Birds from the wind. Clahane

 The strong westerlies persist bring birds in off the ocean to find shelter and food along the shoreline.

The juvenile Sabines Gull has been feeding up here for over a week with the Black headed Gulls .

A Grey Phalarope came in doing laps of the bay before heading to the reef for shelter from the heavy rain.

Sabines Gulls on the coast

 Storm Erin wipped up some windy weather and high seas.

Sabines Gulls were reported in their hundreds off the headlands of  Loop Head.

Then a few started to show up from Clahane , Liscannor,.Quilty, and Carrigaholt 

A immature bird was approachable on the Clahane road where it spent the whole day picking for food..

I got to see a few myself within the mixed Gull flock at Quilty ,Saturday produced 3 Juveniles while Sunday saw a stunning adult Sabines dip feeding along the shore and close to the slipway.

Lahinch Gull fest

 A few days back,  a sudden a flock of a few thousand Gulls came into Lahinch beach . The 2 stand outs were the juvenile Sabines Gulls and a Ring billed Gull that was tricky to ID in the melee of Gulls in the wind .

As I was walking down to the reef  I lost my target Ring billed Gull as an Arctic Skua came off the sea and put up the whole beach up.

It flew back out settling in choppy ocean 150m off the reef.

A great Skua was also seen out in the bay.

Sabines Gull in on a west wind

 A juvenile Sabines Gull was feeding offshore at Clahane in a blasting west wind , rarely coming in as close a the Black headed Gull flock but sometimes ending up in the mix due to the wind, it did not stay long and moved off , never the less always a good patch bird to find on my daily local rounds

October Bridges of Ross.

The start of October. Loop Head seems to have been the place to be for all styles of Birdwatching, from Land, Sea and in air ' we've got it covered."

Today at the Bridges was no different. I got high counts of Grey Phalarope and Leaches Petrel , 2 juvenile Sabines Gulls, Arctic Terns, Bonxie, Red throated and Great Northern Divers, a Long tailed Skua flew over the top. A showy Basking Shark was just outside the bay for 30 minutes being buzzed by Phalarope. 

Long tailed Skua

Sabines Gulls

Sabines Gull - kilbaha coast

After a morning walking Loop head and Kilbaha gardens and the tide on the high it was time to check the sea to try and find The Bonapartes Gull seen a week earlier.

Seek and you shall find!

I was going through the Gulls on the Kilbaha coastline till I came across this Adult Sabines Gull that was with a small mixed flock of Gulls feeding on Kelp fly soup the cove backwash was mixing up

Sabines Gulls at Liscannor harbour

The storm has blown seabirds everywhere.
3 Sabines Gulls came to feed and shelter around the Harbour at Liscannor .We had good views of these Gulls of the Open Ocean as they make their  way to southern waters.

Its nice when your local area can produce wildlife suprises like this!

Quilty beach Sabines Gull

As the passage migrants fly past south and the waders return to there feeding grounds, quilty beach can host a good variety of birds , Sabines gull, Dunlin , turnstone and many more