today is all about anseriformes. well, actually just the suborder of the anatidae. ahm, to be even more precise... it is all about ducks, geese, and swans. and do not think i am an ornithologist. i just like animals. and it seems the best place to see those animals in ireland is at the wetland reserve called castle espie wetland centre. as it turns out, the castle espi wetland centre[02-065] was right next to our last accommodation. furthermore it turns out, there is no castle anymore, just the wetland centre is all that's left. and also it turns out that today was a special halloween day for kids, so the place was full with families and little kids. this day, so full of twists and turns. although extolled by the information centre, we did not spot a single otter. too bad, we really would have loved to see one. but it seems they are really shy, or maybe they are already long gone. who knows. so, they really have a large collection of ducks, geese, and swans. unfortunately i cannot name any of the fowls on the pictures. they all looked different to me, so i guess it must be... a lot of different birds. especially cute was the duckery[54-55], where young birds were kept separately from the rest of the flock. there were also trails leading to hides where one could watch wild birds at the shore of strangford sea lough. while all the ducks were "domestic", those were the real wild birds. therefore also quite far away from the loud humans in the wetland centre. then it was time to get back to dublin, as we had to return our car today. we did the usual stuff before returning the car, like cleaning it on the inside, filling the tank, and such. but before the actual return we brought our luggage to the hotel where we will spend the night. it was quite hard to find a parking lot, but we finally made it. as the rental car hire was not far away from our hotel, we decided to walk back to the hotel. on our way we made a stop at the "the bleeding horse" pub to have an amazing burger. some people in the streets seemed to be going out and were in halloween dresses or costumes. since we were pretty tired, we did not join the party crowd, but rather got to our hotel, the stauntons on the green. today the weather was like the average day of this trip so far: cloudy and overcast. the temperature dropped to 12°C. track for day 06.