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
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| Más an Tiompáin, Mount Brandon NR |
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| Must do some field work here! West of Sauce Creek, Mt Brandon NR. |
current patch stats: 51 species, 60 points and 48.8%.
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