Hi all,
Due to not having had anything arranged for today,I slept in a bit,and turned on my phone about 10:10am.Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from an English birder living over here to say that he had found an adult Sharp-tailed Sandpiper near Ballycotton!I jumped out of bed,and made travel arrangements while getting dressed!After a breakfast on the go,I met a friend of mine in town,and we picked up another birder on the way.
Unfortunately,even with our haste,the bird had gone missing while we were in transit(indeed,local birders who had gone straight to the site had also missed out),and due to the falling tide we were left with a long hard struggle.
The number of birders soon built up to a respectable 20 or so(considering that this wasn't a first Irish record,this was a good turnout!),and we split up.Some excitement was caused when an interesting bird was seen by one birder on a rocky island:we waited there until the island was submerged,but no sign of anything resembling "the bird"!
Despite my usual demeanour at this stage of a twitch(panic and utter despair),I felt that this bird would show up again on the rising tide(as so many rare waders have done in the past at Ballycotton,being totally impossible to locate at low tide!),and we went to the car park at the far(eastern)side between Ballyc and Garryvoe:as we pulled in,I got a phone call to say that it had been pinned down at the original location(which was just down from where we were parked!).We ran down,and had a few fleeting glimpses of the head of the bird on a rocky island:not enough to tick the bird,but still,at least we knew where it was now!It later flew to a nearer island as the original one was inundated with water,where it was possible to see the rufous crown,yellowish legs etc.,result!
Still,due to the strong wind,it was hard to make out finer detail(even when looking through better scopes than my own),so imagine our delight when the wader flock flew and landed on the washed-up seaweed just on the water's edge(we had retreated a little in case we were putting them off doing so).Even through my old battered Kowa TSN-1,views were excellent.
The beach was quite busy,it being a nice summer's day,but we managed to keep people from walking past that stretch and thus flushing the birds.1-2 "civilians" even saw the bird through our scopes:wasted on them...;-)
The wader flock flew back out to the(now tiny)islet at about 16:45,and we decided we weren't going to get much better views,so we left!A good day!
If accepted,this would be the third Irish and first Cork record of the species(previous records being from Co.Wexford in 1994 and 1997).
Harry H
Hi Harry,
Congrats! Wondered if you'd be seeing this, when I saw the reports on BirdGuides
Still using a TS-1?? - I've not seen one of those for ages!! I still had a TS-2 until a couple of years ago, when I got a new scope and left the old one with my Bulgarian guide
Michael
Hi Michael,
Yeah,I'm afraid that I'm still using a TSN-1,and can't afford to upgrade at the moment,what with being unemployed and all that!
My first priority when I get a job again would be to get something better:the friend I went with is also still using a TSN-1(as is the other guy that we picked up),but mentioned that it would have been almost impossible to pick it up in the first place if we hadn't known it was there through the TSN-1!
A decent pair of bins wouldn't go amiss either!
It just goes to prove what Bill Oddie said years ago when he stated that it was impossible these days to tell how competent a birder is based on the optics they use:rich "dudes" can afford the top gear,whereas I can't!
Harry H