Yes indeedy. Barely has the news got out, but the blog is hopping with an almost live update from Big Royzah.....he's just found a red-rumped swallow on his patch, which is a full-fat patch tick no less.
"It flew past about 100m from me on the golf course and kept going over the river towards town.", said Royzah shortly afterwards.
Skillz
No pics so here's wan I took earlier of the juv American Golden Plover just off patch in Clonakilty...
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| An american golden plover earlier |
The last few days on Galley have been fairly quiet on the mig front since getting back from Shetland but I've still been banging in the year ticks pretty regularly. Catching up with spotted flycatcher and greenfinch was a top priority, while jamming a cattle egret from the Majik Patio (tm) was a bit of a bonus.
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| A spotted flycatcher, yesterday |
Even the lake has started doing the business, with up to two (count 'em!) coots, a fine lapwing, a flyover spotted redshank yesterday and today a brace of pintail turned up - top stuff!
Out again for more this am, and bumped into a nice ringtail Hen Harrier over the fields, which showed well before it booted off east across the bay.
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| A hen harrier, er, today |
No shots of the distant pintails, but I just had a feeling that there could be something else out there today so sacked off opening brown envelopes and went for another wander down marsh lane. I could hear something going "tac" but when I looked, I could only see a phyllosc. It took a wee while to confirm that it was indeed the phyllosc going "tac", and with better views I was happy that it was in fact a dusky warbler!!
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| Wahay! |
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| It was really getting dark by this point! |
Took a while to get a reasonable shot, as the bird was pretty mobile, never sitting still for long. It was calling nearly every time it moved so it was quite easy to tell which bush it was in, just difficult to get prolonged views! Hopefully it sticks around tomorrow, and that these south-easterlies bring in a few more goodies!!
It's been a while since posting anything, mainly cos there's been very little to shout about.
August passed by without notice. Managed to pick up six species for the month: kestrel, dunlin, golden plover, ruff, bonxie and common tern, all making up the numbers.
September was no better, except that I wasn't here for half of it; which was nice. Sooty shear', yellow-browed warbler and a merganser was the months tally. The merganser though was only my third for the patch, reflecting my lack of seawatching as it should be annual, if only I could be bothered.
Anyway, these rather meagre pickings hauled me up to 116 for the year and 94.82%.
The good news is there's still 8 species to be found before the end of the year which have been recorded 80% of the years, so should be almost bankers.
Happy days
Bushveld
