Castle Espie

Cafe with a view - from the Castle Espie visitor's centre

In 2002, staff from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, monitoring the migratory habits of Strangford Lough's winter population of pale-bellied brent geese with satellite tracking devices, noticed that the signal from one of the transmitters had been  stationary, somewhere in Canada's High North, for some time. They correctly guessed that the bird had died; and when they tracked it down they found the transmitter intact, still attached to the host and inside the freezer of the Innuit who had shot it.

Yesterday was the official opening of the remodelled - more or less reinvented - Castle Espie Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre near Comber, just a few miles north of Islandmore. It's a birdwatcher's dream and as the landscaping matures it will become even more impressive.

The crannog hide