Male Crossbill

I took another drive up the lanes to Rath again to see if there were any Crossbills still in the area. In a small spruce patch not far from where I observed them a few days ago ,18 Crossbills were high up with Siskins, Chaffinch and Greenfinch.
 A male bird was showing well out on a branch in the afternoon light.
 

Crossbills at Rath

Around my home during the day I noticed there seemed to be a lot of birds moving about ,small finch flocks , Blackbirds, Fieldare and Redwing.
Could be a good afternoon for Crossbills up the forestry...


 The first small flock of 6 Crossbill flew by at Gort Coirce with Redpoll ,1/2 hour later a Sparrowhawk soared over the Spruce forest and flocks of Crosssbill left the tree tops heading down hill. I followed in the car .4 more , then another 5.
Then a flock of 20 birds came into the trees and I was able to get good feeding views.
35 Crossbill in total for me.

Always a hard bird to photo as they are high up in cover,a tree or two in . Time to bring on th 3x crop video zoom.

Grey Phalarope

The Grey Phalarope has been at Liscannor Harbour now for 5 days, seeeing out the storm

Today it was feeding close to the walls. 

In between rain showers I waited on the steps.. the bird was pretty tame and came within a few feet away, bobbing about.

A small grey and white subject on a grey/ low light background proved a challenge to photo.

Harbour birding in Storm Abigail

Its been blowing a gale all night and morning.
I dropped into Liscannor Harbour to see what birds had come in off the ocean.
Plenty of Gulls were feeding in the wash at the harbour mouth , just out in the open water a few Great Northern Divers were catching crabs. Just out from them was a small Grey Phalarope spinning around in the choppy waters , keeping out the way of the Gull activity.
A colour ringed Oystercatcher was in the harbour

Great Northern Divers in the rain

The very small Grey Phalarope being surveyed by the Gulls

Colour ringed Oystercatcher

Hen Harrier

A female  Hen Harrier hunting over Lahinch Marsh.
The bird was at quite a distance but allowed me to view it for nearly 1/2 hour as it moved around the marsh looking for prey.

Lahinch as good as it can be!

The next day;

As the mist began to arise in the morning it revealed overhead waves and perfect glass on a part of the reef that has not worked in a long while.

The swell was a touch bigger today around 2.8m and 13 second periods.

We were the first ones out at the spot.

The swell carried on through the day without any crowding , there was waves for all in a typical Irish manner.  

The evening session was superb with a pushing tide .

I was the last surfer out as the mist settled on the sea and the sun went down.

As the mist lifts 

Just perfection

Simon Oreilly- the evening session

A sleeping reef as woke up 

Clean Swell arrives in Lahinch

After a week of  Atlantic storm surf on the west coast and the half term tourists and crowds have left , a new clean west swell arrived on the Lahinch reefs.