The Green Flash Returns!

endacl

OK. Possibly not ‘returns’, exactly, as I never saw it before, but that got your attention!

This is a bird ID one. With limited description, of course. I was down at the slipway at Sandycove yesterday around dusk. A bright green metallic flash flitted past me parallel to the shore, about a foot above the water surface. Perched on some rocks just far enough away to not be clearly visible in the falling light.

If this was riverside, and the colour had been metallic blue, not green, I’d know exactly what I’d seen.

Do we have a small green maratime kingfisher here?

OpenYourEyes

I can well imagine in dull light that a Kingfisher would look green. We don't have anything comparable at all, so my money would be on Kingfisher.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Could be a kingfisher, in winter some do move to estuaries and the coast.

endacl

I was actually there taking photos. Pity I had the 17-40 on. Even at full zoom, that bird wouldn’t have been much more than a streaky pixel!

My gut reaction was kingfisher all right, but I’d never seen one by the sea.

Scotty #

Lapwing maybe? They too have that kind of 'pearl effect' reflective-ness like Magpies, Kingfishers, etc.

OpenYourEyes

I'd be fully sure it was a Kingfisher - nothing else similar in size/shape/colour, and as Srameen says they're often seen along the coast outside the breeding season. Someone had photos of a Kingfisher around Dun Laoghaire Harbour in the last week, on Twitter.