January japery

Yes indeedy, its been quite a good start to the year so far at Galley, with a whopping 75 (count 'em) species racked up already, and there's still a few days till the months end.

Most year ticks have been regular, expected gank, but there's been a few goodies too in the form of spotted redshank, marsh harrier (my first on patch since 2013!) and goldeneye, which can be tricky these days, and true to form did not stay long.

A bit of unseasonal early gank cashed in too including whimbrel, chiffchaff and black redstart (ooo migrants), while the sea has so far produced one manx shearwater.

Plenty to play for, and indeed to get anywhere near the podium this year I am gonna need plenty! 

Lets golf this....

Quite a week on the patch!

Yes indeedy, the magic didn't wear off on Sunday but kept going right through the week. Monday and Tues were quieter though, with just a new pied flycatcher for me troubles. But things kicked off again on Wednesday when the conditions were very promising - nice light south-easterlies and a bit of patchy mist and drizzle.

With no evidence of anything new at Shite Lane and Marsh lane, I very nearly didn't bother doing the top lane, as I had a ton of brown envelopes to go through back in the office. However, it was very fortuitous that I made the effort.

After bumping into a couple of whinchats, I was scanning the fencelines in the mist when I was momentarily confused by a weird looking male wheatear on a post. But something didn't look right about it, so I edged a bit nearer....

Not a male wheatear...

The penny dropped. Grey shrike sp! Looked small and long-winged - shurely it had to be a lesser grey shrike! Then it flew and I lost it. And in trying to find it got distracted by a bunting going "pwit pwit"....

An ortolan, yesterday

Ortolan bunting! Huzzah! A classic early September score for Galley - we probably average one every couple of years here. Meanwhile where did the shrike get to?

By this time, Chris had shown up with a scope and we managed to relocate it at the bottom of the top lane, where we got better views

Look at the primaries on that! [Photo: C. O'Sullivan]

Whilst watching it, we noticed that it was colour-ringed - and once this news had gone out we were informed of the existence of a Spanish reintroduction programme, with eggs and chicks being reared to fledging and then released into the wild. More on the project here.

Lets leave that there shall we? Did score a bonus turtle dove on another late pm sortie....

Moving on to Thursday, and after the rain moved through I thought I'd have another punt around, only to bang straight into my first pectoral sandpiper at Galley, on the wee stream that flows out of Marsh Lane

A pec sand yesterday (uncropped)

It was really tame, and actually flew towards us at one point. I commando crawled over the shingle to get some closer shots, thinking of Derek Nimmo all the while!

Majik

A great wee bird! Twitching a fine wryneck this am surely brings this amayzing spell at Galley to an end? We shall see....

Still second last in the Golden mallard standings tho!

patch tickage

two (count 'em) spotted redshanks on the lake on monday morning were a full fat patch tick. Interestingly they were there the previous night too but I considered them to only be common redshanks then - but no! Also 3 redpoll flying over this am keeps me nicely ahead of Shakey, by a whopping 0.01% - hoo hoo!

handy gank year tick!

In between getting amayzing views of the Dirk rb fly (down to 5 feet!!) and finding another ybw (three on patch this year - good going for Gallilee) I picked up three (count 'em) fieldfares, which just happen to be a year tick! Huzzah! My celebrations were cut a little short by news that Shakey had just had a flyover Serin on patch but hopefully I'll still be on top this evening! But probly not by very much!!

galley update

Been a while! Had a dodgy skulky redstart sp in de garden a couple of weeks back which I'm having as common redstart cos it was keeping to trees (and I've had black red already!). After umpteen blip views of pallid harrier on Shetland, it was no surprise to get a blip view of a harrier from de house the night after I got back - just a hen tho - good one all de same. And finally, twitched a fine juv woodchat shrike on patch on saturday - got me out of the painting - huzzah! Just 1 more year tick needed to shoot past the Prockulator Fiscals!

Have a pic!

A woodchat yesterday

Some shetland snaps over on me other blog here