Tuesday, 26 April 2016

Amigeon That!

Warning! Serious Post Alert


Patch birding is amazing. For the last couple of years I have spent days and money gallivanting around the country twitching Irish ticks. Or, bashing the ditches and gardens of Mizen Head trying to route out Northern Parula Warblers and Semi-Collared Flycatchers. But those days are gone my friends.


Ive been introduced to patch birding. Not only does it save money and time and heartache but it also turns up the odd goodie, like this male American Wigeon last Wednesday. 



And while it wasn’t a life tick or even a county tick it was a patch tick and a finds tick. I must atomic finding this lovely duck on the patch along with finding the Great White Egret the week before gave even me more pleasure than twitching that stunning Dark-eyed junco on Dursey last June. It just goes to show what can happen a patch is checked for an hour at least every other day. This is a lot of fun.


I will continue to pishhh myself into a splitting headache on Mizen and yes I will twitch the next juicy yank that ends up in Scott's Garden, Patch birding however has been a revelation. I genuinely cant wait to see what turns up next. And more than anything else I look forward to those jealous texts messages full of unrepeatable obscenities from Seppy when I find the next rarity on my Clonakilty/Inchydoney patch.

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