a wader day

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May continues to surprise, with a few year ticks still dribbling in. Since the last post, I’ve jammed a huge flock of 16 (count ‘em!) bar-tailed godwits and a soaring buzzard, as well as a wee late fall of spotted flycatchers (at least 8). Wasn’t expecting much today on the mig front, and couldn’t do better than 2 collared doves and a lingering spotted flycatcher. However, waders were on the move today, as a look at Long Strand showed – another 2 bar-tailed godwits consorting with a knot!! And lingering in view for several minutes! Unheard of!

Noticed a massive number of hirundines on the deck in the horse field by the lake late morning – there must have been at least 150 swallows, c30 house martins and  the odd sand martin hunkered down – never seen them sheltering like that before! By mid-afternoon, numbers had at least doubled, but couldn’t pull anything rare out of the bag. 10 dunlin on the lakeshore was another spring wader bonus though – 113 and counting!

more migs

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Its been a busy week for year ticks! Although things slowed down a little after the bumper harvest on 1st May, there’s been plenty of on-patch action to keep me busy.  Weds & thurs were quiet enough, with numbers of willows, caps and ears slowly dropping off after the big fall, although I suspect there were still new birds moving through.  Friday morning also had nothing new, but a late afternoon spotted flycatcher at Shite Lane lifted the spirits, and was quickly followed by 20 sanderlings on Long Strand – not seen many in spring – some were just coming into summer plumage too.

And then this weekend its been all ducks. Still bashed the patch both mornings, and had another spotted flycatcher and a male whinchat this morning, but an ever-expanding aythya flock on the lake has proved good value for year ticks, with 4 tufted ducks, 2 pochard and a female scaup all gleaned.

The discovery that I’d omitted pheasant from the year-listing proceedings was very welcome. I’d had an inkling that I maybe hadn’t counted it, but kept forgetting to check. All in all, patch year list now standing at a whopping 109 to date – beating my previous best in 2010 by 2 species and 3 days – all good!

Its currently blowing a stiff south-easterly and bucketing down with rain – what’s to be had tomorrow I wonder?

patch bogey nailed at last!!

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An amayzing day on patch!! Galley was heaving with common migrants, and the birding was great! It was a bit like a uk east coast fall, I guess, not something that we are used to over here! The common stuff consisted of at least 200 willow warblers, 150 wheatears, 40 blackcaps, 20 sedge warblers and 10 whitethroats, while scattered in amongst all these were 4 grasshopper warblers, 3 whinchats, 3 cuckoos, 2 redstarts, 2 lesser whitethroats and a reed warbler. My best moment of the day was walking a hedge with willow warblers flitting everywhere when suddenly, bam! a garden warbler jumped out in front of me! Patch Tick! Patch Bogey nailed! In a day of big winds, it was the showiest bird I saw, which was just as well as its taken me 9 years to get one on patch! Ridiculous!

A call of black kite late in the afternoon had us all out scouring again, but no joy! However, the day wasn’t over as a tree pipit called explosively from somewhere, 2 cuckoos appeared from nowhere and a short-eared owl came in being mobbed by corvids – only my 3rd one on patch, and 1st one for several years! Excellent altogether!

With patch gank like ringed plover, manx shearwater and common sandpiper all falling too, the final tally on the year list front was 12! That where to watch birds in Ireland Galley section definately needs a re-write now!! (103)

Bit windy out!

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Bloody ‘ell sheila! Its been nothing but strong northerlies for the past two weeks and up until this weekend, spring had all but stalled! However a singing sedge warbler on thurs night was a sign that birds were getting through de wind, while on saturday we actually had a pretty big fall by Galley standards – upwards of 20 blackcaps and 50 willow warblers, plus cracking views of a grasshopper warbler. All the birds seemed to be just fresh in and were moving along the hedgerows into the stiff northerly wind. Shame I didn’t have time to get round the whole patch!

Sunday was a similar story, with fewer caps and willows, but a stronger wind so maybe birds were just keeping lower? A few wheatears were in evidence, another gropper at the light (though missed a reed w there), and a collared dove was at Shite Lane. Best of all was a wind-blown cuckoo late afternoon – cracking views as it struggled to cope with the conditions – only my 5th here in 9 years, and first one since ’09 – good to get another one (91).

Night heron treasure hunt

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Today I was Anneka Rice for a while! Got a call about an adult night heron in skibbereen late morning and had a tricky decision to make as I only had an hour before the school run. And skib is 30 mins away. Feck it. I went. And skib is actually only 20 mins away! Who knew?

Anyway, with the town centre jammed, and the clock ticking, I switched to HMU mode (highly mobile unit). Hoofing along the pavement, knocking grannys out of the way, whilst on the phone to Julian for directions, I realised I was Anneka Rice in Treasure Hunt – that tedious race-against-the-clock pointless excercise that used to be on Channel 4 years back. Just as the clock was nearly run down, I found the secret passageway that Julian was on about, and hey presto – there he was! Shortly afterwards, once I’d stopped gasping, I even managed to see the heron!

 

Yes indeed, back in the territory of piss-poor record shots! Bird duly ticked, it was back to the jogging and cursing and knocking over grannys all the way home, and even made it to the school with 2 minutes to spare. Happy days.