barney and me

Got word of 2 barnacle geese just off patch this lunchtime (thanks KW!) so obviously had to try and get 'em from within the patch boundary. Luckily Old Spoons was at my gaff at the time so we headed off eagerly to see what we could see.  The birds were on a flooded field between Rathbarry and Red Strand, but unfortunately were invisible below a small ridge from the nearest spot on the patch.

Luckily a willing volunteer did the decent thing and it wasn't long before the two barnacle geese decided they'd like to see how things looked from above the flooded field - hey presto, there they were zooming over the ridge, straight onto my patch list - happy days! Discovered later that they were a Cork tick too - double bonus!

Any geese are mega at Galley - I've only seen brent goose on 3 occasions in 10 years, and otherwise I've only seen egyptian goose (potential 1st Irish!!) and ruddy shelduck (which isn't technically a goose, but hey its close enough). So far I've resisted ticking either on my patch list, but handy to have in reserve.

I nipped back late pm and managed to get a shot of them in the gathering gloom, thusly:

patch tickage baby yeah!

Maybe winter isn't quite so bad after all!

courtmac & timoleague

Took a wee spin to Courtmacsherry this morning to have a sconce at this

Surf Scoter, Courtmacsherry

Unfortunately it was a bit more distant than it had been yesterday, so the shots were correspondingly even poorer than they might have been! Only discovered on checking this evening that my last surf scoter was 10 years ago to the very day, at the same site! Spooky!

On the way home I stopped to check the gulls at Timoleague and found 2 adult yellow-legged gulls in amongst the lessers - here they are in situ...

2 adult YLG with LBBs

and in more detail

Jeepers, I feel like Gavin Haig

C'mon Gav, talk us thru this fella!

Still find these fellas tricky & don't feel confident about them at all. Reckon it must be down to my deprived Scottish upbringing! Kind of getting the hang of adults tho - just need to find one on patch now!