Showy Pec saves an Achill weekend

Headed out to Achill for another shot at finding something 'out west'. It's standard these days for me to go out at least once an autumn to this gem of an area that's pretty much untouched birder wise. I have come back empty handed, but more often than not found something of a bit of interest.

This weekend, Josh J and I struggled. There'd not been any obvious weather, and the Saturday was spent checking the usual sites for waders, enjoying the scenery and looking for passerines contemplating where the big one would be in the future... Corrymore House is my bet.

Anyway, after a fitful night's sleep, we did a check of Keel golf course before breakfast. Nada. Then headed up to the area around Doogort. We were heading up the track beyond Achill Rovers FC, when Josh spotted a wader flying about - then in no time at all, it did the decent thing and landed on Lough Nambrack and revealed itself as a lovely juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper: -

juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper Achill Island, County Mayo 20th September 2015

This was a brilliant bird, fresh in and totally fearless of us. It walked past us, feeding totally unobtrusively having evidently not got a clue what humans were. We said we'd shake on a showy yank on Achill this weekend, and that's what we got. One day I'm hoping to live the dream on Achill...