the ring glinting in the bright sunshine, I could see that it was a taller ring than the standard BTO ring, so I knew this was a foreign bird.  Grabbing my camera, I set out to photograph the gull and zoomed into the ring to capture the digits.  On checking my photos, I could see that the gull was from Finland, and I had the digits - ' 347.186 '.  I was unable to capture the two preceding letters, but checking my Main Ring Reading Spreadsheet for other Finnish Black-headed Gulls recorded in the past, the letters were than likely to be ' ST '. 

I decided to go ahead and send my sighting to the Ringing Centre at the University of Helsinki, as -  ST347.186 .  I had hoped for the ringing details last Monday, but they came in on Tuesday afternoon, my sighting was accepted. 

 ST347.186 , was caught and ringed on the 14th July 2024, as an unsexed adult with the use of a trap.  The ringing site was on the south-west coast of Finland, at a site just south-west of the town of Pargas (Parainen in Finnish).  My sighting was the first for this gull, coming 1 year, 6 months and 1 day since being ringed.  The distance to Antrim Marina was given as, 1,774 kms / 1,102 miles (W).

Great to obtain a result for this bird.

Black-headed Gull  -  Finland   ST347.186   -  Antrim Marina, Antrim Town, Co. Antrim  (15 Jan 2026)

(Ringed as an Unsexed Adult, on the 14th July 2024, in Pargas, SW Finland)

Other Birds at Antrim Marina

As mentioned above, today was not good concerning other species, notably, Common Gulls and Mallards.

The only Common Gull recorded today, was a juvenile at 12:29, which was still present when I departed.  A high of 15 adult Common Gulls were recorded here a couple of weeks ago.

Mallards numbered around 20 birds throughout the visit.  A few years back, numbers pushed up to the 80 to 100 mark during most weekly visits.  The pollution of Lough Neagh (especially Algae) must be affecting the number of ducklings survival rate, with a much reduced number of insect life.  Gone are the large clouds of Mayflies.

8 adult Mute Swans and a single cygnet were present throughout today's visit.  Two of the swans are the resident pair (female ringed -  X4707 ), and the cygnet belonged to them - the only one of six remaining.

The juvenile Herring Gull belonging to the resident pair was also present throughout my visit, with it's father arriving at 12:44.

The adult Moorhen was also present throughout my visit.  With far less gulls present, it checked out all of the jetties and the car park looking for gull droppings which it eats.

As normal, a pair of Jackdaws made repeated visits.  The male Pied Wagtail was present throughout, and a pair of Hooded Crows made a very brief visit.

Not only was a lack of birds about, not many people passed through either.

**********************************************************************************