Rough-legged buzzard - Kilcoole

Sunday morning, 7.30am.  Steve keeping an eye on things in the stubble field, I'm up the hill watching the field with the sheep (and dead dog, more on that later).  One hour into what was to be a long day and Steve arrives up the lane and we begin to put a plan together for the rest of the day.  Late last year there was a report of a rough-legged buzzard only a couple of minutes up the road from my house in Ashbourne, I was on the scene within minutes (see previous post) but no buzzard (well, not a live one anyway (again, see previous post).

Steve had only arrived up to me a couple of minutes when he sights the buzzard over my shoulder a couple of fields in the distance.  There it was, flying low, mobbed by crows, rising and dropping across the field, disappears behind a house, back in view and across another field.  It was heading towards the stubble field Steve had just left.  Tripods on shoulders we legged (pardon the pun) back down the lane and into the stubble field.  By the time we got there it was gone, but Justin I who was also in the field spotted it flying low across the length of the field, past the hay bales and through the trees at the bottom towards the train tracks.

Our phones went into action and before long there were five or six of us in the field hoping for a show.  Nothing happened for an hour, some of the group dispersed.  Myself and Steve decided to head down to Kilcoole and get a look at the Tundra bean geese that were around for the last couple of days.  Jim C decided to join us, so off we set.

We had no bother spotting the TB geese, they had conveniently taken up residence in the potato field with the whoopers.  From the potato field we headed down past the buck thorn to the breaches, this time the target were bewicks.  We scanned the whoopers and mutes in the fields but no bewicks.  After about an hour we decided to head back up to Glenroe farm for the RL buzzard.

An afternoon of frustration followed.  We set up in the sheep field above the lane with Shay C.  Getting back to the dead dogs, we were approached that morning by the farmer whose field we were in, he was cool with this.  However he told us how the previous evening he'd shot two dogs that were hassling the lambing sheep.  The evidence was there to see, two dead dogs on the field, both minus important parts of their craniums, important that is if they'd wished to continue living!

Hey Dinny, have you seen Lucky?  I let her out for a run this morning and she hasn't come home!!

Jim C and others headed up to the N11 where they got views of the bird, we unfortunately didn't.  The three of us stayed put, waiting for the bird to head our way...... it didn't.  By this time it was cold, very cold.  Shay and I decided to call it a day, I'd have to settle for the brief views I got that morning.  However, I said Jim and I headed home, I didn't mention Steve.  He hung around and before I'd reached Bray on the N11 he was on the phone to me........ moral of the story, if you've staked out a bird from the crack of dawn to an hour before dark and only caught a glimpse of said bird, don't be so quick to head home, stay the hour till dark, you just never know!  Patience is a virtue, and Steve got his reward.