July 26, 2005
Sniping at Bally cotton
Went with H.H and G.G to ballycotton for an evenings birding.
Started out at pilmore strand with little here save for 2 med gulls and good numbers of whimbrel. 10 juv grey plover were also here and a few dunlin.
Ballycotton had very good numbers of dunlin, up to 250.with small numbers of sanderling and one adult summer knot.A juvenile med gull and good numbers of whimbrel also here. No spoonbilled sandpiper unfortunately!
A long eared owl was a nice year and cork tick on the way home near bally maloe house!and salvaged the trip dramatically!
Pariah
Worth while links
Carmo Police
My (outdated) website
July 25, 2005
Jammy BAS!!
Found an adult hobby on the way to dinner in roberts cove last night!
Bird flew over minane bridge whilst i was looking for night herons!
Girlfirends are useful for something i guess! ;)
Pariah
Carmo Police
My (outdated) website
July 22, 2005
Damn you met eireann!!!!!
This is an apology.
I dragged 3 good birders out of bed at 4am on the basis that there would be South westerlies and mist and drizzle this morning!!Instead of this forecast given to me at 6.30 pm on thursday we were "treated" to blissfully calm seas and a beautiful sunrise off galley head at 6.30 in the morning!
Met eireann has alot to asnwer for!!!I will now seek out a wise old mad who lives on some headland on the south west cork coast and will ring him to ask which way the wind is blowing from now on!!
Apologies to Harry, Dara and Graham for a wasted morning, fatigue and the wrath of your family/flatmates/other half!!!(of which i suffer from no such retribution at all ;) )
Pariah
Worth while links
Carmo Police
July 20, 2005
Galley again....again!
(running out of catchy titles)
Went out to galley yet again yesterday evening!Had some good close cory's this time and some sooties in a strong passage of manx!no balearics this time mores the pity!
Will ease off the site now until some good seawatching weather blows in!
Pariah
July 19, 2005
Galley again
Went on a quick evening trip to galley with H.Hussey in the hopes there would be some birds passing.
Arrived at the tip at about 5.45pm and instantly saw that there were a good few Cory's shearwaters floating about albeit distant. Harry picked up a nice balearic shearwater towards the end of the seawatch and we left at about 7.30 with few other birds of note. Westerly winds and odd patches of cloud cover just werent condusive to a good passage. Worth a try though.
We stopped at the red benches in clonakilty were i found a second summer Yellowlegged gull. And the glaucous gull was still present at ring.
Not a bad evening birding!
Pariah
July 18, 2005
Vroom Vroom
FINALLY!!
My car is now down in cork which means i am fully mobile!!!Spent the whole weekend driving...and found nothing!but thats because its july and its 30 degrees in the shade!
Went to clonakilty on saturday looking for the laughing gull but had no luck with that.
On sunday went down to ballycotton, ballyvergan and pilmore strand!
A nice tern roost at pilmore but nothing major with them.
An adult mediteranean gull moulting out of summer plumage was present here.
And yet again came across more shananigans in a public car park.....the corkies must be mad for outdoor shagging.......disturbing
Moved on to cobh were we had 2 med gulls at cuskinny, a second year and an adult. A first summer ring billed gull was alos present here.
Off cobh itself we had a large flock of gulls which produced circa 10 med gulls including 1 juvenile.
Most of the others were adults.
Pariah
July 13, 2005
Sootylicious
Twitched the sooty tern in dublin but dipped.
Never had a chance really but i wish we had known that before going up.
Turns out the bird may have been present yesterday and suppressed!!
Heads may roll!
Pariah
July 11, 2005
Coming down.
After Last weekend things were unsuprisingly quiet around cork this weekend.
I saw the cork city Laughing gull again on penrose wharf before catching the bus to Ballycotton.
Bally cotton was incrediibly tame apart from the couple i disturbed in the car park.....ask no questions!!!
On sunday i worked the douglas estuary with Harry Hussey but we saw very little.
....more south westerlies!!PLEASE!!!
Owen
July 02, 2005
Losing the head at galley head!
Seawatching!!!YES!!!My favorite thing in the whole wide world...well....after THAT!......Arrived at Galley at 7.35 am...just in time to see a fea's petrel fly out of view!!A truly awesome bird, my closest view of this species and my third encounter with this most enigmatic and delightful seabird.
Fea's petrel is perhaps the most desired bird in the irish birding scene.I dont know wether its the constant imagery used by the IRBC and other publications, or the fact that so many have been recorded by just a few observers but it has become a sort of quest for irish birders to get the mega that is Feas.
This bird was so close we could see its eye and the white markings on the black underwing. With its characteristic bent flimsy wing look as it went around the corner. The first bird i put my scope on that seawatch, it felt like i had twitched the species which was a very strange feeling. For the rest of the seawatch i was in a state of disbelief.God knows how Colin felt, he found the bird after all!
Cory's Shearwaters were streaming by in their thousands!With a scattering of greats and sooties mixed in with them!A few bonxies and arctic skuas. I found two adult sabines gulls and a pomarine skua, both scarce off the south coast!The only bird i missed was the leaches petrel that went by...but ill see them off the bridges later in the year!
At lunch time went back to clonakilty to get a bite to eat...but i skipped lunch after finding a 1st summer laughing gull beside the red benches....i seem to be lucky at that spot...after seeing it fly i realised that it was a different bird to the cork city laugher, having a full tailband, lighter coloured head with brown lores.and a strong carpal bar on the wings.
What were the odds?
went back to galley for the evenings seawatch were we got great views of corys and great shearwaters in the evening again.
All in all a fantastic day, showing galley to still be a seawatching spot par excellence!!
Its days like that when you say to hell with the bridges and its constant barrage of salt water spray and the smell of urine!Galley is still the best!
;)
Pariah
http://pariah.redbrick.dcu.ie
