Black-winged Stilt

Not to be outdone by the incident in the ditch (you have to read the previous post or you may get the wrong impression here) I headed back down to Tacumshin a couple of days later.  I met John M at forgotten corner and we set about locating the Black-winged stilt.

There was no sign of the stilt at the forgotten corner but we were kept occupied by two hen harriers, a male was quartering the fields below the wind turbines whilst a female flew low and slow across the entire opposite bank of the lake lifting everything she passed as she went.  The small teal flock was in the middle of the lake and a quick inspection gave up the green-winged teal.

Green-winged teal, Tacumshin

After a while we headed up to the East end.  It didn't take long to spot the black-winged stilt, it was moving slowly along the shoreline in front of us.  However as is often the case "something....." caused the entire shoreline to lift and the stilt moved further out into the middle of the lake.  We hung around for about 20 minutes but the stilt was moving further away all the time.  This was my first ever black-winged stilt and it was worth heading back down to Tacumshin to get it, incidentally, as I write this it has only been reported once more (the following day) so this weekend will tell whether I got it just in time.

Ah come on, I know its a crap shot but it was in the middle of the lake and moving away!

We headed up to Lingstown, parked up near the rocks and set about finding our next target.  It took about 20 minutes of standing around being entertained by the calls of the various finches busying themselves up and down the lane before we got our first glimpse of the day of a very special bird, the bearded reedling.  These have to be one of the most spectacular species we get on these shores, right up there with the waxwing (in my opinion, and I mean in aesthetics, not rarity).  Two of them went back and forth in front of us for about 20 minutes, rising from the reeds to our left and going down about 50 meters to our right, rising from here and back to where they'd risen on the left...... and back and forth.

I got a text from the lads at Irish Birding reporting the two cattle egrets at Bannow Bay, however time at this stage was running out and I had to hit the N11 and head for home.  Obviously if I hadn't already had cattle egret this year I'd have been straight in to the car and heading away from home...... funny creatures these biders!