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!

scouring for hoopoes

I love calm, sunny spring days at Galley! Inevitably, I start fantasising about finding hoopoes. And today was no different, particularly after the news of a hoopoe at Ballycotton this morning. I've found one hoopoe at Galley before and I enjoyed it so much I'd like to find another one!

So, as soon as I got free from work I headed out. But where to start? The only problem with scouring for hoopoes at Galley is that there are literally hundreds of spots where you could find one. So you have to check them all. So I did. Well, a lot of them anyway - as many as I could fit in. But couldn't find any hoopoes today. Maybe tomorrow then. I'll have to scour the place all over again!

Although I failed on the hoopoe front, I cashed in on the wheatear front! A full 5 days earlier than the average date which is 15th March. Win!

ooo migrants

and a bit closer er more zoomed in

Admiring my carrots? Yes, they are rather fine!

So that was that! Not as good as a hoopoe, but always great to score the first ear of the year - 1st one I've heard about this year in the county too - spring is finally here!

Dodgyscoping for beginners

Finally got a digiscoping adaptor for my SLR and scope so had a couple of rushed attempts at getting a "great capture" - looks like there's a lot to learn altho I'm quite pleased with the horses!

Prepare for a dodgyscoping master class!

best of a bad bunch

Otter from the Magic Patio

Horse of the Day

Iceland gull on the lake

Iceland gull

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.

ross's for cork

After six hours standing around scanning Kinsale Harbour over 2 days last week, news that the ross's gull was back yesterday was a tad galling, if not entirely unexpected. As it turned out, I wasn't free yesterday but decided to give it a lash again today, although I only had a couple of hours.

There was no sign at Kinsale Marsh or on the estuary  - not a great start, but then this bird has totally failed to show any kind of a pattern so far, apart from being elusive! So it was back to my favoured spot near the Trident Hotel, where I'd spent nearly all my time last week (apart from a wee detour here - it was Kev's idea!)

Today, there was a small flock of mostly large gulls loafing on the far bank, with a small white thing beside them. I returned to the car for the scope to grill the small white thing, just in case. It was a plastic bag. Arse! But then, I just scoped a wee bit further along the bank anyway and Bingo - a small pink thing! Ker-ching! Score! Boom! etc. Momentary panic - do I reach for the camera? or phone? or just grill it in case it evaporates? I kept an eye on it while I put the news out on @corkbirdnews (everyone's favourite free news service for rare birds in Cork!), and then rattled off a few shite shots. And then it flew! Amayzing little thing in flight - really pink underneath and the tail was pink too! Fabulous!

What a cracker!

It zipped around in front of the hotel for a bit so I moved closer, before it flew right past me and landed on the water just in front of the very spot I'd been stood at last week - I ran back for some more hasty snaps...

Ka-blam!

It then flew back to the pier and hotel and at this stage some other birders were arriving and got on it. It continued to perform for a while before flying out to land on the water mid-channel and drifting off into the distance, round a small headland and away! After the runaround last week, I was delighted to have connected so well with the arctic tease!

Sadly, we noticed a bit of oil on the bird's belly, but it looks fairly light and hopefully won't affect it too much. Hope it stays around for a while and becomes a wee bit more regular in its behaviour!