Whale Update

Okay, I know this is supposed to be a garden bird blog but I thought I'd post an update regarding the dead whale we found down in Wexford.
I reported the finding to the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group (www.iwdg.ie) when I got home.
They replied advising that there was a Pilot Whale stranded at that spot on 31 October last year which was buried and it's possible that it's the same one coming up again through the sand!  How bizarre is that?!
Anyway, I thought I'd better update just in case anybody wanted to know.

Tacumshin

I always go on to a website called www.irishbirding.com every day just to see what's been reported in our locality whilst I've been at work.

Almost every day there are sightings of species I've never seen in a place called Tacumshin in County Wexford, so this weekend we decided to pay a visit to this lake.
So, what did we see.......?
Hmmmmm........ a dead whale (pilot whale we think) on the beach, not a very good start (quite sad really).
If you don't like gruesome pics then look away now!

So, continuing our walk we cut across the dunes to reach Tacumshin Lake, passing more remains of what looked like a wader along the way!

Thankfully when we reached the waters, there were live birds out there! Was beginning to think I was the grim reaper :-(

The place was full of waders, of which I'm no good at ID'ing (surprise surprise!), below is a picture of a Redshank (I think), although there have been sightings of a Spotted Redshank at the lake.

And I have no idea what these are....

In fact, I think the only waders I know are Turnstones.

We sat watching a flock of them not far from where we were sitting when a small bird dived at them before landing on a concrete post to the side of us.
The flash of bright turquoise and orange confirmed it was a Kingfisher! My new species for this month, as hard as it is to believe I have never ever seen this gorgeous bird! And I only saw it this time for about 15 seconds before it flew off (so no photo)!
We waited for about an hour in the biting sea breeze for it to return, hoping that it would land on the post that was conveniently positioned in front of us

but it didn't! I never even thought of seeing a Kingfisher at the beach, I still find it bizarre! Another first for me today was a Hen Harrier which came up from behind the dunes on the left of the picture above and flew over the water. Again, no photo as we were busy looking for the Kingfisher so missed the close up view of the bird of prey!
Just got a poor distance shot.

All in all it was a very good day, I've missed out the section about how bad the roads are and the fact there are no signs telling you how to get to the lake, or about how bad the parking is and the fact that ideally you need a 4x4 to navigate through the sand/mud/water!!

Just out of interest, yesterday sightings recorded at Tacumshin were:-
2 Buzzard
1 Hen Harrier
1 Spotted Redshank
1 Green Winged Teal
1 Glossy Ibis

And whilst we were there today, we missed 2 Red Kites and a Fan Tailed Warbler back at home in Wicklow!
We just can't win!