Pectoral Sandpiper

I was in Tacumshin, Wexford on Monday and caught up with one of the two Trans Atlantic vagrant Pectoral Sandpipers, that have been lingering on a small flash flood south of the main lake.  Here are a couple of images of one of the birds which was fairly tame.

 

 Pectoral Sandpiper at Tacumcshin © John N Murphy

 

Brown Booby RIP

On Monday 13th July 2020, as I was departing a work site near Bellmullet in Mayo, news broke that there was a Brown Booby sitting on Greystones Beach in County Wicklow.  As home was a 3 hour drive away and also Greystones the same distance I was torn between the long trip home or the detour to Wicklow.  Obviously from the shots below you can guess which direction I headed towards.  After the 3 hour dash and on arrival into Greystones Harbour I was met with the news from the large gathering of birders that the bird was gone missing for over half an hour. Eventually the bird was relocated on the north wall of the harbour and the following series of shots were gained.  By Wednesday the bird had been taken into captivity in a poor state and died by the end of the week.  This was the 4th record of Brown Booby in Ireland with the three previous records of one dead on Inchydoney beach in Cork, one off a Spanish fishing vessel in Kerry and one the same day as this bird on a cargo boat off the south west.  Looking forward to finding one in Clare and hopefully it will live a little longer that this one did.

 Brown Booby Greystones John N Murphy