2016 Review
Another good year and the current mild weather is encouraging for a good 2017.
Old favourites were highlights again – Cold weather at the start of the year didn’t put off Harry the Heron in Saint Stephen’s Green, here trying to swallow a large fish.
Harry in St. Stephen’s Green with Fish – Roach perhaps
Spring brought early flowers including the usual Crocuses, Snowdrops, Daffodils and Helebores as well as more cultivated plants – all providing sustenance for the early insects.
Skimmia Japonica Rubella flower buds
In gardens and parks, birds were excited, feeding eagerly for the nesting season.
Robin eating Worm in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin
Coal Tit in back garden
Many walks were taken. One of the nicest is in Durrow, Co. Laois. A couple of good walks taking in Castle Durrow and the Erkina river as well as woods and fields, are great for relaxation, exercise and nature.
Durrow Castle & Estate
Summer brought our annual pilgrimage to Great Saltee Island. Puffins and Gannets were numerous but the island hosts thousands of other birds as well as eye catching displays of wild flowers.
Guillemots including Bridled variety on Rock Stack, Great Saltee
Beside the river Liffey, Coronation Plantation looked well in Summer sun.
Coronation Plantation, Co. Wicklow
Back in St. Stephen’s Green – did I mention what a great place this is, in the middle of the capital city! Of course I did but it really is 🙂 – Swan, Duck, Pigeon and even Sparrowhawk chicks were thriving.
Mother Tufted Duck with growing juniors St. Stephen’s Green
Other good Summer walks took us to Carlow where we were rewarded with a glorious sunny wheat field with wild poppies around the edge and
Wheat Field with Poppies, Carlow
back to my old North-side where Sutton at low tide revealed waders and gulls and great views.
Worm Casts on Sutton Beach and Ireland’s Eye
Squabbling M&F Red Deer, Killarney NP
We visited Killarney in August and people and clouds were once again dominant 😦 Someday we will get good weather but not that time. The scenery was still stunning and we saw a good deal of wildlife including a lot of Red Deer, including 2 that seemed to be boxing! ——————-
Silver-washed Fritillary butterfly, Killarney NP
The year did not seem to be great for Butterflies but this beauty appeared in Killarney National Park.
——————————————— Deer were again in focus in the Autumn in Phoenix Park, Dublin, where the annual rut saw stags strutting their stuff and sometimes clashing in head-jarring fights with rivals hoping to claim the ‘rights’ to a particular group of Does.
Fallow Deer Rut master bellowing over Does, Phoenix Park
Climbing Croagh Patrick mountain gave brilliant views over Clew bay, islands and Baltra strand. We also had a great cycle ride.
Clew Bay & Baltra Strand from Croagh Patrick
Wildlife around Westport included Great-Northern Loons (which used to be called Divers) and pleanty of waders. A wren foraged continuously in the trees and bushes and around old rusty pillars
Wren at Old Head, Mayo
.All that sea produced lots of Seaweed in a variety of colours and patterns.
Seaweed at Old Head, Mayo
The colours in Ireland in Autumn and early Winter are often taken for granted but it is worth getting out, particularly on those magical, crisp, clear days to walk, look, listen and just soak-up the scenery.
Autumn Leaves Shankill River, Wicklow
Frost appeared early mornings late in the year and that coupled with an enduring cold / flu, curtailed golf a bit but the lakes looked stunning on calm days – the course too with a partial frost covering.
Calm Blessington Lakes from Tulfarris
After Christmas over eating, we felt obliged to take a decent walk and revisited Seefin mountain in the Dublin / Wicklow range. The cairn on top covers a 5000 year old Neolithic passage Tomb and the view from 621 metres up is well worth the strain and cold.
Cairn over Neolithic Tomb on top of Seefin Mountain
A few trips were also taken to fine places in other countries but other posts will have to deal with those as it’s time to wish everyone a
Happy 2017.
Autumn Passing
Autumn Colours and Shankill river, Wicklow
Didn’t seem to last long but Autumn has given way to Winter. While the weather was good this year, already the temperature has taken a dive. Hopefully the great colours of the falling leaves were enjoyed by many.
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It was a busy time in many ways. Apart from loads of photos to be takem, an old oil tank acting as a coal bunker needed to be removed (partly to make way for a new Water Butt and auto solar-powered watering system – but that’s another story) and it revealed a teeming environment of ‘low life’.
Snails, slugs, spiders and other creepy crawlies behind old bunker
Not everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak, but it’s amazing what lives and dies beyond our normal gaze.
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Interesting contrast between these two pictures, don’t you think!
Young Moorhen scavenging – St Stephen’s Green Dublin
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Autumn is the time that many young birds start to fend for themselves, entering another dangerous period of their short lives.
Moorhen often feed on droppings and other bits and pieces lying around as this young one was in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin.
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Great Northern Loon or Diver, Clew Bay, Mayo
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Autumn is also one of the main migration times as thousands of birds leave and arrive in search of more suitable conditions. Twitchers will have been covering the miles to catch sight of unusual birds and rarities.
If not at the twitcher stage, it is still worth looking out for birds and sea creatures from our
Red-throated Loon, Clew Bay, Mayo
shores.
We recently saw both Great Northern and Red-throated Loons while strolling along the beach in Clew Bay, county Mayo.
Theses used to be called Divers in Europe. They were in transitionary plumage – half way between breeding and Winter plumage.
Loons or Divers are large duck-like birds sometimes confused with cormorants from a distance. They can stay underwater for a few minutes at a time during which you need to predict where they will surface.
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Rut Master calling in woods of Phoenix Park, Dublin
Younger Fallow Deer Stags practice fight, Phoenix Park
Autumn and early Winter is the rutting time for some deer species in this part of the world.
Right on Dubliners’ doorsteps, the Phoenix Park hosts several groups of Fallow deer. They have been there for a few hundred years since they were placed for the hunting classes.
During the rut, Stags compete to have mating rights with groups of does. This involves a lot of posturing, gutteral calls and some fighting using their prodigious antlers (which while impressive and photogenic, otherwise seem to be a bit of a nuisance, catching in grass and branches).
Rut Master Stag with Does, Phoenix Park
Damage is sometimes done but mostly common sense prevails and the strongest (or most confident or biggest bluffer) prevails.
Fights can be witnessed – they often take place in the woods while the does sit and wait in the fields. Young stags also practice fight which is a much more relaxed affair.
It is not a good idea to approach too closely at this testosterone charged time. Indeed too many people get too close all year to animals that should be left wild. Many also feed them bread, Mars bars and all sorts of stuff best left outside the park.
Red Toadstool – Fly agaric – Clara Vale, Wicklow
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This is what it is all about – a contented if tired stag with ‘his’ hopefully content and fruitful does!
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Plants usually provide the most colourful and showy Autumn sights.
But it is not just the dying leaves – whose often brilliant colours are caused by the closing down of chlorophyll, resulting in the green leaves changing to a range of yellow to orange and red colours – that are notable.
Many plants show confident colour at this time. For example Crocuses and shrubs such as Verbena often flower brightly and some with lovely scent.
Mushrooms also can be colourful although generally in nature, the most colourful are the most dangerous! This one is said to be poisonous although rarely seems to kill humans. It also has hallucinogenic properties.
Curlew & Godwits against morning sun, Baltra beach,Mayo
Finally, this is the season of the wader. Coasts everywhere are greeting larger and larger flocks and Geese and Swans are on their way, including ‘ours’, hopefully.
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The message as always is if you can get out there, well, GET OUT THERE.
Happy Winter
Spring Signs
Ewe and Lambs – one with bad eye near Carlow
Cold it’s been but February has brought brighter evenings and other hints of Spring.
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First of all there are lambs about. Some very early and eager young bits of wool appeared much earlier but the serious production has now begun.
Lambs and Ewes near Carlow
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Mother ewes can be seen watching and protecting their little darlings who seem wider in the back legs at this stage – presumably to give more balance.
Snowdrop Species Altamont Gardens Carlow
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Definitely one of the cuter signs of Spring.
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Snowdrops Altamont Gardens, Carlow
Another traditional sign is the appearance of Snowdrops.
Gardens, parks and scrap ground all over Ireland are showing Snowdrops in full bloom. Last year Snowdrops flowered earlier than the previous 40 years but I did hear a murmur that they were declining. You certainly wouldn’t guess that from the many on show.
The Snowdrop (common version – Galanthus nivalis) grows from a bulb and has become naturalised in Ireland from garden escapees, although it is native to many European countries.
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A great place to see them is Altamont Gardens – a public gardens in Carlow, that apart from being a beautiful place with loads of plants and trees in a great setting, has a display of many different varieties. There are supposed to be more than 100 varieties there, though I didn’t count them! It also has access to one of Ireland’s loveliest rivers, the Slaney.
Although other varieties and species are interesting, I am happy with our common or garden Snowdrop and there are thousands of them in Altamont.
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Young Fallow Deer Stags practice fight Phoenix Park
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Meanwhile, in Phoenix Park, Fallow Deer are divided into male and female groups.
The young stags are practice fighting ahead of the rutting season much later in the year. In fact the ‘clacking’ sounds as they test their impressive young head-gear against each other, can be heard for quite a distance even the though they are relatively well hidden in the trees.
It is a great priviledge to be able to see such behaviour within a walk from the city. Those pointed antlers look like I wouldn’t want them anywhere my eyes or head!
Fallow Deer Does Phoenix Park
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The group of does seemed much calmer.
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Strangely they showed no signs of wanting to start a fight 🙂
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Here’s to a calm spring and great nesting season.
