Wednesday 27 August 2008 - The Luck of the Irish - 27/06/2008

Wednesday 27th August 2008

The Luck of the Irish!

What the b'Jaysus is going on over on the Emerald Isle at the moment?  News filtered through today of a another County Cork MEGA double!  First of all a NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH was found in the Central Bog area on Cape Clear Island.  It was while this bird was being searched for that a SOLITARY SANDPIPER was stumbled across.  There is even a photo on Surfbirds of both of these hot Yank vagrants feeding together on the same patch of mud!  Also in County 'Pop the' Cork yesterday's YELLOW WARBLERS were still present.  The first winter female was also on Cape Clear Island with the male still showing on and off at Mizen Head.  Come on my Celtic brothers in Cornwall and Wales get out birding and put Britain back on the birding map!

Alvecote Pools SSSI

With the events in Ireland it is sometimes pretty depressing working a patch in an English inland County.  Even more depressing is that pretty soon I'll be unable to visit during the week as it'll be dark before I go to work and even darker by the time I've finished.  Where's that bottle of paracetamols?  Anyways the Little Egret was still present around Mill Pool along with 20 Greylag Geese (an unimpressive site record I know), 3 Northern Shoveler and 7 Gadwall.  The female Tufted Duck still had 3 well developed youngsters which cheered me up a bit.  Due to the cool, overcast conditions any passerines that were on site remained well hidden in cover.  I therefore decided to concentrate on walking the muddy margins of Teal Pool dreaming about finding my own Northern Waterthrush, who am I trying to kid heh?  To be honest I'd have been ecstatic with a Spotted Crake..... but come on this is Alvecote Pools I'm talking about.