Big Royzah says hello

 Yes indeedy, for there is (some) news that Royzah has made it over the door at least once this year, and he scored well when he did venture out.

A black redstart, yesterday

Only his 3rd evah on patch apparently, which is quite amayzing considering how many years he's been slogging the Don. No further information about any other birds was provided but I'm guessing he's on at least 1% by now.

All to play for....

Bangin' them in

 Yes indeedy, just a quick post to highlight recent progress - banged in merlin, peregrine and collared dove over le weekend, and jammed into early migrants or possibly over-wintering whimbrel and chiffchaff today whilst exercising the Hound of Destiny so all good.

No pics from the patch but here's a cheeky shot of the Waterford Spotted Sandpiper that I twitched last week - just happened to be in the area.

A spotted sandpaper yesterday

In other news, I see Shakey is also still bangin' them in on his patch - if this keeps up we'll have to send the boys round to give him the good news....

Ooooo Migrants

 Yes indeedy, the long wait for spring is finally over. It started on thursday pm when I bumped into 2 fresh-in chiffchaffs bouncing around the gorse bushes on the top lane. By friday, numbers had increased to at least 9 birds although I'm sure there were way more than that, as birds weren't being very showy in the stiff easterly breeze.

Managed to get out again on sunday, when in addition to 4 more chiffs, I banged into a very smart male black redstart briefly, before it booted off. Always good to get a black red nice and early in the year.

Another quick look in the wheatear-less fields this lunchtime and sadly, while they were still ear-less, I did glean a sparrowhawk for the year and another chiff.

Any day now for the ears, hopefully!

Hello below me!

 Yes indeedy, these are strange times on patch, with plenty missed and some things seen, and a few other bits in between....

Forgot to add a seawatch update from last week which saw me net a bagful of large shears as well as patch goodies such as long-tailed skuas, pomarine skua, grey phalarope and best of all, two full fat leach's petrels! Which was nice.

Away last weekend and an incendiary Old Spoons enpatch led to me missing a whopping eight (count 'em) year ticks, however I was able to claw back a fine whinchat and connect with an even better redstart on monday to close the missed gap to just the six species. or so I thought. The redstart was good enough to get me over the near-mythical 100% barrier too, which is miraculously early - game on!

However, news of a yellow wagtail  and a short-eared owl on patch on tues, followed quickly by reports of a red-rumped swallow by one lucky observer yesterday am and another report of a hobby by another lucky observer fairly had me gnashing my teeth!

All you can do is get back on the horse though, so out again I went after work, and soon I'd clawed back spotted flycatcher for the year, before stumbling into a showy and lingering long-eared owl (shurely yesterdays reported SEO?) which performed well for the quickly assembled crowds...

Easily my best ever views on patch, with only one previous record from dusk one summer evening in 2012.

All good! Onwards and upwards....

Lets get this partay started

 Yes indeedy, its been pretty good at Galley of late, in an "its early but there still might be something around" kind of a way. A burst of south-easterlies 10 days ago brought a wave of 19 (count 'em) bramblings through - it was quite exciting bumping into birds after they'd just dropped in!

some bramblings, er, a week or so ago

Several black redstarts around too, and lots of chiffchaffs and then yesterday, the highlight of the spring so far in the form of a cracking male ring ouzel just outside the office - nice!

a black redstart, day before yesterday

But of course the major piece of skill was spotting that the Owenahincha cattle egrets which have been hanging around for a couple of months now had followed their cows into a field that was at last visible from the patch! I was able to clock them from the comfort of my trusy swaro scope last friday, at a range of approximately 4km off patch - a whole new low! Huzzah! Only my second ever record from the patch, with the first waaaay back in 2008!

4km, last friday

And finally, hot news of two (count 'em) gadwall on the lake this lunchtime - all to play for!

Springing up the leader board

I've been surprising myself (and Seppy, I think) with an uncharacteristic burst of enthusiasm. Somehow I'm managing to drag my normally sedentary carcass all the way down to the coast on a reasonably regular basis to check the new patch. It's yielded many of the usual suspects, and a few pleasant surprises to boot.

Highlights include a rather fetching female Ring-necked duck that turned up in January, and is still on the lake hanging out with the tufty flock. She was joined in February by a female Goldeneye... also still there. 

Spring kicked off last week with at least 6 black-redstarts and a couple of fine-looking male Brambling on patch. No wheatears yet, but squillions of chiffchaffs have arrived. Nothing more tasty yet... but not a bad start.

All of which shennanigans takes me to 86, or 70.49% for the year.

Coastal commitments naturally mean I can't be arsed slogging around The Mall much these days. Even so, garden and car tickage is keeping things ticking over (see what I did there?). Best bird, and a full fat patch tick, was a fly-over Ringo a couple of nights ago.

So The Mall is on 51 species, or 65.11%.

Amayzing!

Quite a weekend on the patch

Its been light easterlies for a good while now but things have remained slow and steady on the year list front, now that the autumn has officially started. The calm conditions at the end of August resulted in good numbers of waders going through, with two knot being the best, while I also had to twitch a spotted flycatcher found by Old Spoons just in case the autumn was as dud as the seawatching season has been. 

However, things picked up on the mig front on 1st September when both pied flycatcher and coot appeared; the former being more regular than the latter. Saturday morning saw me keen to avenge the painful miss of 3 stock doves and a flyover dotterel during the week and I duly scored with a fine whinchat on the lighthouse road - one that I missed last year.

Exhibit A - a whinchat

A while scanning the sycamores of Dirk produced another spotted flycatcher, plus a few phylloscs, when all of a sudden a bigger, warbler appeared in the foliage. Clearly a hippo, it didn't look "long-winged" and had no wing panel - melodious warbler! My 4th at Galley, and first since 2017. All good!

Another spotted flycatcher

However, things were to get even better on Sunday. Out again on foot, it was slow to start with, with the odd phyllosc here and there, until the blue house garden produced another spotted flycatcher and better yet, a fine redstart, my first for a couple of years.

blurred and on the huh, yesterday

Encouraged to push on, that was it for a good while, until I bumped into a small, pale warbler bouncing around a field edge. Luckily the camera wasn't still in the bag....

Eeeeeeek!

Fortunately the bird was very obliging, and seemingly oblivious to my presence. The way it was bouncing around suggested it hadn't been in long, but I was able to get a bit closer and confirm my suspicions that the bird was a booted warbler!!

Getting closer, and nearly in focus.....

It flipped back over the hedge and I was able to sneak up and point the camera at it for one more burst before it was away across the field and into a large sycamore bush, with literally masses of cover beyond...

Booted Warbler, Galley Head, 5/9/2021

I never saw it again, despite giving it a good while. Finding a rare is so often such a massive slice of luck that it does my head in! If I'd spent another five mins trying to get an even better redstart pic I would have missed the booted altogether! Sometimes everything comes together tho, and makes all those empty slogs round Galley worthwhile!

more of it

The cold easterlies continued over the weekend, which kept the mig diversity largely limited to willow warblers, wheatears and a smattering of blackcaps.

However, saturday morning was livened up considerably with a cuckoo calling and flying around the gardens at Shite Lane! Checking back in the annals reveals that a whole 8 years have elapsed since my last cuckoo on patch, which was part of the big fall of 1st May 2012, which you can read about here!

Sunday morning was quieter, with no cuckoo, but Old Spoons usefully dug out a grasshopper warbler, which allowed me to stroll down and casually bag it for the year, easy enuff, bringing me over the 70% barrier for the year.

'ear we go! #blurredandonthehuh

A flurry of spring patch gank

Well, the usual suspects have arrived in force... resulting in some much needed, if hardly unexpected year-tickage.

Nothing extraordinary, but the return of regulars like chiffchaff, willow warbler, sedge warbler, blackcap, gropper and whitethroat to the patch, along with the usual hirundines, puts me on 72 for the year or 82.44% in real money.

That's just enough to slingshot me back to the top of the leaderboard... for now. The worrying thing is we're still only in April... and with the exception of one or two sitters (perg and jay still to get, for example) leaves me with precious little to look forward to.

It's going to be a long, long summer!

Migrants and blunders

An eventful few days at Galley, with a fly-by, calling richard's pipit last week, a few yellow-browed warblers appearing over the weekend, while on Sunday I nailed my 4th ever great crested grebe on the lake, before bumping into a immature red-breasted type flycatcher at shite lane, which we'll have to come back to later.

What a beauty!

What wasn't so nice was deciding to go on fieldwork the next day, allowing Old Spoons to slip three (count 'em) tree sparrows (full fat patch tick), 2 stock doves (not had stockie on patch for 3 years) and a firecrest past me - Doh! I got back in time for an evening thrash but to no avail. He got photographic evidence of two of the claims so I can't even rubbish em!

Back on patch on Tuesday....

Ooooooof

An eared owl sp last night in the dark was inked onto the list as a short-eared owl. After missing a patch tick & 2 good year ticks on Monday, there's no way I'm missing out on another one just because I couldn't actually ID it!

I've updated the leader board for Bushveld, Mr Nimmo, Royzah and moi. Two over the ton already - could be a nail-biting finish!

Odious warbler

Blundered into a hippo on Sunday morning - flew out of the Shite Lane sycamores and into the maize field, and that was that for the morning. By the afternoon the bird had returned to the trees and we were reckoning it was an icky. However, subsequent scrutineering of photicular material resulted in questions being raised over this ID, and its now reckoned to be a melodious warbler. Fair enuff, can't win them all, though personally, more time looking at the bird and less time trying futilely to get shots would have been a better way to go!

Here's a couple of shots courtesy of Old Spoons anyway, so you can make yer own minds up!

fat lumpish jizz etc

Still, its a good bird for Galley, even though we did our best to stuff it up! Spot Fly for the year too - Bonus!

Blue-headed wagtail !!

Another quiet morning round Galley though I didn't have long. I've been checking the few cow flocks on patch for associated wagtails the last few mornings with no luck but on my last stop before home this morning I struck lucky! A cracking blue-headed wagtail was in amongst the cattle, although it didn't make for easy photography...

hiding in the grass

out in the open

amongst the cows

Good record for Galley - yellow wagtail is tricky enough here, and this is my first flava-type on patch!

Old Spoons does the business

Due to parental constraints I was unable to do much on patch this am, so it was up to Old Spoons to find me stuff so I could go and see it this pm. This plan very nearly backfired, as no sooner was he out of his house but he was finding year ticks a-plenty. First he kicked off two lapland buntings, which never came back. This was a bit annoying, but when a 20 minute birding opportunity (tm) came my way mid-morning, I hurried down the track to where they'd been and on the way I flushed this...

A snow bunting, trying not to look blurred and on the huh

This is obviously not being flushed. In fact this was skillfully stalked this afternoon by crawling on my belly up the grassy strip on the top lane. Luckily there was no poo or thistles encountered.

Anyway, I continued on my 20 minute sojourn and bumped into this...

a stoat, standing up

Sadly he wasn't in the sunshine or the shot might have been better, or perhaps not.

So that was that, until the afternoon, when I had to slog round Galley again trying to see this

A ring oozel, nearly anyway. I could photoshop the crescent white, but I haven't

Success! Easy when you know where to look! And I did! Bingo! Another punt for the laps but nae luck, however I did get lucky with a rather fine firecrest loitering in the Dirk Bay fushias, well a couple of them anyway. There's rather too many for my liking down there.

Also scored another couple of flight views of the richard's pipit, from the other day - its still aboot.

I saw yer dix

Richard's pipit breeeeefly at Shite lane this noontime - sun was barely over the yardarm. Also 3 (count 'em) lesser whitethroats - rarer than ybw hereaboots

Galley on fire!

The madness continued all weekend with Old Spoons finding an Ortolan Bunting on saturday am, which I verified in the pm. I then stumbled into what I think was a different bird sunday am (looked much brighter & fresher, and less streaky underneath) - saw it in Old Spoons garden while he was out too - result!

Banged in siskin and pied fly too - all to play for!

The 200 club

Rain all day until a clearance early evnin. Up to Old Spoon's gaff on the promise of a lesser whitethroat. It of course didn't re-materialise but I did stumble into my first ever rosefinch, which sat up nicely looking as stunned as I felt!

A fumbled phone call to Old Spoons meant he was able to come and watch it flying around over his house while his dinner got cold - result! Back down to Shite Lane only to blunder into Mr Faulty's garden warbler from yesterday - only my 2nd ever here - for some reason I just never see 'em! Amayzing scenes ensued!

Finally broke the mythical 200 species barrier with the rosefinch! Marvellous!

A steady(ish) trickle of migs

So the massive influx of hoopoe to Ireland's south coast managed to skirt around the edges of my little patch, with nary an exotic interloper to be found anywhere within the patch boundary (no change there then).

Exotic surprises notwithstanding, the steady arrival of usual suspects like blackcap, sedge warbler, whitethroat and (finally) house martin, augmented by the occasional resident like a calling long-eared owl from the garden a few nights back (outdoor nocturnal teeth-brushing still paying dividends)... march me onwards to a respectable 87.06%.

No gropper yet though... which is a bit of a worry.

keep on keepin on

Been plugging away at Galley (i.e. havin a quick look at Shite Lane on the way back from dropping the kids at school most days, unless its freezing) and got a couple of rewards this morning - 2 (count 'em) chiffchaffs - both calling and looking like regular chiffs - 1st migs of the year! And then, even better, a distant group of 10 or so fieldfares in a far away tree from the patch - one I missed last year so was keen to nail 'em this winter.

Happy days!

Oh and Shakey's been shaking his thang in the kingdom and is now claiming to be in 2nd place! A likely story...

more of it

Yesterday was hard work but eventually managed to pin down two yellow browed warblers as well as adding redwing, black redstart, and ring ouzel to the year list - think I may be ahead of Nimmo!

struggling on

The October dearth of birds finally ran out yesterday as I successfully netted (football parlance, not ringing parlance) a yellow browed warbler at Shite Lane and then a tree pipit over - the pipit is about my 6th here I think - rarer than ybw! Anyhoo, together with siskin and redpoll, these are the only year ticks so far this October. Puts me back into 5th spot, just ahead of Bushveld for now. Hoping for a bucketload more this arvo when the rain clears...