South Dublin Coast - Week 4

I finally managed to visit the two remaining areas within the patch - Cherrywood and Killiney Hill. Cherrywood lies at the extreme south-western end of the patch and the only bit of standing water found in the patch in the shape of a small pond within the Business Park. Unfortunately the water quality of the pond has declined significantly since its construction six or seven years ago that now only a few Moorhen (patch tick) can be found there. Mallard and Little Egret used to be regular visitors, but I haven't seen either species there recently.

Cherrywood Pond

After helping out the Wicklow BWI Branch on Sunday morning with an event at Booterstown Marsh, I headed up to Killiney Hill to look for a couple of target species. The hill is covered in a mixture of oak, beech and conifer woodland, and offers the best chance in my patch of finding Treecreeper and Long-eared Owl. No luck with either species this time around - the only notable bird being a Raven flying north. One of the benefits of including Killiney Hill (153m ASL) in the patch is that it gives a fantastic view over Dublin and north Wicklow and I experimented with ID'ing birds at various sites outside of  the patch. Cormorant and Shag were identifiable to 3km (base of East Pier), while Bray Harbour (6.3km away) yielded the second patch tick of the week in the form of a Mute Swan. Maybe next week I'll ask a birder to point out the Ring-billed Gull while scoping from Killiney Hill...

A quick check of Bullock Harbour yielded very little other than a posing Grey Seal and two Mediterranean Gulls, while Coliemore was similarly quiet. The regular female Brambling in the garden was joined by two males over the weekend, while three Blackcaps gorged themselves on the half-dozen apples I had put out in the (futile) hope of attracting a  Waxwing or two.

The two ticks bring the scores to 59 species, 70 points and 59.59%.

Grey Seal in Bullock Harbour