Beauty and the beasts

Seems I haven’t posted since December 2012. Well it’s not for lack of birds or photographs but probably the fact that I’ve been too busy working my way through my ever present backlog of photos.

I’ve seen a number of waxwings since the Cobh flock in December. Most are part of a group found at St.Finbarr’s cathedral a few weeks back. It’s a great location even allowing the occasional eye level shot with distant background, exactly what you want from a songbird. The only downside is that the weather generally has forced me to compromise a fair bit of quality. Here’s the best of a rather grainy lot.

Just to prove that there where in fact multiple waxwings ;)

Also checked some of the other sites around the city, Atlantic pond, Lough and the canals, but despite the Iceland gulls and the ring necked duck that where present this time last year; all that turned up was a couple of ring billed gulls.

In other news, I went for a trip to Kinsale last week. I was hoping to photograph great black backed gulls, as they tend to be a bit shy and harder to photograph then other Larus species. I found none! But the rare day of sunshine did allow me to photograph some crow species in full light. I do love the colours that a rook can reveal on a sunny day!

Jackdaw, love the eye colour

Hooded crow

Rook

Young rook

Rook finds some bread, displeased gulls!

Kinsale part I, Scavengers

Ever have a batch of pictures so large that you put off the laborious job of going through them all and picking out the viable shots? Well...that’s why I am only now ready to show my pictures from a recent trip to Kinsale.  Kinsale is a small fishing town in west Cork complete with Oceanside scenery, marina, various piers and even a spar or two.  It also sports some of the most obese gulls I have ever seen. The bay (or inlet, whatever it is) was covered with the usual screaming crowds of black headed gulls but also had a couple of common gulls and a group of about twenty herring gulls. Only 2 of those where in full adult plumage but that didn’t matter as they where both perfectly willing to be fed. 

 

This one I call 'Alpha' since he was more then willing to push off his competitors. A giant herring gull with attitude it seems! Is it me or do these guys have far more confidence then their cousins the lesser black backs?

   

           

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One of the youngling herring gulls chancing his luck.   

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One of the thousand or so hovering black headed gulls eager for an easy meal. Hard to imagine that these guys are so hard to find in summer.

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A common gull
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Also spotted this unusually aproachable great black backed gull, truly a massive bird, specially compared to the pigeon sized black heads.
   

   

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A jackdaw and a rook or two joined the party too showing glimmers of colour in their plumage. Always nice to see!

   

Your garden variety birds

We put up a bird feeder in the garden, set up so I can point and shoot through the window of the kitchen for rainy or study filled days. The lack of nearby cover seems to be discouraging some birds but I’m getting sporadic groups of blue tit / chaffinch. So far I have blue tit, great tit, greenfinch, chaffinch, blackbird, jackdaw, magpie, rook, collared dove, woodpigeon  & song trush. Not too shabby!

I’ll be keeping tab of what shows up anywhere in the garden, in this page here, which can also be found to the right under sub pages (over there -> )

Here’s some past shots I have gotten of these individuals.

Collared dove

Blue tit

Great tit

Greenfinch

Chaffinch

Song trush

Blackbird

The flycatcher invasion

The UCC spotted flycatchers remain with one pair actively established on the grounds & a third flycatcher some 30 seconds down the road which likely implies that its mate was somewhere nearby. The river walk also revealed glimpses of another one! The city’s green patches are full of them evidently.

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The flycatcher belongs to a group of about a hundred small insect catching birds (Old world flycatchers), some of which are not quite so bland, take this here Malaysian blue flycatcher for instance!

Our little friend has his good sides too tho...

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The flycatcher looks unremarkable at first glance with its small size, unobtrusive voice and drab green colouring but one thing that stands out about it is its precision and speed. Whilst taking pictures the flycatchers moved between close knit branches with split second timing and movements that where barely visible to the eye (not ideal for taking pictures then).

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If you look closely you can see that the flycatcher is actually more elongated then say a similar sized robin, with a pointed bill and a tapered body/tail. Its tail fans out widely and can be used to make fast mid air course corrections. These adaptations combine to allow the flycatcher to hunt by perching on a branch and quickly flying up and grabbing insects in mid air before returning to the branch. All this happens in moments. See the arkive video below to see what I mean. 

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It’s amazing how each species has adapted to its environment in different ways. I also happened to find a tree creeper in the park (in a tree with a pineapple stuck in it! What the heck where they getting up to in that mid Summer festival!?). This is the best shot I’ve gotten of one so far, it’s not at all great but at least it shows the important details of this bird. It has brown camouflage to blend in with the tree bark, a stiffened tail to allow it to rest vertically against the tree trunk, a long probing bill to grab insects in and around bark and long claws that allow it to walk up and down tree branches with ease. Again, it’s perfectly adapted to life in the trees!

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There are quite a number of newly fledged birds around and those who are still dependent on their parents can be quite easy to spot. You will generally see them making a lot of noise and being far less careful about being seen then their stressed out elders. Blue tits and wrens in particular are abundant and can easily be found by their sounds. (mother on the fence on top, baby at bottom)

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Yesterday I spotted this goldfinch, pity it wouldn’t stop to be photographed at close range, still its colours more than make up for my lousy stealth abilities!

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Other everyday but none the less enjoyable sightings where several young greylags at the Lough, a jackdaw posing rather nicely and a young coot. (greylags,jackdaw,coot).

The squirrel occupation

My trip to Phoenix Park and Dublin zoo last week didn’t turn up too many wild creatures in the 4 hours or so I spend wandering around and avoiding random and extreme rain showers. None the less it was great fun because it’s almost impossible to avoid one of Ireland’s most prosperous invasive species; the grey squirrel. These small grey and quite unwary creatures are simply everywhere going about their daily routines and can be quite easy to photograph.

As is well known the grey squirrel originates from America as its Latin name suggests (Sciurus carolinienis) and was (allegedly) accidently introduced when a rather ill thought out wedding present of little squirrels ran amuck back in 1911. Since then the grey squirrel has pushed out the smaller, less adaptable red squirrels from most of its range and gained a permanent foothold in the food chain.  (top, red s from little island, bottom, grey s from Phoenix park)

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Luckily the problem doesn’t seem so bad down here in Cork where sighting a squirrel of any sort is a fairly rare occurrence for me. Oddly little island seems to have both species but not in any great abundance.  

Still, despite its influence and bad reputation the grey squirrel is admittedly a great looking little creature and very photogenic!

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The zoo has some rather tame wild birds as well, magpies, jackdaws, rooks, collared doves, herring gulls, starlings, house sparrows, robins, dunnocks, grey herons, mallards and even a little grebe where quite approachable, more so even then the ones in Cork city. (from top to bottom, little grebe, house sparrow, juvenile starling, jackdaw, collared dove, magpie)

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As for the zoo creatures themselves, they too got their pictures taken; I even made them a special page which can be found on the right under sub pages or by clicking on the tiger below!