This was day two of the Yellow-crowned Night Heron twitch. After successfully seeing the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Pete Aley & I ended up at The Mullet by the end of the first day. I dropped Pete at his hotel & headed to Cross Lough to kip in the car. I was up early the following morning to have a look around the Lough in the hope of seeing the Black Duck. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. But there was a distant over-summering Whooper Swan, several Wheatears & some Northern Marsh Orchids.
After picking Pete up from his hotel, we went & had another look for the Elegant Tern in the Tern colony on Inis Doire Island, which was close to Pete's hotel. We gave up looking after a half hour without any success. Next we headed off to Annagh Marsh on The Mullet. This turned out to be a very large field about a quarter of a mile long with a predator proof electric fence around it. We had been told by some of the Irish Birders on the previous afternoon, it was worth a look, when we said we were thinking of visiting The Mullet. It was an impressive site, with damp meadows and plenty of Sedge-fringed pools. It was clearly a good place for breeding Waders with Lapwing, Snipe and Redshank all present and breeding there. It was a good example of what can be achieved if breeding Waders can be protected from Mammalian predators.
We did also see some nice Irish Hares on The Mullet, but I will cover them in the next Blog Post.