Clare Bird Sightings

13 Little Egrets were at Grange Bridge (Andrew Holmes).
Two Blackcaps were at Monaleen (TT).

A male Black Redstart was at the Deel Boat Club, Askeaton (Geoff Oliver).
Two Buzzards were also in the area (GO).
A Barn Owl was seen on a number of evenings recently at Griston, Ballylanders (Adrian Insley).
A Barn Owl was seen in Adare (Pat Fitzgerald).

A 1st winter Yellow-legged Gull was at Arthur’s Quay (TT)
A adult Ring-billed Gull was at O’Callaghan Strand. A Polish ringed Black-headed Gull, Yellow T2PW, was also present. The bird was ringed as an adult at a breeding site in Koronowo, in north central Poland, on 2/6/2017. It was subsequently seen in Dunlettle, Cork in January 2018, Glanmire, Cork in December 2018, Woolston Eyes Nature Reserve, Cheshire in February 2019, Bydgoszcz-Okole, Poland in April 2019 and back in Cork (Blackrock Castle) in August 2019. This extraordinary series of records suggests that the bird migrates each year from breeding sites in Poland to winter in Ireland. We have previously seen evidence of similar long distance migration movements from a Swedish Black-headed Gull that wintered at the Mill Road, Corbally from 2007 to 2015. This is the second Polish ringed Black-headed Gull to be recorded in the City this winter. Yellow TLW5 has been recorded wintering in Corbally (Mill Road area) since December 2019 (TT).

An adult Ring-billed Gull was O’Callaghan’s Strand (TT).

An adult Ring-billed Gull was at O’Callaghan’s Strand (Geoff Hunt).
A Blackcap was at Monaleen (TT).