Tales of a Tormented Twitcher

Every winter I try to check some lakes in County Cavan for wildfowl. The main reason for this is that it gets fairly tedious checking the same lakes in south Monaghan and the change of scenery is always good. In previous winters my checks in Cavan have proven completely fruitless with Greenland White-fronted Goose and a hybrid Pochard x Tufted Duck being the best I could dig out. Despite having a successful start to the winter locally with two self-found Ring-necked Ducks on my local patch including a lovely first-winter female as well as a drake Greater Scaup (which are getting quite tricky to dig out each winter), I was itching to get back into County Cavan for a chance at rare diving ducks. When Aidan Kelly found Lesser Scaup on Lough Sheelin, I decided the next chance I got I would try for it and then spend the rest of the day checking other lakes. On Sunday the 5th of December 2021, I headed over to Lough Sheelin and pretty much immediately picked up Aidan’s Lesser Scaup in among...

On Monday the 14th of June 2021, I heard the mega alert from Bird Guides going off. On checking it I was shocked to see that an Egyptian Vulture had just been found on Tresco, Isles of Scilly. With only two previous accepted records in Britain, both of which were in the 19th century, this was going to draw massive attention from twitchers across Britain. Images that followed from several Scilly birders were very gripping and showed the bird to be in perfect condition and unringed. Given the location, time of year, weather conditions, recent increased vagrancy in north-west Europe, and the fact that it was unringed and its primaries were in excellent condition, one has to think that this is a shoo-in for Category A on the British List. Unfortunately for all British twitchers it was not successfully twitched from the mainland by anybody. The bird had departed the Isles. When this negative news filtered through, many began to speculate if and where this bird might be relocated. As the da...

Figure 1: Scoping Gulls on a bitterly cold evening in late January. Caspian Gull On Tuesday the 19 th of January after a boring day at work I decided to stop off at Clay Lake, on the Monaghan Road, near Keady in south Armagh on the way home. I first found out about this lake from my father who noticed several hundred gulls on the lake one evening last winter, however my check the next day was fruitless. I did not realise it was an evening roost. The weather was horrendous and when I arrived there was at least 700 Herring Gulls on the lake. With the torrential rain and only twenty minutes of useable light I only managed to pick out two juvenile / 2cy Iceland and Glaucous Gulls, but I was very impressed with the location. A check the following day and the tallies increased to three Iceland Gulls. I was happy to see there was an obvious turnover of Gulls. There were quite a few brutes of ‘argentatus’ Herring Gulls to keep me occupied too. I tried to get closer to the Gulls by driving to ...

In the middle of September, a strong system hit north-west Europe including Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, but more importantly the northernmost parts of Ireland. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher and Swainson’s Thrush had been found off Scotland as a direct result of the recent fast-moving storm. On the 20 th September 2020, I was woken to a phone call from Conor Foley at 10:20 … yes, I was still asleep at that time. I was almost wondering why he was ringing at this ridiculously early time, basically the middle of the night. I answered and I was immediately greeted to “have you not heard the news?” … I hadn’t. “Bobolink on Fanad Head” I couldn’t believe it. I quickly rang the other usual lads and was on the road up to John Cusack’s within minutes.   Wilton Farrelly had just gone and found a fourth for Ireland and the first Bobolink in 17 years. Incredible stuff. There was one catch, the bird hadn’t been seen in an hour. Despite the negative news John, Vanessa, Michael and myself bombe...

On the evening of the 4 th August 2020, Gerard Murray, John Cusack and I were returning from an uneventful two days in Wexford. We camped at the east end of Tacumshin Lake but we couldn’t dig anything rare out of the hundreds of smalls on Tacumshin. The highlight was a twitched juvenile Wood Sandpiper at Ballyteige Burrow near Kilmore Quay. Reed Warblers, Ruff, a couple of showy Water Rails, Marsh Harrier and a nice count of 19 Mediterranean Gulls including a few crisp juveniles were the only other birds of note. I was fairly knackered after the few days and was looking forward to getting into my own bed when I got home. Shortly after 20:10, I got a notification on my phone from a Stephen King retweet. It was a tweet from Kerry birder Pat McDaid to say that he had just found a Caspian Tern near Ballinskelligs. My heart sank. I was due back into work the next morning and there was very little chance of getting my shift covered. Caspian Terns in Ireland just don’t seem to ever play ba...

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...

Monaghan. Everyone wishes they lived there…don’t they? I would certainly prefer a coastal patch as the chances of finding decent stuff is surely increased. Duck numbers, even in winter are relatively low compared to other parts of the country. Most springs, my birding would be focused elsewhere such as Wexford but with increased coverage this year, the return has been decent. Before the lockdown, on 9 th February 2020, after dipping on a Dowitcher sp. found near Dundalk, Co. Louth by Paul Kelly, Dad and I planned to check some lakes much closer to home. Between November and March each year we check the local lakes several times a week. Monalty Lough was our first stop, after a few minutes of scanning we had almost given up when I caught a glimpse of a duck diving with open wings. I immediately suspected Long-tailed Duck, and my suspicions were soon confirmed when it very briefly returned to the surface before diving again. The two of us eventually managed decent views in difficul...