Not another one!

A good morning on Galley - first up was the new magic bush, which is a big patch of knotweed out on Galley. Today this contained (count 'em) one cracking male redstart, one reed warbler, one blackcap and several willows and chiffs. Nice! Whilst grilling it, a green sandpiper flew over calling - another year tick!

Duly fueled up on migs, I set off round the rest of Galley eager for more. However, there didn't seem to be that much more- a couple more blackcaps, several wheatears and a few phylloscs, when all of a sudden I heard an odd phyllosc call at Shite Lane, sounding like a nasal, high-pitched willow warbler. And then this appeared...

Western Bonelli's Warbler, Shite Lane, Sept 2016

This is obviously the same bird that I had here last year - it must have been here the whole time. Or else it popped back for another visit. Great to see it again!

white-winga

A glaucous gull graced me patch this morning - tad damp tho, as the following record shot will verify!

A wet glauc earlier

Another handy for the year tho!

Good game, good game....

First day of sunshine for 2013, so used my New Year Resolution to be more active as an excuse to take the bike for a spin around the patch. Dipped on dipper at Cononnagh for the second day running, nothing new along the river, no raptors hanging out at the little disused quarry, flat calm and empty lake.

It was all looking a bit desperate until the squeeky front brakes flushed a male pheasant out of some scrub. I knew lack of maintenance on that bike was the way to go. Ganky game bird it may well be, but that pheasant takes me to 42 for the year and up to 50.90%, just 0.3% off the top spot. Oooohhhhh!