Tory Island, Donegal.

Hiya all, I,ve just got back from Tory Island, off the coast of Donegal.
Tory is an Island and I collect Islands. My collection includes the Shetland group. The most southern tip of the Island group at Sumburgh head (where I helped to ring most of the cliff-nesting birds), the most northern tip of the most northern Island (where we took it turns being the mostly northerly person in the UK), where we were ringing the chicks of the Great Skua. Now I live in Ireland. I went with Jim Fowler to the most southwest point, around the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse last year, and today I’ve just returned from the most northern island Tory. It’s just one of those things we do. I was there for a team meeting with the corncrake fieldworkers of Mayo and Donegal, and Tory has a lot of corncrakes. They were calling by day, and are often visible. I didn’t see one. I’ve got a species list for the last 36 hours which includes:………………


1. Puffin. 2. Guillemot. 3. Razorbill. 4. Black Guillemot (Taystie). 5. Black-headed Gull. 6. Herring Gull. 7. Common Gull. 8. Lesser Black-backed Gull. 9 Great Black-backed Gull. 10. Redshank. 11. Oyster-catcher. 12. Dunlin. 13. Ringed Plover. 14. Curlew. 15. Lapwing. 16. Raven. 17. Jackdaw. 18. Rook. 19. Hooded Crow. 20. Chough. 21. Rock Pipit. 22. Meadow Pipit. 23. Wheatear. 24. Swallow. 25. Cormorant. 26. Shag. 27. Eider. 28. Mallard. 29. Manx Shearwater. 30. Sooty Shearwater. 31 Stormpetrel. 32. Gannet. 33. Fulmar. 34. Peregrine. 35. Housemartin. 36. House Sparrow. 37. Tree Sparrow. 38. Wren. 39. Starling. 40. Corncrake. 41.Redpoll, 42.Arctic Skua. 43. Some Terns.... I didn't bother with the rest... Besides's having sooty's and stormy's flying around the boat was enough. I didn't need my bins either... They were bow-riding us..

That’ll do for now. We did stop for a break on the way back and saw a pod of maybe 8 Risso’s Dolphin, before having to help a Frenchman who had made a little mistake with his Volkeswagon. “Der Vorsprung in-a-ditch”, as we say in Ireland……