Saturday down at Ballycotton was fairly boring. Aside from small numbers of Divers starting to move past the cliffs (Winter's coming), seawatching was unproductive.
It is also a tad too early for any decent gulls at the pier (though I gave it a go), and nothing much out on this side of the bay.
Spent the rest of the day trying to dig out the AGP with no luck, only to leave and have news texted to me that it made itself known as the high tide came in.
Today was a far better showing. Nothing much to be said for the morning, but as the tide came in Plover numbers magically increased (from whence who knows). Besides this, I could not see the bird on the lake.
I then moved to silver strand, where a smaller group on the rocky spit FINALLY produced the bird...with an excellent bonus of a pair of Slavonian Grebes sitting off the rocks. Full fat patch tickage as they say!
Prior to this I have only seen one grebe species other than the common pair (Great crested and little), and that was a single Black Necked Grebe way back in early October 2006. Other species seem few and far between here, so to have not one, but two together as a patch tick was great, and having checked Aghada, in vain yesterday, specifically for grebes, I soaked these birds up for a good hour. Which lead to me picking up 2 crossbills flying over towards the village chipping away.
Just when you think, with winter closing in, year ticks will be few and far between.
3 year ticks today and 1 patch tick. Turned the weekend right around.
Species: 176
Score: 331
Comparative Score: 139.29%
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