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First-winter female Lesser Scaup on Monalty Lough, Co. Monaghan

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I couldn’t wait for the winter to finish up. Since autumn 2023 had drawn to a close, I had put a serious amount of time into checking lake after lake with little reward. Other than a pretty successful day in Cavan in late December 2023, where I managed to find a Great White Egret and a pair of Ring-necked Ducks within half an hour of each other, I was struggling big time to dig out anything of note. My weekends throughout the winter consisted of checking as many lakes as I could, be it in Monaghan or Cavan or both. I love birding my local patch around Carrickmacross, despite almost never seeing anything. In terms of rarities, I reckon Co. Monaghan would be in the bottom five counties in terms of potential but despite this, I would be lost without my patch! I try my best to check Monalty Lough and Moylan Lough 4-5 times a week throughout the year. It is usually the small things that make patch birding great, be it a brief Black-tailed Godwit or a pair of Redshank in a flooded field. B
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The Big Year: 2022

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This year has been incredible so far. A couple of days into January I realised that it had been my best start to a year list ever and I decided that I would push on and see how it played out. I plan to post some individual blog posts on some of the days birding I have had so far. So far I am torn between my best bird so far this year and that is between Greater Sand Plover and Eurasian Bittern. Relocating both species when it was looking like a dip on both occasions was an amazing feeling. Despite having seen some incredibly rare species and seeing birds like Egyptian Vulture and Ross's Gull in the same day, the most enjoyable days birding I have had so far was on Tory Island in mid January when we had a minimum of 53 Little Auks. Seeing small flocks of them passing off the East End Cliffs and watching some fishing directly under us was amazing.  So far I have currently seen 223 species as of the 13th of June. The end of year target is 270 so we will see in the coming months if tha
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