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

Chats in Ballycotton

Cormorant with an eel, lots of these around.

Seeing the opportunity for a sunny day out I recently took yet another trip down to Ballycotton to try and take a good look at all the sandy bits. What I and my measly camera found mostly consisted of miniature dots sitting on sandbanks. Primarily wigeon shaped ones. Still a very pleasant walk!

So shy that this is probrably my best wigeon shot to date, bleh!

The shoreline by the beach car park had this small cluster of Brent geese. A first for me! Yes I know..., I haven’t been at this as long as most folks.


The hedgerows where full of songbirds though, thousands of house sparrows, dunnocks, large numbers of rook, linnets, goldfinch and many more. The worst moment of my day was coming face to face with 4 yellowhammers sitting in full view less than a meter away. Needless to say they were gone before I could get the stunned expression off my face. Ah well.

Goldfinch

Linnet (with oddly light legs)

A young rook

The moment that ultimately made my day was the sight of this very approachable stonechat which gave me some excellent views. It’s not the stunning summer plumage that is most associated with the stonechat but this was definitely the closest I’ve managed to get to one.





It being late October (at the time), few butterflies remained on the cliff walk. In fact the only thing I saw was admirals.



I was surprised to find a dragonfly on the cliffs as well. It is most likely a female red veined darter (see facebook debate) on account of the bluish tint to its wings. A new species for me and likely the last I’m going to see this year!

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)