Happy New Year -- and an all new patch for 2026

Thank Christ that's over!

2025 began well enough, when I somehow managed to stumble across that 1st Winter Boni's gull on 01 January, but little did I know just how prescient the title of that very post would turn out to be.

It was all downhill from there. Whilst spring produced hoopoes to beat the band and a string of other migrants up and down the coast, Squince barely registered a year-tick. Seawatching produced feck all of consequence and autumn? Autumn never really happened at all.

All of which leaves me languishing in second-to-last place on a rather insipid total of just 91.77% for the year.

But this is not a time for looking back at the inadequacies of an uninspiring year... it's a time to look forward to a new year, a brighter future, and a brand new patch. Yes, indeedy, it took just four years for me to get thouroughly cheesed off with the whole commuting back and forth to a coastal patch thing. So we're selling up and moving to the seaside.

We won't actually be moving until March, by the time all the paperwork and legal shenanigans is done and dusted. But there's no point switching patches mid-season, so I'll be working the patch around the new des res from tomorrow.

But where is this mysterious new patch, I hear you cry...?

Well, it's not too far from Galley Head, as it happens. You could describe it as "Galley Adjacent", in fact, if you were so inclined. It's a wee spot known to the local birding fraternity as Strawtown, in the townland of Dunowen right next to Red Strand beach.

Here's a map to help illustrate thusly:

Map showing the outline of the Strawtown Patch (in a fetching shade of pink)

Note the conveniently added dogleg to take in the pub at Fisher's Cross, so I can count flyovers while sitting outside with a pizza and a pint on the two days of sunshine West Cork gets every year. As is his wont, Seppy has, of course, been busy sticking his oar in over-egging inflated estimates for my patch total/target for year one. 

So, congratulations to The Proclaimers, for it appears the Mallard is going to be heading their way in due course. Meanwhile, it's time to draw a line under a depressingly unremarkable year at Squince, and look forward to a prosperous and tick-filled 2025 at the new Strawtown patch.

Lets Gooooooooooo!

Happy New Year ya langers!

Anas victorious??

 And a spring of teal just now on the pond takes us to 85 species, or 112.4%. They snuck in under the wire after being absent all year. Will that be enough?

Let's shank this

 Yes indeedy - in near-crazy scenes this very am I can report that I have finally recorded redshank for the year. To quell any doubters, I also report that it was beside the spotted redshank, thereby allowing a handy compare/contrast ID situation and eliminating any doubts. 

All this excitement is because my total for the year is now 149 species, which equals my best evah total from way back in 2012. With about 3 weeks left in the year, breaking the mythical 150 species barrier is shurely back on? Lets find out.....