South Coast Semi

First-winter Semipalmated Plover along Hayling seafront, 20th October

Not really a bird to poke a 400mm lens at, the closest we had it was about 25 metres. After hearing it call once at Black Point just before the entire flock flew off, we relocated the bird along the beach at Hayling seafront where it showed reasonably well in windy conditions. A subtle and challenging bird that showed the suite of features you'd want to see (though admittedly I couldn't see the semipalmations on the views I had), and a welcome grip-back just 75 miles from home - I never bothered attempting to see either last year's Hebridean bird or the Kerry bird of 2011.

My guess is that three in three years is just the beginning of a new-found regularity that will see British & Irish records occur much more frequently in the coming years, but only time will tell.

American Golden Plover

Rich, John and I were fortunate to stumble across this newly-arrived juvenile American Golden Plover on Keel golf course, Achill Island on Saturday 15th. It's a particularly fresh individual, with smart golden upperparts - definitely the brightest individual I've seen.

I think it rates as one of the best birds I've ever seen in Britain & Ireland. Sure, it's 'only' an AGP, but is there anything better in birding than sitting in some far-flung destination watching a transatlantic vagrant at a range of five metres with your mates?! It's the fourth American Goldie that I've been involved in the finding of, the last of which was on the very same golf course - in fact, we found the 2011 bird just 50 metres from this latest individual!

Achill Island 2012, round one

The weekend has passed, and I've just enjoyed another great couple of days in County Mayo with John Archer and Rich Bonser. As always, we concentrated on the magnificent Achill Island - a wild and spectacular outpost in westernmost Ireland that must be an imposing (though attractive!) sight for Nearctic birds arriving in off the Atlantic. Over the past couple of autumns, I've been fortunate to find nine individuals of five Nearctic species on the island. With one eye on the remnants of Hurricane Leslie tracking northwards towards Iceland and the north of Scotland, the aim was to try and add to that tally.

Add to it we did. Bird of the weekend was a fine juvenile American Golden Plover on the golf course at Keel, which had evidently just arrived mid-morning on Saturday 15th and kept close to a European Goldie that was already present. On our first walk of the golf course hadn't revealed this bird and, with the addition of a flyover Pec Sand on the Sunday morning, illustrates why checking and re-checking sites in the west is crucial to finding birds. The plover was so good that it deserved its own post...

AGP + JJ

The Pec was one of two heard-only individuals over the weekend; the other was a single observer record for yours truly at Corragaun Lough which I could hear flying around as I crossed over the the channel - hands full of shoes and optics and water over the knee didn't help in the bid to see it. A Jack Snipe at Corragaun Lough on Sunday was a welcome Irish tick.

Nearctic waders are obviously great, but the find of the weekend goes to the juvenile Black-necked Grebe we picked up at Lough Doo on Saturday morning. This is a real mega out west; who knows where it has come from. We didn't see it Sunday but it was apparently still there.

Lough Doo Monster

The brief summary above has painted something of a rosy picture of the weekend. Don't get me wrong, I loved it - particularly watching the AGP in the glorious light of Saturday. But, it was hard work this year. Wader-watching in County Mayo is not for the faint-hearted. Last year's trip was exceptional; this year was much more typical! Furthermore, wader numbers seem poor this year - we had Dunlin at just a handful of the sites (Corragaun/Achill Sound/Roonagh), when in normal years they are at most sites. Although you don't necessarily need Palearctic waders to bring in the rares, it does help to concentrate them.

Thanks to Rich and John for a great weekend of company, and it was great to meet Nick Watmough on the Saturday as well as Achill semi-resident Michael O'Brien. Cheers guys.