Goosander

On one of the wettest miserable days of any summer in Ireland you really shouldn`t bother go birding if you have any sense at all. Because in 20 minutes of birding and even though I was covered from top to bottom in rain gear I still got a soaking. But this still didn`t stop me from trying to find a new bird for my year list, and with the light (what light there was due to the poor conditions) fading I was just about to give up when I stumbled across 3 Goosander, and my first male ever as well. In the birding world they say all it takes is one bird to make your day, well I got 3 beauties. So so Sweet!! The reason being as these birds are quite shy and spend their summers on river in forests and build their nests in a tree trucks, and then move to lakes and reservoir in the winter. I`ve only ever seen a female in winter so to see a male and what looks to be 2 females in the summer on a Irish river is a bonus.