Sedge warbler today brought up the majik 100 species on the new patch at Squince, and takes me to 81.97% for the year. Happy daze.
Recent highlight along the way has to be a rather stunning Hoopoe I bagged during the week. I'd been thrashing the patch diligently, and had just nailed the first whitethroat of the year. I was happy with that, but felt there was more to be had. I parked up at the south end of the causeway to Myrosss Island, thinking to myself "I'll just check these gardens for a Hoopoe". As I left the car an animated resident waved me down.
"I see from your binoculars you're interested in birds," he was obviously an observant chap. "I've had this strange bird visiting the garden the last couple of days, and wonder, could you tell me what it is?"
He proceded to whip out his phone to show me a shit distant video of what was obviously a Hoopoe. FFS! That was the potential find scuppered. But the important thing now was to nail the bastard.
I checked all the adjacent gardens and drew a blank. So I spread the net a bit wider and... boom!
A rather lovely Hoopoe gave itself up for a spell before flying off. Wonderful!
With news out, the following day all manner of folk descended on patch and it turned out there were TWO (count 'em) Hoopoes. It developed into quite the mini-twitch.
Most West Cork birders managed to see at least one of the available Hoopoes over the next few days, except for Seppy, who somehow managed to dip twice. That's Hoopoes for ya!
In other news, the Proccies roller news honed my observation skillz, and to my surprise and delight I discovered this evidently long-staying roller on patch. Looks like it's here to stay too.
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