Goodbye, Ireland

Hi everyone, on Monday we leave for our next destination: Lisbon Portugal. Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and we will spend 2 weeks there. Todays post will mainly be about some of the highlights of Ireland. One of the best highlights was finding 2 life birds in my backyard. 1 was a EURASIAN BULFINCH. The other was RING NECKED PHEASANT spotted by my dad and also photographed by him. It turns out that there is a whole family of pheasants in our yard. The Ring Necked Pheasant was the bird I wanted to see most in Ireland, and it was seen in my yard! That was not a nemesis bird for too long! Here is a photo of the pheasant.

Just as I was writing this post, my dad called me upstairs. He had spotted another pheasant!

At the beginning of our time here I set myself a goal. My goal was to be on the top 10 list on eBird for the most species reported in Ireland for 2014. Now, I have exceeded my goal and am in 5th place with a nice 74 species. While I was here my Life List went from 188 to 248. That's 60 new species!!! In Ireland it is also nice to be living in a large house and be able to go birding in our yard (8 acres). I will not be able to do that in most places. Now I also know what it is like to be living in the country. I have been able to experience Irish culture too. Some examples of Irish culture are Irish pubs, Irish music, etc. Overall I think everyone has had a great time in Ireland and we are all looking forward to our 2 weeks in Portugal! It would be nice to come back to Ireland someday. Stay tuned, because the birding in Portugal is supposed to pretty good and there is also lots to do in the country's capital. Goodbye Ireland!!

Life List 248 (2 more life birds seen in my backyard)

The 2 new backyard life birds

Eurasian Bulfinch 1

Ring Necked Pheasant  4