Cattle Egret

We took a trip to Strangford Lough on Sunday (more in the next post), and decided early on that we'd head to Hillsborough late on to catch the cattle egret that's been roosting there this last while.

We arrived at the lake at about 4.30, found the island with the dead tree and cormorant roost and set the scopes up.  Just Steve and myself and a few curious locals asking what we were up to.  The roost is in a public park so lots of interest from those out for their Sunday stroll.  We were as polite as possible without being too encouraging, we really didn't want a mob, we just wanted to enjoy the bird, end the day on a high and head home.

"Hey Mick, take a look over there" says Steve, "I don't believe it!!!"  You remember the scene in the film 'Zulu Dawn', when over the hill come thousands of Zulu warriors, headgear, shields and spears on show.  Replace the headgear with woolly hats, the shields with binoculars and the spears with scopes and our very own mob of Zulu birders came thundering down the footpath towards us. 



"I say chaps, the little buggers been hanging around that tree over there, bloody cheek, invading someone elses tree, what...rather inconsiderate wouldn't one say?"

This was turning into a real twitch.  Eight of us now hugged the lake shore, this only served to get even more locals curious as to what was going on.  It took all my years of practice in the art of  'evasion of eye contact' in order to avoid being distracted again, some of the new bigger group obviously weren't as skilled as me and made the mistake of eyeballing the strollers and getting pounced on.  "what, why, where...... really....... blah blah blah

Back to the egret.  The sun just started to go behind the trees and the lake was looking a little duller when from the left a flash of white.  Right on cue the bird landed on the front lower part of the tree and gave great views.  This cattle egret has been roosting here for quite some time so we were pretty sure we'd get to see it, however we couldn't be sure it would land on the front of the tree and show so well.

It was a great end to a really great day (more on the next post) and all that remained was the trip back down the A1 and home.

Eider

I spent a morning last Sunday week out in Skerries hoping for a sighting of the Eider's that I've been told call that part of the world home.  Not a species I've had in Dublin, hence the trip.

It was bitter cold, the sea was choppy and there were very few walkers around.  Shane F turned up about an hour in, he had the same idea as me, so together we spent a couple of hours scoping the bay area over towards the islands and beyond.  No show, d'oh!!!  I only had half the day, I could have gone somewhere else and not been so cold.  Shane left and headed to Kilcoole (later on he got a Glossy Ibis over Broad Lough).  I hung around another 30 minutes or so before packing up and heading home.

Not to be beaten I headed back to Skerries the following Friday.  It was an altogether better experience.  Cool, not cold, and the sea was much calmer.  I took up position on one of the benches on Red Island looking out across the bay towards Colt Island.  I scoped the shoreline of Colt from right to left and hey presto!!  Just off the shoreline between Colt and the large rocks to the left as you view it from the headland was the unmistakable sight of a male Eider.  A quick zoom in revealed two more Eiders, female/juvenile, just too far out to be sure which.  So Eiders in Dublin, a first for me.

All the while the scope was zoomed in on the ducks, I was also being entertained by a flock of 30 odd purple sandpipers just below my position, flying up and down the shoreline off Red Island.

I moved on towards Gormanstown after that but apart from a flock of common scoters well offshore the place was very quite.

Rough-legged buzzard - Kilcoole

Sunday morning, 7.30am.  Steve keeping an eye on things in the stubble field, I'm up the hill watching the field with the sheep (and dead dog, more on that later).  One hour into what was to be a long day and Steve arrives up the lane and we begin to put a plan together for the rest of the day.  Late last year there was a report of a rough-legged buzzard only a couple of minutes up the road from my house in Ashbourne, I was on the scene within minutes (see previous post) but no buzzard (well, not a live one anyway (again, see previous post).

Steve had only arrived up to me a couple of minutes when he sights the buzzard over my shoulder a couple of fields in the distance.  There it was, flying low, mobbed by crows, rising and dropping across the field, disappears behind a house, back in view and across another field.  It was heading towards the stubble field Steve had just left.  Tripods on shoulders we legged (pardon the pun) back down the lane and into the stubble field.  By the time we got there it was gone, but Justin I who was also in the field spotted it flying low across the length of the field, past the hay bales and through the trees at the bottom towards the train tracks.

Our phones went into action and before long there were five or six of us in the field hoping for a show.  Nothing happened for an hour, some of the group dispersed.  Myself and Steve decided to head down to Kilcoole and get a look at the Tundra bean geese that were around for the last couple of days.  Jim C decided to join us, so off we set.

We had no bother spotting the TB geese, they had conveniently taken up residence in the potato field with the whoopers.  From the potato field we headed down past the buck thorn to the breaches, this time the target were bewicks.  We scanned the whoopers and mutes in the fields but no bewicks.  After about an hour we decided to head back up to Glenroe farm for the RL buzzard.

An afternoon of frustration followed.  We set up in the sheep field above the lane with Shay C.  Getting back to the dead dogs, we were approached that morning by the farmer whose field we were in, he was cool with this.  However he told us how the previous evening he'd shot two dogs that were hassling the lambing sheep.  The evidence was there to see, two dead dogs on the field, both minus important parts of their craniums, important that is if they'd wished to continue living!

Hey Dinny, have you seen Lucky?  I let her out for a run this morning and she hasn't come home!!

Jim C and others headed up to the N11 where they got views of the bird, we unfortunately didn't.  The three of us stayed put, waiting for the bird to head our way...... it didn't.  By this time it was cold, very cold.  Shay and I decided to call it a day, I'd have to settle for the brief views I got that morning.  However, I said Jim and I headed home, I didn't mention Steve.  He hung around and before I'd reached Bray on the N11 he was on the phone to me........ moral of the story, if you've staked out a bird from the crack of dawn to an hour before dark and only caught a glimpse of said bird, don't be so quick to head home, stay the hour till dark, you just never know!  Patience is a virtue, and Steve got his reward.
 

Merlin

I spent a large part of the last four years criss crossing south east Meath recording and reporting anything seen or heard which is predominately covered in feathers for the Bird Atlas.  Alas the atlas fieldwork is complete and now someone else must take all those sightings and try make sense of them, my part was fun, this next part I'm not so sure!  Anyway it'll all have been worth it when the atlas results proper are published and we see the fruits of our own labours sit beside the work of all the other volunteers and a true picture of the health or otherwise of Ireland's avian population is there for all to see.

I've been surprised at times, it's only when you make a concerted effort to record everything you see and hear that you begin to realise just how rich the species list for any area can be.  Birds can be secretive when they want, hiding in the undergrowth, perched high up in the canopy, they don't always sit out in the open, but if they did would we get as much enjoyment from birding as we do?  Lets face it, it can be the cruelest of pastimes (like dipping on the osprey at Broad Lough this weekend).  If the bird you want was always there, in the place you'd expect (or not) to find it, there would be no thrill in the chase, no tight feeling in the gut as you drive to Broad Lough in time to set the gear up in the exact location an osprey had spent the previous week, hoping, just hoping that this bird which really should be somewhere else (another continent) will hang around for one more day.  But it doesn't always work out for the good, does it, and that is what makes birding so rewarding, because when it does work out the journey home is so much more enjoyable.

I'll stop rambling on now and get to the point.  In all the hours I spent working on the atlas there were some species I'd record on every visit to every tetrad, there were other species I'd record only in certain tetrads, and others which could turn up in any tetrad but generally didn't.  Of the later category one example would be merlin.  Now I've gone back over my records for the four years and I have to say I takes a little digging around to find any records for merlin, a handful over four years, spread over a dozen or so tetrads.  Not exactly the density of population of say the blackbird then, but we wouldn't expect it would we?  So whats different this year?



merlin - Baltrasna, Ashbourne


In the last eight weeks I've had more sightings of merlin in and around Ashbourne than I know I've had in the last five years combined.  And not all sightings in the same area, the sightings have been pretty much all over, male and female, early morning, late afternoon etc etc.  In other words I know I'm not seeing the same couple of birds over and over.  The range and diversity of location and habitat suggests the merlin population of Meath is thriving, but where has it been for the last few years.  I haven't been going out looking for merlin, but they are showing well and cant be missed, the same unfortunately cant be said for the local kestrel population.  Whilst I'm enjoying numbers of merlin the like of which I've never experienced in the area, I can now go days without a single kestrel sighting.

I'm no scientist, I'm just a birder, but I cant help notice the changes in populations around the country.  I remember when buzzards and little egrets just didn't have a permanent population in this country, look at them now!  I have a question which has been bothering me a bit lately, and this is it..... "can someone please explain the increase in merlin numbers on my patch?"  Am I witnessing the start of something which will continue, is it anything to do with the very mild weather of late, where has the population of merlin decreased?

I'll probably be posting again at some point over the winter to say numbers on the patch have reverted to norm, but in the meantime I'll continue to record and enjoy these terrific little raptors.

Short-eared owl

I headed over to Swords last Saturday with the intention of spending an hour or two max on the estuary before heading home.  Well that was the intention, but as the saying goes "the best laid plans of men and......"  When I arrived Sean C was there, we hadn't met in quite a while so we had a bit of catching up to do.  It was obvious from the off that Sean had every intention of making a day of it and before you knew it an hour had passed on Swords and we were headed out to Loughshinny in search of the Red-kites.  They've been on show up here for the past couple of weeks. 

Loughshinny didn't give up any kites, it did however give us a kestrel chasing an LBJ into a bush not ten feet from us, LBJ escaped into said bush, kestrel perched up.  It sat there for so long that in the end we moved on and left the kestrel to ponder its next move. 
 
From Loughshinny we moved over to the outflow at Rush, I've had grey phalarope here twice in previous years, and more besides, however on this occasion nothing of note.  We hung around Rush for about an hour, more than it deserved, it really was very quite.

We decided we'd head to the north hide at Rogerstown as this was on the way home for both and after the day we were having that was about all we wanted to do.  Park up, wellies on, scope out and over the gate (don't know why I didn't use the turnstile) and down the lane.  Exit the lane out into the first open field and bingo.  "Hey Sean, over there, look......."  The next hour made the previous four worth while.  All the disappointment of a quite day washed away by the discovery of a short-eared owl, which like the kestrel earlier in the day, knew we were around but chose to ignore us and continue on its own business regardless.



short-eared owl, north hide Rogerstown

 What followed was an hour of close encounters of the short-eared kind.  The field was quartered continuously, the owl never out of sight for more than a few seconds.  Quarter, perch, quarter, perch and on and on.  We never moved for cover, we didn't have to, we stood out in the open field, the owl happy enough to pass really close, obviously safe in the knowledge that we didn't pose a threat.  We really could have stayed all evening, but it was a Saturday, late afternoon, light fading and the stomach beginning to rumble which brought us back up the lane and over the gates (why didn't I use the turnstile) and into the cars for home.

Now that was Saturday.  Fast forward to Sunday, 11.00am out on the bull, I'm on the track that runs along the golf course heading towards the point when from out on the marsh a short-eared owl comes flying almost directly at me, over the hedge and into the course.  This a much more fleeting view than the previous days.  Any weekend that gives up short-eared owl two days running is a good one, it doesn't happen that often.

Rough-legged Buzzard - Dip

Took myself a couple of kilometers up the N2 this morning to see if the RL buzzard spotted in the flooded field this morning was still around.  I got there at about 11 and Dermot O'M was already there.  As I parked Dermot was in the process of removing a dead buzzard from the middle of the road.  First thoughts were "I don't believe this, its been hit and killed before I've had a chance to see it"..........    Well luck was in for the RL buzzard, Dermot was removing one of his cousins, a common buzzard.

It had a hole in its side chest cavity.  It was otherwise still intact, this and the "freshness" of its appearance meant it was killed possibly on a couple of minutes before we arrived.  Believe me, the traffic on this stretch of road is so busy that anything lying around for more than a few minutes will end up frisbee shaped in no time.

I've attached a photo of the unfortunate buzzard below.



road kill buzzard N2 - not the RL variety!


Anyway, back to the business of the RL buzzard.  We stayed for about 30 minutes, no show.  We stayed a bit longer.... no show.  Dermot decided to head on up to Annagassan to see if the grey phalarope was still present, I'd had it yesterday, it was sheltering within the walls of the harbour from very rough seas.

I hung around for another hour and guess what..... no RL buzzard.   The field had plenty of ducks (mallard), mute swans (pair), lapwing, blackwits, and lots of gulls, mostly BH.  Scoping the far tree line for the RL gave up a male merlin.

Another dip, time for home.  Its only a few minutes drive home so I'll keep an eye on the field over the next couple of days, so fingers crossed.

Mind your step

Breath in, smell the sea.... two hours spent in Kilcoole, nothing much on show but hey the airways got a workout.  I love that smell, the almost arced, seaweed smell that tells you your on the coast.  That's the smell  that was in the air that filled my lungs on Sunday, and boy does it make you glad your alive!

Back to the car, open the boot, prepare to change out of the boots, take one last deep intake of sea air and enjoy........ sniff...... SNIFF...... that doesn't smell right, something smells like what I imagine pedigree chum would smell like if it was opened and left to fester in a heated room for about a week (or substitute a heated room for a canine intestine) ...... DOG SHIT, and its on my boots! 

I want to get the K9 mutt who left its load for me to step into and insert said boot into rectum.  Actually I don't, I want to get the owner of the K9 and insert said boot into rectum, I want to deliver retribution the old fashioned way with a good old KICK IN THE ARSE!!

You see that's the problem with taking a coastal walk anywhere in Ireland, you run the risk of stepping on the K9 version of an IED.   Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan leave explosives on footpaths, mans best friend just leaves his load.  And ain't that a real spoiler, I really thought I'd avoided the literally hundreds of deposits at Kilcoole on Sunday, but as they say, it only takes one.  My guard slipped for a second, maybe I was distracted by the distant call of the curlew (poetic), or was it when I looked up to say hello to a passer by, the point is it doesn't really matter how, the point is at some point in the afternoon I trod in a steaming turd.

Ironically when I met Brian H last Tuesday at Kilcoole we were speaking about how much K9 crap there was in the area, this was the very conversation we were having as we admired the BB sandpiper.  Brian H was saying how disgraceful it was that dogs were allowed run free by their owners and disturb so many birds, never mind the fact their owners couldn't give a shit (leave that for the dogs) what they get up to and where.

On Sunday I met Steven L at Kilcoole and again the conversation at some point turned to dogs running free and the mess they leave.  In fact just before I met Steven L I had an experience right out of "meet the Fockers" you know the part where Robert De Nero gets up close and personnel with Dustin Hoffmans dog.  There I was, near the buckthorn, eyes down on a beautiful RT diver when I felt something going on around the ankles.  I looked down and I was practically being dry humped by some little mutt who had taken a fancy to my right leg.  Its owner caught up and said something along the lines of  "it wont bite".  To be honest it wasn't its biting that concerned me at that minute, it was ..... well lets leave that one right there I'm sure you get the picture.

Fast forward an hour and there I am in the car park wondering how in the hell I'm going to remove two pounds of dog shit from the grooves in the soles of the boots,  smelling of pedigree chum and not very happy at all!  Breath in smell the sea air, nah all I can get is.........................