Cheeky robins / Elusive squirrels

Question, how do you photograph a soaking wet robin that randomly flies right up to your cup of coffee and steals cheese from your sandwich a mere 5 centimetres from your hand?

Answer, you don’t when your lens has a minimum focusing range of 20cm, and when your not expecting the cheeky git to steal your sandwich. You do however get some blurry shots that aren’t anywhere close to amazing, but do at the same time paint something of a picture ;) Who says you can’t bird in the rain!

By the way, a tip for amateurs like me, the forests are currently providing good views of freshly fledged jays. I found myself in the company of 5 screaming individuals in Blarney last week. Usually these guys are not so easy to see. (Still can’t get a good picture though)

Also, it seems June is a great month for spotting red squirrels. Last month gave me three random sightings, one on Fota island, one in Rostellan wood and one in Blarney. Each one was entirely random whilst I was looking for butterflies so I can only imagine how many I missed by not looking up. Seems county Cork remains one of the red squirrels ever shrinking strongholds!

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!