Pintail ya bas!

The first and last time I claimed pintail from the patch, back in 2009, there was huge outcry and an eventual steward's enquiry, (which was decided in my favour, obviously). So imagine my surprise when I spotted this beauty swim through the scopeview on the lake this very afternoon (127)...

er, its the duck on the right...

Looking even more wondrous in this pic

 So there ya go - only my second record for Galley, after the 5 at Red Strand that were clearly visible from a well-selected spot on the patch approximately 2.5km away. This one was a (from the) garden tick too - Bonus!

Er, the female Goldeneye is still here too...

Been a while

The spring has slowly limped along, but with very little to show for it at Galley. Today was no exception until I looked at the lake. First surprise was a male gadwall, which I think is my 4th record here.

Scorchio!

Imagine my surprise when a male shoveler swam into view from a wee bit to the right of the gadwall - fantastic! My second record I think, after this amayzing encounter!!

Quackers!

So, still no real migs to speak of, but two juicy ducks for the year - bingo!

Lady Elvis

Having spent several of my formative years birding the north-east coast of Scotland, I got fairly blase about seeing Elvis, the resplendant male king eider that spent most summers loafing about on the Ythan Estuary & getting jiggy with all those females. It was always a great bird to see, but you'd usually end up bumping into it several times in a year.

Fast forward er a few years and its a different story. Up till today, I'd seen one king eider in Ireland - a male at Lady's Island in August 2008. So, I've been quite tempted by the female thats been loitering around on the Beara peninsula the last few weeks. This afternoon everything fell into place - finished work and Beara was kind of on the way home - give it a lash!

And lashing it was! And the wind was getting up too. Still, I struggled across a field or two and scanned the bay at Cahermore. After a while I noticed a duck. Through the scope I could see it was the queen eider swimming into the bay. A  bit of repositioning and the views were good, although it wasn't long before she turned around and started swimming out of the bay again. Still, I'd had a good look and it was still raining! Four (count 'em!) glaucous gulls were duly counted and I saddled up for home, as conditions deteriorated further.

Queenie herself (Photo: C Cronin)

A grand day out for a Cork tick! Sadly it was too wet to attempt any dodgyscoping, so here's a snap taken the following day by Old Spoons.

patch tickage baby yeah!

Well, the inevitable finally happened! A calm and dry morning first thing so I hurried back down to the scoter-scanning-spot to try my luck at bagging the lingering velvet scoter off Cloghna Head (approximately 1.5 miles off-patch). The scoter flock was still there, diving just off the rocks at the base of the head, seemingly unperturbed by the still fairly huge swell. It was quite easy to pick out the female common scoters, despite the salt spray, but seeing any kind of detail of the head pattern on the other birds as they bobbed up and down was pretty impossible.  However, my luck was in, as after only a few minutes, the velvet scoter flapped its wings briefly, and the white wing feathers shone out! Patch tick! Whoop! 30 minutes later, I clocked it again from the lay-by on Cloghna Head, on the way home from the school run - confirmation that the velvet hadn't morphed into a white-winged scoter overnight!

As the morning remained calm and dry, I had a quick scout around for migs, but couldn't do better than a solitary chiffchaff - the migrant floodgates are still to open hereabouts!

Final score of the day came in the form of a flyby 1st winter iceland gull from the dinner table this evening - April does seem to be the most regular month for these guys - another valuable year tick, bringing up the 90 with only a handful of migrants so far! Plenty still to get!

A twitch to Mizen Head

Finally got a chance to go for the two black ducks down near Barleycove on Mizen Head today, and was glad I made the effort! The two were sat on a flooded pool by the side of the road opposite the Barleycove Caravan Park, near Cockles Strand, looking very pleased with themselves!

Even though they were pretty close, I still managed to balls up the following record shots, but note the white underwing and lack of any rings on at least one leg! Fortunately one of the shots is almost in focus! Almost!

Look at the underwing on that!

Unringed (on one leg anyway!)

Couldn't get them both with their heads up at once! 

And then they went to sleep, no doubt still wrecked from their tough Atlantic crossing, so we left them to it!

otters and ducks

Sitting at the breakfast table this am when I noticed a duck flying around. On raising the bins, I could see it was the female long-tailed duck and that there was an otter in the lake nearby, and this was what was flushing her off. A bit later I dragged the scope out onto the magic patio for a proper look, Now there were two ducks and two otters! One of the ducks was the female long-tailed duck but she'd found a friend - a male tufted duck, which just happened to be a year tick (77) - result!

Exhibit A - ducks!

Another chance for me to practice my amazeballs digiscoping techniques - a lot more practice required!!

more migs

Its been a busy week for year ticks! Although things slowed down a little after the bumper harvest on 1st May, there’s been plenty of on-patch action to keep me busy.  Weds & thurs were quiet enough, with numbers of willows, caps and ears slowly dropping off after the big fall, although I suspect there were still new birds moving through.  Friday morning also had nothing new, but a late afternoonspotted flycatcher at Shite Lane lifted the spirits, and was quickly followed by 20sanderlings on Long Strand – not seen many in spring – some were just coming into summer plumage too.

And then this weekend its been all ducks. Still bashed the patch both mornings, and had another spotted flycatcher and a male whinchat this morning, but an ever-expanding aythya flock on the lake has proved good value for year ticks, with 4 tufted ducks, 2 pochard and a female scaup all gleaned.

The discovery that I’d omitted pheasant from the year-listing proceedings was very welcome. I’d had an inkling that I maybe hadn’t counted it, but kept forgetting to check. All in all, patch year list now standing at a whopping 109 to date – beating my previous best in 2010 by 2 species and 3 days – all good!

Its currently blowing a stiff south-easterly and bucketing down with rain – what’s to be had tomorrow I wonder?

full fat patch tick

A lovely morning at Galley, and with no distractions, I headed out, with a big slog round planned. Hadn't got further than the beach when I noticed 5 blobs sitting on the beach - a quick check with bins, convinced they'd be oiks, so was amayzed to see 5 shoveler sitting there! Patch Tick! Incredible! (64)

Patch Gold!!!

Luckily KC showed up in time to verify them before they flew off. After that mammoth success, there didn't seem much point in continuing further, especially with the news that it was very quiet, so I bailed, and headed home to gloat on the net! A check of the lake later revealed that they'd relocated there, and looked quite settled. A long awaited patch tick, and a total surprise - patch listing don't get much better than that!