County Galway Birding (local patch) (3 Viewers)

County List 2009

195 Lapland Bunting Dave McNamara Silver Strand 25th September
196 Lesser Whitethroat Anthony McGeehan Inisbofin 2 October

It took this long but I finally seen the Great Egret at Rahasane!!!!!!!!!!!!!:t:

Peri was there on usual rock and lots of wagtails all over the place including one white-my 1st for this year.

Golden Plover, Blackwits, Lapwing, Wigeon et al there in force. Water low and possible to get to the river.

197 Red-breasted FlycatcherAlex Lees, Slyne Head 4th October.
198 Garden WarblerAlex Lees, Slyne Head 4th October.

Both county ticks for me so hope to connect tomorrow morning and hopefully dig something else out as well. With the big guns going to Inis Mor for the week I somehow think we'll hit 200 for the year again. Common Nighthawk anyone?

2 Spotted Redshank at Kilcaimin today

Skua at Nimmo's

Skua at Nimmo's Pier this evening. I think it was an Arctic Skua. It sat on a rock for a few minutes before flying off. Can't seem to upload any of the photos... must try again later.

Is Snow Bunting on the yearlist yet? I think its the only species we've added to the yearlist in a week of intensive coverage out here by up to nine birders. Two new island species - Stock Dove & Black-tailed Godwit :gn:

Dermot

County Year List 2007

197 Snow Bunting Inismore Dermot Breen et al

At Anglingaham 2pm 1 Hen Harrier and a Little Egret.

At Rusheen Bay this evening 350 Redshank, 15 Greenshank, 25 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 dunlin, 1 Ringed Plover, 1 Little Egret, 1 Brent.

At Muckrush yesterday 4 Hen Harrier including one male, 11 Little Egret and 1 Sparrowhawk.

Inishmore Trip Report (shortish!)

198 Yellow-browed Warbler Inishmore, 12th October, Hugh Delaney.

Hugh is off the island today being the last birder standing out there, though he didn't get out of bed till 2 p.m. yesterday B
The Snow Buntings were found by Dan Brown and were actually within the Dun Aonghasa fort. The two first-winter birds were so tame he actually had to use the macro setting on his compact digital camera! They were joined by an adult male on one day.
The highlights from the eight days out on Inishmore were as follows; 2 Greenland White-fronted Geese, 1 Black-tailed Godwit (island first), 3 Stock Doves (island first), 3+ Lesser Whitethroats, 4 Garden Warblers, 1 Yellow-browed Warbler, 3 Snow Buntings and 3+ Lapland Buntings.
An incredibly pitiful haul considering the amount of effort put in by Dan Brown, Tom Chadwick, Derek Charles, Hugh Delaney, James Gilroy, Alex Lees, Rob Martin, Ric Moores and myself. But I suppose you can't win them all and the biggest consolation was that pretty much all of Ireland and UK were extremely quiet during the same period very little being picked up. We just didn't have the fast moving Atlantic depressions hitting us due to the ever present high pressure system. This seemed to push lows either to the north to Iceland and more regularly down to the Azores which is cleaning up at the moment. Also there was no stable high pressure system over Scandinavia this autumn which accounted for the poor showing of regular Siberian vagrants such as Yellow-browed Warblers. One noticeable thing this year to an Aran veteran like myself were the very low numbers (absence some days) of Goldcrests. Usually the commonest migrant on the island, though we did get normal numbers of Chiffchaffs, up to 23 one day. Also still a good few Willow Warblers around (up to half a dozen one day) which should be getting rather scarce this time of year. A few nice pale grey "northern-type" Willows seen.
Hope to get out for a weekend trip before the season is over. I'm sure there will be a full write-up on the Punkbirders site within the week. Always next year.

Dermot

Bit of a mix up with the last two yearlist additions.

Snow Bunting 199
Yellow-browed Warbler 200

Dermot

201 CEDAR WAXWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Found on Inishbofin this morning by Anthony McGeehan. 1st for Ireland. 2 previous UK records.

Photos of Skua Rory had at Nimmo's Friday 9th October

Pale adult Arctic Skua it is.
4 Chiffchaff, 1 Willow Warbler, 1 Blackcap, 8 Redwing, 1 Robin and a Merlin out on Inishshark while we were counting Grey Seal pups. Mad to see Chiffchaffs and Willow Warbler flitting along stone walls and in amongst derelict houses. No trees out there, about as close to Shetland or Orkney as you're going to get here. Two Arctic Skuas also on the way back in.

Dermot

A few pics from the past few days all digiscoped. My technique was getting a bit sloppy so went back to basics with a bit of an improvement.

One kingfisher in the canal beside Mill Street car park. A dipper also present.

Six Whoopers flew over here (Headford) this morning. Deirdre Comerford had one on Wed also a Little Egret on Tues - both at Ballindiff Bay, Luimnagh. This, I believe, is is the highest up point on the Corrib that L. Egret have been sighted.

Neil

202 American Golden Plover. Two (juv. & ad.) present at Rahasane this morning. Around 5,000 Golden Plover present. Birds extremely flighty. 5 Ruff,a juvenile Peregrine and some fly-over Crossbills (is there anything that can't turn up at Rahasane?) the only others of note.

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More threads under the Others sub forum of Binoculars sub forum of BirdForum.

Last week I was birding on Inishbofin at the willows just north of the East End beach with Anthony McGeehan and he said did you hear that. What we had heard was a very high pitched call. Anthony thought the only birds with calls similar might be a Red Throated Pipit or Penduline Tit. Well 10 mins later we are watching a Chiffchaff and a Willow warbler in a bush when up pops this bird right in the middle of them. It is a young waxwing and Anthony's mind goes into over drive thinking could this be Cedar and not Bohemian. At this point the bird flies off and we have not been able to see the undertail coverts. So he says "You have the IBird explorer app does it have any photos? I open up to Cedar Waxwing and there aren't any of young birds so I play the bird call which is exactly what we had heard ten minutes earlier. Now we had to get photographs . We relocated the bird but it was very hidden in dense undergrowth. It then flew off again and after finding it again we got the photographs confirming that it had pale undertail coverts confirming the earlier birdcall as a Cedar Waxwing . This was the First Record for Ireland. The third record for Britain and Ireland and the fourth record for the Western Paleartic.

Great work lads, brilliant find:t:. Just wish it stayed put. Inishbofin is starting to get a bit of a reputation of one-day birds like Tory. In future yer only allowed to find stuff before the 11.30 ferry leaves
A few pics attached from yesterday while doing counts. The Ringed Plover, ring number NW33314 was ringed at Snettisham, Norfolk, British National grid ref TF6433 on the 3/7/2006 when it was a chick. I had at Omey Island last November also. There's a red ring over the knee on the right leg, not visible in the shot and easy to miss. The Highland Ringed Plover and the Icelandic Sanderling are still present also.
Snow Bunting just in from the beach at Aillebrack near Ballyconneely Golf Course.

Dermot