Flycatching treenagers

Blue tit youngling

Yup, so I’m back in the city once again enjoying the bird drought. Not that I am complaining because I did manage to find some of my favourite common songbirds and photograph them at least slightly better than past efforts. My tip of the week I guess is that like the wrens before, treecreepers have now erupted from their nests and are more approachable and easier to view then the adults usually are. I’ve seen about twelve in all in different places around the city. 

First tree? He'll never forget that

Thought I would point my camera at this chaffinch after I so rudely scared him away from the seed he was eating. One of our most colourful birds and thankfully one of our most common as well

 

Whilst doing my usual UCC rounds I was surprised to realize I was staring right down at a fledged spotted flycatcher (I was hoping for a coal tit), in fact it was staring right up at me and almost made for quite a good photo series, unfortunately it was largely obscured by foliage which slightly ruined the shots. Then again, it kind of personifies the spotted flycatcher as the somewhat private bird it is. The place I was viewing was from the staff car park which in fact overlooks the river areas of UCC. This spot always gives me a rarely found top down view as well as allowing me to see some of the canopy birds at eye level.

This would have been a rare and special moment & I guess it was, just not for my camera!

Calling for food, love the fact that it appears to have whiskers

To my astonishment I also had two warblers wander straight into the branches I was looking at, they look a bit willowish to me and since I didn’t get a good shot that reveals its leg colour i’m not sure which it is (chiffchaff or willow warbler). I’m not going to pin it down to one because admittedly I usually get these two wrong. (Dark legs means chiffchaff, but not always, doh!). At least we can safely conclude it’s not a wood warbler!

Must say, haven’t seen anything new this week but I am delighted to have gotten at least some sort of mentionable shot of a warbler this summer. I was almost ready to conclude that my luck was going to be even worse than last year in photographing one.

By the way, something of a weird sighting, the mid city fountain (which I know contains no fish) had about five adult herons peering into it at 2am the last day. Where they drinking, I’m not sure whether they drink or get their moisture in take from their prey, also, why the fountain and not the water that runs through much of the city, perhaps it’s too brackish in the canals, they certainly weren’t planning on roosting there being surrounded by hundreds of drunken folks, what the heck?

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).

General greebous

Couple of small updates, after a week of almost constant rain sun has suddenly descended on Cork city and fried its confused citizens to bits. I am thinking of proposing that we rename the Irish maritime climate to an Enigmatine climate due to its severely random nature.

Since I wrote this the weather has turned decidedly average again but I guess that just proves my point.

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Good start for my nature return as the UCC rounds revealed a spotted flycatcher! This seems to be the only flycatcher we have in any great abundance here in Ireland but is by no means easy to find. It’s a summer visitor here and in most of Europe. This picture is not great but fingers crossed that I find some more in the next few weeks. There seems to be a lot of them around the country at the moment so I’m hopeful! 

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The rest of UCC seems largely lifeless with most birds hidden away and recovering from the stress of parenting but one pine tree did reveal an unusual abundance of feeding songbirds. 6 goldcrests, 4 coal tits, 6 blue tits, 7 long tailed tits, 2 great tits and a treecreeper all in one tree. (Treecreeper on top, WOW not my best shot, coal tit bottom, also not great).

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Also made my weekly (ish) trip to the Atlantic pond where I found the usual grey herons but unfortunately no good views of the little egrets. The young heron was showing well again so I had to photograph him despite already having about 20 shots of the same animal (top). Last but not least a little grebe finally wandered into some light and gave me a fairly good shot (bottom), wahay.

 

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Barn swallow and spotted flycatcher added to UCC list

Now lets hope the weather sticks!

In Otter news

I’ll be honest, of the 55 or so species (you better be right Wikipedia!) of mammal in Ireland I have seen maybe ten and only managed to photograph a couple. Here in the city, as you might imagine, we are a little short on creatures such as Sika deer and Pine marten so finding these species on my limited time and transport is near impossible (bring on the Summer). 

 Go a little more coastal or rural though and you have a significant chance of finding Otters. These large Mustelids are one of the least hated animals in Ireland at the moment, their playful and inquisitive nature endear most of the people that they share ground with and aside from that they feed primarily in fish, a habit that keeps them generally out of human conflict. Heck maybe it’s just the fact that they are rather entertaining! Just look at the video below (not mine, random vid, hope they don’t mind the embed).

To find otters, estuarine areas are probably easiest. My preferred area is Clonakilty bay where I have spent extensive time exploring and encountered otters nine times. Not bad considering I wasn’t looking for or expecting to find them. Otters live inland too but apparently are shyer, I think maybe this has something to do with coastal otters being well used to flocks of large and aggressive gulls circling and mobbing them for fish. Once you’ve had a great black backed gull (wingspan 1.7m) lunge at you you’re probably not going to be afraid of a long haired dude with a camera.

Here in Ireland we are quite lucky because we apparently have one of the highest concentrations of common otter anywhere in Europe, a pretty awesome statistic if you consider that we usually have the lowest concentration of or completest lack of most European species! 

Early mornings are the best time to find otters, they like the peace and quiet of not having too many people around I guess! The mentioned gull mobbing are also a handy way of finding them since these large birds circle the poor otter and can be seen from quite a distance, a gang of gulls is always worth investigating. The oddest thing about these guys seems to be that once you do spot them they usually start watching you right back instead of running off. This mother and littleuns is the perfect example. She was unaware of my presence at first, but after she noticed me she just watched me for about five minutes before strolling off. An encounter that made my day!

I am not sure if we have otters here in the city but I am guessing that the answer is yes, the area of waterlogged fields and ponds across from the Lee river fields seems ideal; if it’s quiet enough to have kingfishers then I am sure otters exist too. Further research to come!

In other news! Nothing new in the past few days but I did get some interesting shots of the ‘everyday’ birds.
Also, added a page for the UCC bird list (Here) or on the Sub-page toolbar to the right!

My favorite Pied wagtail shot to date!

Some experimental closeups of the Grey heron. Monsters of the water, I actually saw one eat a baby duck yesterday

Mute swan.

Greenfinch, my best shot to date but I'm still not happy with it!

A hooded crow at UCC, looking a bit grumpy!

A Dunnock (?) I think its a dunnock but it looks odd somehow, I'm guessing its newly fledged!

UCC songbirds

University College Cork (UCC) may at first seem largely devoid of life but on closer examination it reveals a surprising variety of wildlife. The river, stone walls, trees, bushes and short grass areas all provide ideal habitat for several small songbirds as well as some bigger species.

The best hotspot for life on the UCC grounds is the river walk which can be accessed by taking a right just past the main gates, here overhanging willows and a variety of other tree species provide ideal refuge for many robins which can easily be spotted looking for food, feeding chicks and singing on branches, these robins are quite approachable and are undoubtedly drawn to the nearby restaurant where they can scavenge for tidbits. (robin of the day!, right)

Alongside the robins live numerous chaffinches which can be easily viewed amongst the branches! 

Another attraction, perhaps the most significant of all is the presence of several mistle trushes (below). These large trushes are much bigger than the closely related blackbirds and song trushes that can be seen around the city, they have slate grey backs and a harsh urgent calls and can be seen regularly looking for food around the fields. I have never seen such an abundance of them as I have here, one day I found eleven of them in one area. These birds can be hard to find and go largely unnoticed but are quite worth pursuing. An Irish nickname for them is ‘storm cock’ because they have a tendency to sing from treetops during rain showers. 

Pied wagtails (top) and Grey wagtails (bottom) can also be found along this path, both birds are closely related but the pied is a lot more common, the grey is harder to spot and generally sticks only to river banks. It’s worth seeking out as its yellow plumage is quite a sight! The pied wagtail in contrast is extremely common and at least one can usually be seen on the fields and paths of UCC at any given time.

 

The rocky part of the river walk with its overhanging vegetation provides ideal habitat for several species of tits such as the great tit below. These entertaining birds can also be seen at the bird feeders around campus. 

 

Other species of interest that I have seen here are bullfinches (left) and greenfinches (right) and gold crests (bottom) which remain camouflaged most of the time but can occasionally be seen amidst the leaves, a bird worth pursuing, it’s also Ireland’s smallest bird.

The four most common crow species of Ireland can all be found around campus as well. Magpies are easy to find with their bold colours and loud agitated calls whilst jackdaws roam most of the grassy areas. Rooks and hooded crows occasionally join them as well especially if there is food to be scavenged. A visit to UCC is guaranteed to turn up at least two of these species if not all four! (rook below)