Great Spotted Woodpecker at Killoughter Lane

Another massive range expansion in recent years has been that of the Great Spotted Woodpecker. The UK population has apparently exploded due to the popularity of bird feeders, and they have made their way across the Irish Sea. Wicklow is the current stronghold, and one of the easiest places to see them is on the feeders of a bird-friendly chap who lives on Killoughter Lane, south of Newcastle in Wicklow.

Another scarce bird that visits the feeders is Jay, of which I saw three this afternoon.

Female Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Glossy Ibis at ECNR

In the (many) years since I last lived in this part of the world a number of species have expanded their range. One of the most obvious is of course Little Egret which is now common on every estuary in Britain and Ireland (I remember twitching one at Dungeness in 1983/4!). Another seems to be Glossy Ibis which has become an annual visitor in recent years. Nevertheless a group of 3 birds on what qualifies as a local patch is nothing to be sneezed at. They were incredibly obliging, coming to closer than 10 metres at times. They've stayed very faithful to a particular site, a partially flooded field at the top of the ECNR.

While watching the Ibis I picked out a single Carrion Crow in a nearby field.

ebird list for the day.

Glossy Ibis

Hawfinch at Curraghchase

Following on from my successful Brambling outing I set off to Limerick to try and find the Hawfinch flock that has been regularly reported here all winter. The UK has seen a real invasion this winter, but Ireland has not been so blessed, with only a few scattered records. The exception is a flock of 20 or so at Curraghchase. The weather was pretty crappy, but I arrived during a gap between showers, and quickly located a few birds. After a bit of rather damp chasing around I eventually got good views of this fantastic bird. I saw 7 birds in total, but I'm sure there were more.

On the way out a splendid Jay flew across the road, my first for Ireland!

ebird list for the day.

Male Hawfinch (all black secondaries)

Female Hawfinch (greyish secondaries)

Brambling at Powerscourt Demesne

Another site very close to our new home is Powerscourt Demesne, which happens to be an excellent spot for wintering finch flocks. In amongst the hundreds of Chaffinches are a small number of Brambling every winter. On my first visit I picked out 3 or 4, but that number increased the next day when between 6 and 15 birds were present.

Other birds included Treecreeper, Song and Mistle Thrushes.

ebird list for 11th Jan
ebird list for 12th Jan

Male Brambling. My first of this species since the Saye Plateau in Oman

Female Brambling

 Mistle Thrush

Song Thrush

Treecreeper

Snow Bunting at Howth Harbour

Irishbirding is a good resource for rarity news, and this morning it sent me to Howth Harbour where three Snow Buntings have been seen regularly. Sure enough, the were foraging on the sloping, sea.ward side of the wall. They were very confiding, much more so than I'm used to in New York, the ones at Jones' Beach were quite flighty.

Other birds included 6 or 7 Purple Sandpipers on the rocks, a single Red-throated Diver just offshore, and a distant Fulmar coming in to a roost on Ireland's Eye.

ebird list for the day

Snow Bunting, one of the cutest birds I know!

Several Purple Sandpipers along the splash zone

Red-throated Diver

Whooper Swans at Kilcoole Marshes

New year, new blog! Having made the move to Ireland in June 2017 it took us some considerable time to get settled, but we did, eventually, landing up in the seaside town of Greystones in Wicklow. The closest decent birding spot is Kilcoole Marshes, which turns out to be a prime wintering site for flocks of Whooper Swans, nice! There were 39 there today, a pretty decent number.

In addition there was a large flock of wintering Lapwings. Off shore was a Red-throated Diver, some Gannet, Razorbill and a raft of Shag.

The habitat is a coastal marsh, separated from the sea by a shingle beach. The marsh itself is not accessible, so all birding is done from the shingle bank. There are no particular features on the sea-side of the bank to draw birds, but there is regular passage of gulls, sea ducks, divers and other coastal birds. All in all a decent local patch.

ebird list for the day

I haven't seen Whoopers since Dubai, so it was great to find them on my local patch.