Coot Club

Limited birding opportunities today so there was massive excitement this morning when I scanned the lake and found this...

A coot, honest

It doesn't get any better than that! Well, it didn't for me today anyway.

globbies

Took a while but eventually caught up with the 2 glossy ibis between Owenahincha and Rosscarbery - saw them a couple of times swirling around over the main road on the school run and then found them in the field beside the road on another day.

Globular on-deck action

This is the first attempt of handheld phone-scoping, and so impressed was I with the results that I tried again on the black guillemot that has been hanging about on the lake the last few days. The results speak for themselves...

very tystie

It was miles away, and I couldn't be arsed getting off the patio! Tried really hard to get the globbies on the patch list yesterday morning, but unfortunately there was an inconvenient hill in the way. Did get wigeon, grey heron  and sparrowhawk  on the year list tho (63).

glauc

Another strike at Red Strand this morning, with a 1st w glaucous gull visible from Dirk (68), with a 1st w iceland gull and 2 med gulls there too. Had my first go at digiscoping too, despite the bad light and strong north-westerly (photographers always blame the weather!) Not great but the camera seems to work pretty well with the scope! More practice required. Behold, a heavily cropped med – could be a lot of this sort of thing over the next while!