Parian in origin

Posted by pariah at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2006

Easter eggs and birding

alpine 2.jpg

alpine 1.jpg

I had to go back to dublin to get my car back!...which conveniently coincided with 3 alpine swifts over bray head on saturday morning!
Class views of this species..far superior to the cork individual!

On sunday went down to wexford.
Cahore had numerous common migrants including a male blackcap, willow warblers and chiffchaffs.

The northslob had a single whooper swan, 2 white fronted geese and a female scaup.
Tacumshin produced the female smew but there was no sign of the garganey.
A full adult summer little gull was also present here.
Arctic tern and house martin were gotten as year ticks!

It was great actually getting to spend some time in dublin city again....and i mean the real city. So much more vibrant and ethnic than cork.
It was great walking down henry and grattan street and seeing everyone out enjoying the sunshine.

Even hearing all the skobies on the LUAS was great!;)
"Ah yeah shoor i had some chips n cuddy sorce for me lunch bud"

Class entirely.
Getting the DART down to bray was fun also.
Really took me back to my early days birding and heading down to south dublin bay with the CAS-meister looking for little stints and black throated diver.
And the south side accents were class. A load of rugby heads on the fone to their mates.

"yeah im on the DORSH man, ill see you in the Ice Bor later for a few heinos"

And a shower of daddy's little princesses aswell.

"OH MY GOD it was so like, aaaaaaaghhh"

I miss home.

I scoffed an impressive 4 easter eggs over the weekend......

A big gracias to my man Disco Rob for his pics of the alpines, and sprawk.
Hope you survive camping at Tac!

Pariah

Worth while links

Posted by pariah at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2006

A strange week

On monday did the loch and was suprised to see that the 3rd year yellow legged gull was still present! The first year laugher sill present and looks happy to stay!
Good numbers of swallows and sand martins also here (no house martins tho...still havent seen one this year)

Yesterday i went down to ballycotton in the evenin with Brian Lynch and Sean Ronayne to see the alpine swift present there.
We arrived shortly after it had gone (quite early) to roost.
We could see it clinging to a crevice in the cliff....thank god i didnt need it as a lifer or irish tick cos it wasnt a good view at all.
Hopefully it will hang around for the weekend and let me get a better view.

Pariah

Worth while links

Posted by pariah at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2006

A non birding weekend

I had the lads down from Dublin for a weekend of serious drinking...the only birding done was a quick stop at the lough to get CAS laughing gull for his irish list...and finding a 3rd year yellow legged gull also.

Sin é.

Pariah

Worth while links

Posted by pariah at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2006

Return to dublin...and wicklow

A return to dublin...necessitated by car repairs, resulted in a rather decent weekends birding!
On saturday we went out looking for migrants in north dublin.
No sign of any migs on howth, but a few swallows came in off the sea at baldoyle.
The greatspotted woodpecker was still at evora park, on the feeder waiting for us!

Found a moulting adult Spotted redshank at rogerstown..(they seem to be everywhere i go!)

A second year yellow legged gull and 2 med gulls were at Gormanstown along with good numbers of sandwich terns.

On sunday we went down to kilcoole area.
The franklins gull seemed to be following me, first on webbs field....later i picked it up high in flight over the reedbed to the north of Kilcoole car park.
And then later again i refound it miles to the north at greystones rugby pitch.

Good number of migrants were around, including, chiffchaffs, willow warblers, sand martins and swallows.
One early common tern was off shore and a good number of little gulls were also present.
Hundreds of manx shearwaters were also offshore.

Not bad all in all.

Pariah

Worth while links