May rolled around yesterday, and the welcome addition of Whitethroat elevated me to a healthy 88.56% on the leaderboard. Majik!
Spring brought with it a smattering of the usual migratory suspects, including the hirundines, the common warblers (here's looking at you Willow, Blackcap and Sedgie) and a couple of handy Groppers. Wheatears finally put in an appearance in late April, and a couple of Sarnie Turns off the wee headland at Tra an Oilean were most welcome.
Other notables included a couple of SEOs on patch in April, and a fine Yellow-legged Gull in amongst the large gulls at the Blind Harbour roost.
Undisputed bird of the spring on patch... and one of the birds of spring for the whole of County Cork, according to our infamous local birding TD (the Irish version of an MP), was the fabulous Red-rumped Swallow duly highlighted by Seppy in this post (thank you kindly sir). Seppy twitching birds on my patch is the ultimate form of validation, and is rapidly becoming something of a habit. Long may it last.
Here are a couple of shit record shots of it, just because...
Apart from the swallow, it's been a quiet spring on the rarities front, with nothing much out of the ordinary turning up anywhere. And it will be June soon... roll on the summer doldrums *sigh*.
Onward!
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