I headed down to Kilcoole this morning hoping that the "buff-breasted yankee" was still knocking around. It was, and it was very tame. It was sat up on the shingle ridge right at the waters edge a couple hundred meters short of webbs field.
It eventually moved up the shingle towards us and began feeding in the short grass just off the footpath, at this stage it was only about 25ft away. Its mustard legs were really striking at this range, as was the piercing very black eyes. It preened, streched, looked around and generally didn't really care that there was numerous lenses and scopes pointed at it from practically point blank range...... why did I not bring a camera??
I eventually headed further south towards the buckthorn bushes in search of the lapland bunting thats been seen there recently. Unfortunately time was against me and I didn't get to hang around long enough to get a sighting, those are the breaks..... but the trip really was all about the sandpiper and I had that for 30 minutes or more so I was going home happy regardless.
Out to sea there was plenty of gannett activity, numerous auks and a pair of red-throated divers passed heading south into the wind.
Landside there was the usual large flocks of goldfinches, plenty of swallows and house martins, quite a few wheatear, and a pair of stonechats. Some dunlin were mixing with the turnstones at the waters edge and a single rock pipit was flushed on the way up to the buckthorn.
Webbs field held the usual numbers of ducks (mixed), cormorants, gulls and corvids. A single pink-footed goose was there as were some mutes. There were practically no "smalls" in the field, but I have it on good authority that there has been plenty of sparrowhawk and kestrel activity within the field lately and this seems to have scarred off most of the waders for now.
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