Autumn birding 2023: Inishmore Island, Galway

Storms on the horizon and the chance of American birds hitting Irelands coastline gave myself and Joe Proudfoot an easy decision to make, with Hugh Delaney also heading out onto the island with us. We had to head west, this would give us the best opportunity of connecting with some of these American birds that had been migrating from north to South America and ended up blown across the Atlantic to Ireland. This sounded like a foolproof plan at the time, and in fairness it would make sense to base yourself on an island in the Atlantic after a storm has hit in autumn! Some fantastic birds had shown up before we left and even when we arrived on the island elsewhere in Ireland and the UK, giving us even more hope!

Inishmore... The weather conditions were never exactly easy to look for passerines in. Wind or rain was a feature of most of the 6 days on the island that we spent. Our original plan was 4 night but that soon changed when another storm left us with no option but to stay on the island an extra night. Arriving on Thursday last and leaving just yesterday (Tuesday). This was my first time on the Aran islands, and Inishmore to be exact. A lovely island, but for me a little too big and full of cover for searching for vagrant passerines. A pretty slow start for the most part, though Hugh did pull out a red-eyed vireo on the 21st which happened to be my 25th birthday! And I saw the bird on the 22nd which was a lifer for me, and giving me my 296th bird species that I have seen in Ireland to date! Which isn’t bad going for somewhere that isn’t a big twitcher. Joe stated that he picked up an interesting wigeon on the lake and for me to get on it with my scope. I did just that and after a while and some discussion we found eclipse male American wigeon to be the correct fit! The bird was among Eurasian wigeon which gave a nice comparison and contrast between the two species. Over the next few days we had very little of note seeing the American wigeon a few more times and very little else! An educational bird to pick up and spend some time watching!

A series of images of the eclipse male American wigeon. The grey head with contrasting dark eye mask, bright grey-blue bill, rufous flanks with clean white belly, clean white rather than grey-white (shown on Eurasian) axillaries on the underwing. striking bird even when seen at distance with binoculars. A brighter bird than Eurasian birds present. Always an enjoyable plumage to see in this species! Most likey to be the bird that spent the winter here for the past few years, but is not often found or looked for while in this eclipse plumage.

Red-eyed vireo... A difficult island to work and a bit of a slog at times, though we did book into a B&B that was around a forty to fifty minute walk from the west end of the island the the village! Which made things a little more difficult, the bikes did help but not always easy to cycle around all day! You win some and you lose some! Autumn isn’t over yet!

Leaving the island after 6 days! Pomarine and Arctic skua along with some European strom petrel seen from the ferry also.