Birds springing to life

As winter came to a close I decided to try get some shots of the birds out and about preparing for nesting. What I really wanted was some good song trush shots. Another species I regularly see but whose photographs rarely seem to work out. I guess because it’s hard to get to their eye level and because they tend to be in shadowy parts. Anyway, here’s some early attempts at finding some of the more common species of songbird in the city at the moment.

Hooded crow

Little magpies. There was five of them fighting on the ground. 

Starlings in a field, showing the yellow bill colour that they develop for the breeding season

Always nice to see the various colours hidden in the starlings plumage

House sparrow

A female chaffinch which decided to pose for the camera

Long tailed tit. Frustrating bird to photograph as it sits still for only a few seconds. Some day I'll actually get a good shot of one!

Needs no introduction. Robin patrolling UCC

Same bird

One very nervous blackbird in UCC

Some song trush shots

Easily overlooked. Personally I like all the patterns in the plumage

A single redwing trush in the city. Hardly a sign of spring, but since I have 2 other turdus trushes in this post, I figured, why not.

Ballycotton in December

Nother week, nother visit to Ballycotton. This time things where on the quiet side (I think I miss the butterflies). Luckily though I did find a considerable number of  brent geese and managed to get some halfway decent flight shots. A lot more around this time then a couple of weeks ago (30 or so)    

My first grey plover ground shot (I think). Not great but still nice to see one that’s not a mile away.   

A group of dunlin awaiting low tide, one ringed plover with them (not in shot)

   

Amongst other things I photographed my first sanderlings, living up to its name, ringed in Iceland apparently, very interesting!
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Couple of other things in the neighbourhood too, such as about 30 choughs feeding in the seaweed. Characteristically hard to photograph despite my almost lying flat on the sand to get an eye level shot, it didn't quite work out as planned but that’s life I suppose.

Some teal showed themselves reasonably well, its not the shot I want but you can see the detail on their heads which is an improvement over my past teal shots!   

Finches, sparrows and starlings galore as is always the case in Ballycotton! This should have been a great greenfinch shot but alas my automatic settings made them too dark!

Linnet

House sparrow


Starling, rather like this shot



Ballycotton pier had a steady group of about 40 large gulls all day, a number which swelled to well over a hundred when a fishing vessel came in. No rarities (that I have the skill to pick out of a crowd). 

       

   

Amongst the herrings, lesser black backeds and great black backeds where a small number of kittiwakes. I love these gulls! I’m not used to seeing them in the city, so a pleasant surprise!

   

 Oh! and an otter by the pier too!Always nice to see

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!