Things have been busy for me as of late and I have had very little time to update my blog. So instead of going back the last few months I'll just skip ahead to the last 24 hours. With the winds coming from the east there has been a lot of birds showing up this last week or so we would only see in spring. With plenty of twitches to be had I just seemed to be working when the good birds were around. So I had to be back in Limerick last Sunday and decided to hit the old local haunts. I took a trip to Coonagh but no sooner did I arrive when 2 duck hunters put everthing up and there was nothing left to see except a pair of kestrels doing some hunting of their own. So I made a decision to hit Loop Head and see what was around. I couldn't believe my luck when I spotted a pair of Buff-breasted Sandpipers. The birds had been flushed but flew over me a couple of times giving me the chance to make out their buff bellies, the speckled marking on side of the breast, white underwings, and thier rather soft (or as I like to call it kind) facial feature. Within 5 minutes of having them I spotted a bird on a small pathway in front of me, with a quick look through the bino's my heart skipped a beat! A life tick and in Ireland as well... it was a Wryneck, a bird I have wanted for a while now. So I managed to get a few shots of it and was well pleased with the views I had of it and I went back to Dublin a happy man. Then roll on this morning, there was a Hoopoe knocking around Howth for the last 4 days and I didn't have an Irish Hoopoe so when I was given the chance of seeing it I jumped at it. The bird was unable to settle for any length of time as it was being badly harassed by both Magpies and Hooded Crows. I did manage a couple of shots and had several views of the bird. So it was an interesting 24 hours. Roll on tomorrow morning.
