Wednesday 13 February 2013

Quiet and the Other Place

It has been a month since my last confession. 

A bad auld dose of (man)flu and catching up with work has kept me away the patch, or indeed any birding for that matter. That said, I did pop down to Killarney for a bit of dirty twitching last weekend. Sinner! 

A half hour here and there is all I've managed to get around the bay but I have picked off a few things in the process. I found a merlin near Annagh island (just about on the patch), two red-breasted mergansers and a great-northern diver on high tide at Blennerville last weekend and some shelduck and knot way out on the mud flats at low water. I spent a couple of hours scouring the place for a jack snipe before the rugby but no joy. Some great-crested grebe were close in at Blennerville on Sunday which was nice - didn't even have to roll down the window in the van.  

The “Other Place” is Mount Brandon Nature Reserve near Cloghane in west Kerry and I will be up there a lot over the next couple of years. It comprises of 450 hectares of upland habitat, from blanket bog to vegetated sea cliffs and all sorts in between. It will be interesting to see what turns up. So far not much: kestrel, merlin, wren (up at 400 m, the hardy little beggers), raven, great black-backed gull, blackbird, fieldfare, stonechat, chough and fulmar. I found a good sea-watching spot yesterday and I am looking forward to spending some time doing “field work” in that area during the year  J

Más an Tiompáin, Mount Brandon NR

Must do some field work here! West of Sauce Creek, Mt Brandon NR. 


current patch stats: 51 species, 60 points and 48.8%.



No comments:

Post a Comment