Banging them in

A chiffchaff in the garden prompted us to review our scores, and we found we'd been a bit lax of late. An update including snow bunting (less than annual), mallard (not golden) and perg brings us to 53 species or 68.24%. All good stuff. Just behind Shaky (who was on tour recently I saw) and that pesky upstart Tintin. How did he get out in front??
And in other news we bumped into our absent friend Statto a couple of weeks back in the studio. He passes on his best wishes even if he can't be arsed joining in the competition.

Another little bunting sighting

Following my badly seen but calling vigorously fly-by little bunting across the garden and down the lane in a force 8 gale last month, Old Spoons jammed into presumably the same bird on Galley this afternoon, and he got shots too, before it inconveniently disappeared again for the rest of the afternoon!

Old \Spoons, this pm (Ciaran Cronin)

Presumably both sightings involve the same bird seen in the same area by one lucky observer back in October, but I guess there's no way of knowing. There can't be many (if any) spring records of little bunting in Ireland, so chances are its the same individual, Hope it finally settles down a bit!

Quiet otherwise, although 2 chiffchaffs and a black redstart indicated a bit of movement through the crease - missed the latter last year too, so that was a welcome year tick! 70 species up for the year...