Wax on, wax off

With the country slowly filling up from top to bottom with waxwings lately I figured keeping an eye out for this small but colourful songbird might be worth my while. With an appointment to go to Cobh and see the waxwings there the next day with Floss I was content to go about other business. We had an awareness day for our sanctuary in UCC with a couple of reptiles and fudge that we where intending on selling. Halfway there in the taxi we realized we had forgotten the fudge so I volunteered to run back to the house. I backtracked to the house through an estate and heard a squeaking noise I had never heard before. I looked up and came face to face with a single waxwing. Holy crap! The lone bird was as surprised as I was seemingly and flew up to a nearby rooftop. I still got a pretty good shot. Epic!

Next day, we drove to Cobh and found the famous flock of just shy of 20 birds sitting around on a large bush all busily feeding. They where slightly more flighty then I would have expected for what essentially looks like a feeding frenzy, but that didn’t take away from the experience. They love those berries!

Then onto Cuskinny where a gadwall revealed itself right by the bird sign! There where also wigeon and teal in the distance and the usual mallards.

A small army of black headed and common gulls greeted us, especially when a car parked nearby and its occupants threw a large quantity of bread into the water. A ring billed gull soon showed itself too, but alas, no sabine’s gull.

Here is the ring bill, first time I have managed to get a common gull and a ring billed gull in the same shot for comparison. The ring billed gull IS lighter, I’ll be damned!

To top it all off a little egret flew past and gave some nice views in a tree and the usual statuesque great black backed gulls posed down at the piers!

A good morning out all in all with Floss who also has a birding blog which can be found here. http://noobirder.blogspot.com

Sun day soon

Last week I set out on a trek from little island to Cobh, I was hoping to find dragonflies and butterflies, specifically ruddy darters, common hawkers, migrant hawkers and painted ladies.

The morning started out with great sunlight. Fota gardens was positively buzzing with dozens of mating common darters laying in the ponds and even a few hunting out on the cut grass in front of the mansion there. I was hoping for a ruddy somewhere but ended up finding no evidence of them there. Still, I got some close-ups of the common darter

Ok, a great start, but as I was ready to continue my walk the sun disappeared and was replaced by that flat grey light we Irish inhabitants all know so well, and that’s how it stayed. The entire walk revealed only one speckled wood, even the reserve outside Cobh had no hawkers, even though they where there this time last year. It’s amazing how clouds make insects vanish almost instantaneously. I settled instead on taking some scenery shots. I did find this gadwall in Cuskinny in with the mallards.

The below shots are HDR’s, intentionally exaggerated, they are not intended as an exercise in realism as my nature photographs are but rather are made to look like say an album cover, I am a big fan of Travis Smith’s covers, so I guess that’s what influences me here.

Gadwalls, Turnstones & Hawkers

My first Gadwall in Cobh! What a great looking little duck. It’s a relative (same genus) of the common mallard but only visits here as a winter visitor. This one was communing with the local mallards in Cuskinny Marsh.

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks lacking in the time to write blog entries unfortunately, none the less I have had a couple of eventful birding trips out in Kinsale, Douglas estuary, Cobh and inch beach in Co.Kerry. I’m missing the jpegs for most of these trips at the moment but that will change in coming days! The photos I do currently have are from my Cobh trip (over a month ago L)

Also that day in Cobh a group of turnstones (about 30) took refuge during the high tide on one of the piers and gave some rare (if not spectacularly photogenic) views of them sitting on boats and on the nearby pier.

Some shots of the local wildlife, rats count as wildlife too! ;)

Found a lot of these migrant hawkers dragonflies too and a couple of darters (not pictured). Presumably it’s about as late in the year as you’re going to find dragonflies in Ireland!

And some more shots of the Gadwall, not a first time bird for most people I’m sure but definitely an unexpected sight for me!

Next week on Leon’s blog, a purple sandpiper that thinks it’s a turnstone, some dodgy shots of brent geese and my first good shots of a seal!