BROWN BOOBY – GREYSTONES, CO.WICKLOW

Monday the 13^th of July 2020… a day I’ll never forget. A normal day somewhat dragged as I had just sat down to have a bite to eat before getting ready for work. I had just taken my first bite when I was interrupted to a phone call from Cian Cardiff…I answered immediately half expecting to hear news of a rarity but the pure magnitude of what followed was certainly not on my radar! “Brian, “a Brown Booby is sitting on the beach at Greystones, Niall Hatch found it” I can’t remember what I said on hearing this news because I was in shock. As every sensible twitcher knows, there’s only one thing that you can do when you hear news of a huge rarity and you’re meant to be into work in less than an hour and that’s… panic.

A few phone calls were made as I legged it up to the shop that I work in and seconds later the news was out to everyone. Mayhem… I ran into the shop and politely asked the boss’s son if there was any chance, he could cover my evening shift and I’ll explain all tomorrow! “Aye, no bother” was his reply… the first hurdle had been jumped. John Cusack was about to leave Monaghan and Peter Phillips was about to leave Ardee but would wait the 10 or 15 minutes it would take for me to get to his house. I went with Peter as we were further south and with a rare seabird sitting on a beach on the east coast of Ireland, I was a little bit afraid that a certain bucket might be kicked before we arrived!

Peter, his team of the nature detectives and myself powered south. Positive news kept coming through…so far so good. We parked at the South Beach in Greystones and ran to the northern section of the beach where I could see Dave Fox with his scope set up, I sprinted like a raving lunatic over to his scope… wow! There it was, sitting on the rocks a bloody Brown Booby in Ireland. Peter, who was left in a cloud of dust made his way to the scope and he too got his first view through Dave’s scope! Quite a lot of birders had gathered on the footpath overlooking the rocks so after a quick phone scope shot, just in case it flew off, we were off running again.

The views that followed, as Mark Stewart would say, were “absolutely stunning”. It brought back memories of seeing the shots of the Brown Booby which had joined a small flock of Cormorants on the rocks at St. Ive’s, Cornwall the previous August while I was on the Bridges of Ross. We watched the Brown Booby at close range for approximately 20 minutes with many more birders arriving and getting similar views including John Cusack who got his 300^th Irish bird under his belt. He has hit this landmark in record time and to do it in style with a bird like a Brown Booby makes it all the sweeter! Congrats John!

Sub adult male Brown Booby.

However, the bird flew and was lost behind a low rocky outcrop and had disappeared…every minute that followed became more worrying as the bird was nowhere to be found. Several birders arrived too late. Alex Ferguson’s “squeaky bum time” followed for the next hour or so before a text from Victor Caschera caused more panic… the bird had been seen briefly in flight at the harbour. I legged it up to the harbour with Eric Dempsey, Dennis O’ Sullivan, Paul Moore and many more all who had yet to see the bird. A nervy few moments followed before it was relocated again sitting on the rocks the seaward side of the harbour, however getting views of it was tricky. That being said as the evening went on, super views were afforded by everyone. After having our fill of it, I travelled back to Monaghan with John Cusack and Tom McEntee!

The following day the bird had been seen again but sadly as the day went on its condition deteriorated and at 17:30 the bird was taken into care. My heart really went out to Cathal Forkan and Aonghus O’ Donaill who arrived from Galway only minutes after the bird was taken away to be rehabilitated. Laughing Gull was scant consolation. Hopefully, the birding Gods have something good in store for them this autumn. A terrible way to dip. The bird survived the first night and information on its condition and hopefully, its release will follow.

This is the third for Ireland following a tideline corpse at Owenahincha, Co. Cork in January 2016 and a bird that was photographed resting on a trawler off Dingle, Co. Kerry in August 2016.

Happy twitchers!
Back Row - Tom McEntee
Middle Row L-R - Mark Stewart, Cian Cardiff, John Cusack, Mick Derwin, Dave Fox, Ger Murray
Front Row - Brian McCloskey