Much as my trip to Chincoteague Island consisted largely of sightings of shorebirds, my trip to Ireland was populated by geese. In going back through the photos, in order to update my lifelist with the Irish birds, I came across dozens of photos of geese. At the time, we weren’t entirely sure what we were looking at, so the photos were meant as a tool to confirm our identifications once we returned home and had more time.

Now that I have more time, I have indeed been able to confirm the identifications and created a table for the birds I saw in Ireland. None of the birds are particularly rare, but they were all new to me at the time and exciting to see. I have to admit, traveling to a part of the world with different indigenous species than at home was a great way to both boost the list of birds I’ve seen and make me feel good about my identification skills. And, of course, such trips allow me to justify the purchase of field guides specific to the area. In Dublin, I acquired both Irish Birds and the Collins guide for Britain and Europe.

I continue to go back to the pond each day hoping to find new ducks and geese migrating through here, but so far I’ve only seen flocks of Canada geese, nothing new.