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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

County Louth (formerly Dundalk Bay) local patch. (6 Viewers)

Peter Phillips said:
Found/Refound Adult male Ring necked Duck at Descart Lough (Discovery Series 35) 7km south of Carrickmacross. If your driving from Dundalk its about 28km. When you arrive in Carrickmacross, take the Kingscourt Road. After 3-4km there is a left turn and Descart Lough is signposted from here about 4km due south. You will see the small lake on the right of the road dont stop keep going till you get to lay by for fishermen. Bird easily viewed from here with 30 tufties. Rahans Lough, Lough Fea and Ballyhoe Lough are all nearby and the birds seem to commute between them.
Whooper Swan ,Wigeon and 120 Tufties on Lough Fea.
Nice one Peter, presume its its same bird from Ballyhoe you found last year.
 
Hi all, haven't been on the forum for a while but would like to wish all of you a very happy and healthy new year. Good birding in 2007.

Was out and about this morning - a quiet day if recent standards are anything to go by. Called in to Lurgangreen around noon, the tide was well in. Totally blown away by the number and diversity the site holds at times like this. Huge numbers of oystercatchers - surely of international importance. Good numbers of goldeneye, pintail, knot, godwits. 20+ greenshank. 2 little egrets, 1 peregrine. Approx. 500 greylags and 250 brent on the marsh.
 
Enda said:
Nice one Peter, presume its its same bird from Ballyhoe you found last year.

Thanks Enda, Yes I assume so. Ballyhoe is only 2km south east of this site. Off now to look for Crossbills and check other lakes around Carrick
 
Black Redstart in Monaghan

While out checking the lakes around Carrickmacross today I stumbled upon a Black Redstart at Monalty Lough -R178 on Dundalk Road about 3km east of Carrickmacross. Its a left turn just before the lake, drive down until you get to fishing layby opposite small house and big red barn I flushed the bird from the railings and it flew to a cattle drinker in the field beside the house -hopefully it might be wintering.

(If you can see the lake on the left, from the Dundalk Road with Swans feeding in the fields, you have just missed the turn.) The main N2 road over head is the next landmark followed by the sign for Nuremore Hotel.
 
ardnasx1 said:
These are Derek's directions for Mullahattin. You can try going in at the 2nd barrier on the left, it was in there I saw them. It seems to be hit and miss with the crossbills, we looked for them numerous times earlier last year with no luck when everyone else was seeing them, so good luck with your search. Good spot for ravens, jays and plenty of other birds too, it's never disappointing.
Edit: These are the same directions as Margaret referred to, we posted at the same time!

Thanks Margaret, Sandra et al for the Crossbill directions. Will have to wait tilll next tuesday. It might have stopped raining and blowing a gale by then
 
a dowitcher sp. was found this morning at Dundalk docks by Eamon L.
its looking good for a short billed (but not 100% confirmed) hopefully better views tomorrow will nail it
 
Dowitcher

Enda said:
a dowitcher sp. was found this morning at Dundalk docks by Eamon L.
its looking good for a short billed (but not 100% confirmed) hopefully better views tomorrow will nail it

Great find by Eamonn - especially if Short Billed - is it only 4 or 5 previous Irish records?? Was down myself for 40mins or so this evening in fading light but no luck.
Should be a test tomorrow to identify if its long / short billed, as both species treated as one up to 1950! Differences in call are a reliable way to tell the two species apart -found this site where you can listen to it -
http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/250/_/target.aspx
 
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Derek Watters said:
Great find by Eamonn - especially if Short Billed - is it only 4 or 5 previous Irish records?? Was down myself for 40mins or so this evening in fading light but no luck.
Should be a test tomorrow to identify if its long / short billed, as both species treated as one up to 1950! Differences in call are a reliable way to tell the two species apart -found this site where you can listen to it -
http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/250/_/target.aspx


Had the Short-billed? Dowitcher at the Docks at about half eleven. For 5 minutes.The bird was feeding close to the end of the island opposite a rusting crane. I walked as far as I could down (trying not to get run over by trucks). I tried to prepare myself by reading the surfbirds articles before I went down. It does look indeed very short billed. Although i did not notice the top third kink refered to in the article.In fact, in proportion, to a nearby Redshank its billed looked only slightly longer. It appeared to have the swollen base to the bill and quite a steep forehead with the eye more centrally placed as per the surfbirds article and had quite a flat backed appearance.. not hunched. Wing proection not to sure looked level with tail but cant say for certain. Legs lenght-wading in deep mud, forget it.The bird was not well lit but the flank spotting looked grey and blurred not barred. Upperparts inc. wing coverts plain gray but light not great. Hopefully somebody might get some photos to clinch it.
 
Peter Phillips said:
While out checking the lakes around Carrickmacross today I stumbled upon a Black Redstart at Monalty Lough -R178 on Dundalk Road about 3km east of Carrickmacross. Its a left turn just before the lake, drive down until you get to fishing layby opposite small house and big red barn I flushed the bird from the railings and it flew to a cattle drinker in the field beside the house -hopefully it might be wintering.

(If you can see the lake on the left, from the Dundalk Road with Swans feeding in the fields, you have just missed the turn.) The main N2 road over head is the next landmark followed by the sign for Nuremore Hotel.


The barn refered to is gray not red! Inside painted red. No sigh of the bird today but only stayed for a few minutes. It may well have been in or at the back of the barn. Three large"Guard Dogs" killed me with kindness and I left feeling slightly embarassed but flattered by all the attention.

Just before the turn for the lake there are 5-6 large houses grouped together
with stone/block front walls the turn is immediately after the last house. There is a hand drawn green sign on the last lamp post before turn.

No sign of the Crossbills at Jenkinstown
 
Hi guys,

Congrats on the find...great bird for the county list. Has it been definitely identified as SBD? Any photos? Unfortunately i was away while the last bird was at tacumshin and dipped on the Bull Island bird so am interested for obvious reasons. Again, well done to all concerned!!!

Mícheál
 
M Cowming said:
Hi guys,

Congrats on the find...great bird for the county list. Has it been definitely identified as SBD? Any photos? Unfortunately i was away while the last bird was at tacumshin and dipped on the Bull Island bird so am interested for obvious reasons. Again, well done to all concerned!!!

Mícheál

Gerry O'Neill got some video today.
 
still best described as a dowitcher sp. for now.have seen the video stills taken by Gerry and while it has a lot going for it, its not conclusive. as im sure u are all aware there can be considerable overlap in the 2 species and some people consider the call as the only sure way
 
M Cowming said:
Congrats on the find...great bird for the county list. Has it been definitely identified as SBD? Any photos?

Hi Mícheál, Here's one very crappy shot - the bird is elusive tending to forage around the edges of the spartina "islands" and going into the spartina, snipe-like, but very busy, generally does not flush with other birds, very distant for call. But it does seem to be sticking to the same small area straight opposite the quay wall, on the spit beyond the breakwater and the channel beside it. I'll try to upload some fo Gerry's shots later - i think he was having some connection problems...btw i think this is actualy the third county record for this species, second anyway!
 

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Short-billed Dowitcher

Attached are some photos Gerry O'Neill sent of the Dundalk Dowitcher.
Having read "Dowitcher Bills" by Pekka Sarvela a surfbirds article I decided to do some rough measurements of Gerrys video grabs.

The article details the use of bill lenght:head lenght ratio to try to seperate the two species of Dowitcher and also the shape of the bill base, in particular the dept of the bill base in relation to the dept or width of the bill.

For, bill lenght: head lenght ratio, the article quotes 1.5 for short billed and above 2 for Long billed. 1.7-1.8 can be either species.
My rough measurements for two of the stills came out at 1.54 and 1.72.
Looking at the graphs in the article this gives > 80% chance of the bird being Short-billed Dowitcher.

I then looked at bill shape (again this is only rough work). Short billed has whats described as a high bill base i.e. the width of the bill close to the base of the skull is much broader than the width of the bill below the nostrils.According to this paper this feature is diagnostic. In Long billed the difference measured was only 10% difference ie the base of the bill was only marginally broader than the bill measured immediately below the nostril. For Short-billed the base was 70% broader than the bill width immediately below the nostril. On a measurement on the last photo I got a difference of 100% ie the base was twice the width of the bill width below the nostril. I think this measurement is slighty off because the bird is heading away from Gerry at the time. However even though my measurements are not taken in perfect profile or the shots are not the clearest, its obvious that the bird does exhibit a bill base a good deal broader than the area immediately below the bill.

What do the rest of you think!
 

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at least 3 experienced birders(2 irish & 1 yank) have formed the opinion,from what they have seen in gerrys pics,based mainly on structure that it is in fact a long billed dowitcher. still an excellent bird for Louth
 
Hi guys,

Hard to determine much from the photos, dowitchers being difficult at the best of times!! Still, would be worth trying to hear it call just to be sure. As already mentioned, still a top find! They're all too thin on the ground down here too.

For anyone interested in seeing the Wexford SBD...see the following link.

http://www.irishbirding.com/sbd.html

All the best,

Mícheál
 
at least you dont have to face the long drive up this weekend,michael. and just to rub it in, ive seen both the wexford & dublin S.B. Dowitchers
 
Hi Enda,

Already planned to have a go for the Bufflehead so hopefully it's still there. Quite a bit of stuff knocking about in Clare aswell so it should be a good day out! I'm sure I'll connect with a SBD some day....Dungarvan Harbour would be nice!!! Have a good weekend guys!
 
hope the bufflehead is there for you Micheal,an no doubt a s.b dowitcher is on the cards somewhere close to u soon
all the best
Enda
 
Enda said:
at least 3 experienced birders(2 irish & 1 yank) have formed the opinion,from what they have seen in gerrys pics,based mainly on structure that it is in fact a long billed dowitcher. still an excellent bird for Louth
The link to that discussion is here: http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0701b&L=birdwg01 see items six and seven. Killian Mullarneys comment was heavily leaning towards long billed but not ruling out short billed completely yet...(hope springs eternal!)

"From: Killian Mullarney
Subject: Re: Dowitcher in IRELAND
Comments: To: Kevin McGowan
Comments: cc: gerry o neill

Kevin's spontaneous assessment of this bird based on Gerry O' Neill's video-grabs (see http://www.birdguides.com/birdnews/pictures.asp?t=376810) is very welcome, as there has not yet been any public debate on the identification in Ireland (Dundalk, incidentally, is on the east coast of Ireland, not in Britain).

I have not heard the reasons why this bird is considered probably a Short-billed and I am unsure if this tentative identification is proposed by observers who have seen the bird or if others have offered this opinion based on the photographs and verbal accounts. Either way, I don't think anyone involved would be inclined to "presume" anything when it comes to identifying a distant winter-plumaged Short-billed Dowitcher in Europe, where Short-billed is very much rarer than Long-billed.

I received slightly clearer versions of Gerry's shots last night (which I'm sure Gerry wouldn't object to me forwarding to anyone on this list who'd like to receive them) but I cannot discern anything to make me think it looks more like a Short-billed than a Long-billed; indeed, several features, if they can be determined reliably from these images, point to it being a Long-billed. It appears to have more Long-billed-like diffusely darkish centres to the brownish scapulars and in most shots it looks decidedly round-backed. I'm not sure how reliable an indicator of Long-billed this round-backed look is, but in marginal quality images of this kind I am wary of judging the subtle plumage differences that help differentiate between the two dowitchers in basic/winter plumage.

There is a good chance this bird (discovered only a couple of days ago) will linger and that when the strong winds die down it will become easier to view, and maybe even to hear a call. In the meantime, it would be good to hear the opinions of others on this list who take an interest in dowitcher identification.

Regards,

Killian Mullarney

----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin McGowan
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 5:54 PM
Subject: [BIRDWG01] Dowitcher in Britain


I just got an alert from Birdguides that pointed to a presumed Short-billed
Dowitcher in Britain, at
http://www.birdguides.com/birdnews/pictures.asp?t=376810. A quick look
made me think Long-billed, based one round body shape and bill
length. Anyone else care to comment?

Kevin


*****************************************************
Kevin J. McGowan
Co-editor, New York State Breeding Bird Atlas
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
159 Sapsucker Woods Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
607/254-2432
fax 607/254-2111
[log in to unmask]
http://birds.cornell.edu/crows/
 
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