pleasant valley sunday

Cracking day to be out and about! With divers flavour of the month, I had a good look off Long Strand this morning, but couldn't do better than 50 red-throated divers and 19 great northern divers - both nationally important counts! Things were steady on the lake, with 50 teal, 2 wigeon, 1 tufted duck, 44 little grebes, 1 coot and the great crested grebe, while the female/immature black redstart was still messing about on the beach at the surfers end of long strand. The year ticks have dried up though!

mid morning break

A morning sojourn around shite lane produced a grey wagtail for my troubles (83), but little else.

garden dove

A collared dove sitting on the phone wires at the bottom of the garden  this morning was an unseasonal visitor to the patch (82).  One little egret was also around, proving that they didn't all succumb during the big freeze, though numbers generally seem pretty low just now.

two more for the year

Minimal effort spent on the patch today, but still gleaned fulmar and kestrel for the year (81).  A (the same??) red kite was seen briefly over Rathbarry late morning, and a 2nd winter med gull flew over Long Strand early afternoon, while the great crested grebe was still on the lake, with 14 tufted ducks. The juvenile spoonbill was still loitering at Ross this afternoon too.

oh no, not another red kite!

A wander down Dirk this afternoon didn't produce very much, but on the slog back up the hill, what should come winging over the bay but Galley's 4th red kite in 2 weeks! This one was tagged, a red tag on its right wing, which, I've been informed by a reliable source, means its come from England. I already suspected that this was were the 3 others came from, but its good to have it confirmed, in this case at least. Hopefully, it'll be possible to work out where the one with the purple tag on the left wing came from too. Anyway, the kite started soaring a bit, and then dropped down to land on the cliff edge between Dirk and Red Strand, but we couldn't pick it up from further up the road, unfortunately.