Building and Exploring

I haven't been birding too far of late. I've generally been exploring the various back roads near the house, searching for productive feeders and, of course, building up the new garden list.


During the week we added singing Pygmy Owl to the garden list, and this guy is now heard most mornings just 100 meters across the lake. After we recorded the bird online, we were contacted by another birder who had, amazingly, lived in our place during the 00s, providing us with a list of goodies to keep an eye and ear out for, including Eagle Owl on the other side of the lake.


I also managed to add both Rough Legged Buzzard and displaying Goshawk to the list, starting off the raptors well.

Today, the garden was graced by this lovely lady. 




Grey Headed Woodpecker - Female

I adore Grey Headed Woodpeckers. That lime green colour is stunning, providing welcome colour in Winter, and their charming whistling really feels exotic to an Irish birder. They have an amazingly harsh expression to them. This particular female, one of 3 I saw today at various sites, was surprisingly neat, with that grey head looking smooth and even. And that lovely flash of colour on the base of the lower mandible. Prime breeding condition.


Hopefully there's a nest site nearby I can keep tabs on over the summer.

Still can't believe I live somewhere with these in the garden. Cracking birds.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

Review - Flight Identification Of European Passerines And Select Land birds - by Tomasz Cofta

Image
I recently purchased the above, as visible migration has become such a core part of my birding. After a significant level of brexit related hassle, I finally got my supposed 3-5 day delivery from NHBS...over four weeks later. Seems UPS (their delivery service of choice) basically have had a continent-wide meltdown post brexit with various customs and software issues. Thanks Brexit-land... As with most books I find in my lap, I began devouring it immediately. The introductory text hooks you straight away. There is a sort of inspirational pragmatism to it that I find exceptionally appealing, almost abandoning the accepted convention that only by a thorough and complete assessment of all plumage features can any bird be identified, in favour of an unspoken reality. That reality being that we identify flyover passerines all the time.  How often have you been on a headland and had some finch or pipit go over, silently? You might not see mantle striping, or bill colour or wing bars or whatev...
Read more

The IRBC - Spooftocracy

Image
Decided to start a fresh tracking of the IRBC faileptitude as the previous post was now enormous. Like those who tracked Trump's golfing or Musk's private jet use...transparency, fact and truth matter.  And the only place you are going to find it in regards to Europe's most ridiculous excuse for a rarity committee is right here. (Well...apart from that single posting on a closed WhatsApp group from Seamus Feeney...cos ya gotta love Irony right? 🤣) Where did we leave off?  July 2024 It's now August 2024. So let's look at Ireland's excuse for a rarity recording system. Do they produce monthly provisional lists as per their own system outline? - No Did they sneakily change the wording on their website from "Monthly" to "Regular"? - Yes Do they even produce this regularly? - No Do they update the Irish list after the publication of each Irish Rare Bird Report? - No Are you lucky if that happens once a decade? - Oh dear, No. After announcing that...
Read more