Peregrine's Bird Blog

A Week Birding on Inishbofin Co.Galway inluding finding a Cedar Waxwing a First for Ireland.

2009-10-20T13:55:00.021+01:00

I set off at 4.30am to meet up with Anthony McGeehan at Lisburn before driving in tandem to Cleggan in Co.Galway. We stopped for a coffee just over the border and made it to Cleggan by 9.45am. We loaded our gear and food onto the ferry before getting some breakfast in the hotel overlooking the harbour. As the ferry wasn't leaving until 11.30am we did a quick drive further along the coast to see if anything was about. On one small loch there was about 18 Merganser and on the shore 4 Greenshank all together. We then bought a loaf of bread to see if we could get some shots of the gulls. I first took this shot of a Rock Pipit on the harbour wall.

Rock Pipit

Herring Gull

Common Gull

The ferry made its way on the thirty five minute journey to the Island. It was a lovely afternoon and Paddy-Joe King met us at the pier and took us to his cottage where we were to stay for the week. He also runs the bicycle hire business on the island.

We unpacked and had a quick lunch before first going and having a look at a crop field that Anthony had planted earlier in the year along with some willow and alders. There were quite alot of Stonechats about,

Stonechat a few Reed Buntings and some Rock Doves. We continued out to the East End of the Island to look and see if there was anything in Irene's Garden or in the willows in the field below her house. On the beach there were about 100 Ringed Plover and the same again of Sanderling all now in their winter plumage. There were a couple of Chiffchaffs in the willows and the obligatory Wren and Robin, which would pop up in nearly every bush we looked at for the whole week.

Each evening Anthony followed the weather and wind patterns trying to determine whether it would aid or hinder migration. While I cooked the evening meal.I would also try and get a wifi signal and check the internet for the days bird reports and the all important weather outlook . We used Wind Guru and also used the UK & Ireland Windchart on Magicseaweed The week was looking very positive for migrants from Scandinavia.

Sunday was our first full day in the field and we literally covered the whole island and as Anthony walks at an enormous pace between sites I by the end of the day was absolutely exhausted. Our routine was to have breakfast and then head out first to the crop field behind the Dolphin Hotel then we headed to the East End of the Island either via the graveyard or over the top. In the graveyard there is a sycamore which has got good potential for migrants and on the banks on the other side of the road was good for the thrush family. Just before you get to the graveyard there is a small loch where we heard Water Rail on a few occasions plus a family of Moorhens.

View looking East from the Graveyard We would then head towards East End Bay and look in the gardens of a couple of houses then check for shorebirds. Then to about three different groups of willow bushes in Michael-Joe's fields below Irene's House before possibly heading out to the headland on the eastern end of the island before heading back for lunch.Thats about a 6-7 mile round trip. Our cottage which has an excellent sheltered garden with quite a few sycamores in it is the next stop and we have a bench set up for ease of viewing.

After lunch we head West. First of all checking some apple trees just behind the Inishbofin House Hotel before checking out the area behind the church. Then we follow the coast round past the Doonmore Hotel before heading out past Loch Bofinne and out to the West End. On Loch Bofinne there a number of Mute Swans and a single Whooper Swan,
SPOT THE WHOOPER
a few Redshank and a number of Mallard. We continue for another mile until we come to the tip of the West End.It is here there is a wonderful sea watching spot which Anthony and his wife Mairead built earlier in the year.
It protects you when there are strong Westerly or North Westerly gales. On our first trip out there we watched an amazing display of a Merlin chasing a Purple Sandpiper. It lasted nearly five minutes with both heading out towards the "The Stags" before the Sandpiper returned with Merlin just behind it. The Purple Sandpiper made it to the rocks and with the Merlin unsuccessful it shot upwards about a hundred feet before diving down to harry it again. This time it was successful and it landed with prey quite close to us

Over the first few days we found quite a few Chiffchaffs, the odd Willow Warbler and Blackcap. There were also a few Redwings arriving. On the monday I did get a lifer we were walking out to the tip of the East End when a Snow Bunting flew away from us unfortunately we could not relocate it. So only had the briefest of views. We spent some time on the beach at the East end trying to photograph the Sanderlings on their high tide roost.

Sanderling High Tide Roost
We were walking towards the church one day when we observed these two Hooded Crows that seemed to be playing on the electrical wires. They would go from upright to hanging upside down before flying back to upright and doing it all over again.

Hooded Crow

On the wednesday morning we were joking that it would be better off coming to Inishbofin to photograph landscapes rather than looking for rarities. How wrong we were to be! We had a look at the crop field behind the Dolphin hotel again. There were quite a few pheasants that had now found the area as well as quite a few Reed Buntings and the ubiquitous Stonechat.

Stonechat
We then headed towards Irene's Garden where there was mainly just House Sparrows and little else. So we decided to head out to where we had seen the Snow Bunting a few days earlier, again failing to find any. So headed back towards the beach and the Willows at the bottom of Michael-Joe's Fields adjacent to the beach.

Anthony and I went and sat on this rocky hillock overlooking the willows. There were two Chiffchaffs and a Willow Warbler flitting around. Anthony suddenly said did you hear that. It was a very high pitched call which meant absolutely nothing to me infact i wasnt even sure whether it was a bird. Anthony however was thinking was it Penduline Tit or Red Throated Pipit. At least another ten minutes passed and Anthony is explaining all the differences between the Willow warbler and the Chiffchaff that are very conveniently feeding together just in front of us. At that moment this bird appears right in between them. It has its back to us and Anthony says do you see it. I am not sure what it is until I see it has a small crest and at that point Anthony says Waxwing. It is a young Waxwing and Anthony's mind goes into over drive thinking could this be Cedar and not Bohemian. At this point the bird flies off and we have not been able to see the undertail coverts. A Bohemian Waxwing has rusty undertail coverts whereas the Cedar Waxwing has pale white undercoverts. So he says "You have the IBird explorer appon your Iphone does it have any photos? I open up to Cedar Waxwing and there aren't any photos of young birds so I play the bird call which is exactly what we had heard ten minutes earlier. Now we had to get photographs . We relocated the bird but it was very hidden in dense undergrowth. I took a few shots of a semi hidden bird and fortunately Anthony was at a higher elevation and got a better view and after quite a while it flicked its tail showing the pale white underparts. It then flew off again.
Anthony shakes my hand and says "Congratulations a Cedar Waxwing a First for Ireland."

Cedar Waxwing
I then ring Eric Dempsey of Birdsireland and say "Eric would you like a first for Ireland" He was very happy to say the least!! I then hand the phone to Anthony who goes over the finer details of the bird with Eric before letting other birders know about it. This was the First Record for Ireland. The third record for Britain and Ireland and the fourth record for the Western Paleartic. We then refind the bird feeding on blackberries and get some more pictures.

Cedar Waxwing

Cedar Waxwing

We then head back to our cottage on a high. I make our lunch before heading down to the community centre to post the photographs online. We also let Dermot the Ferryman know that he may need to put on an extra boat for the following morning. Anthony and I then head back to where we saw the Waxwing and decide to try and relocate it from the road so as not too unduly disturb it. It is in the willows where it flew to after we first spotted it in the morning. Then it flew back to the bushes where we photographed it feeding on blackberries. We leave it at around six o'clock and head back to the cottage for a celebratory Powers Whiskey.

On the thursday morning Dermot has a special sailing from Cleggan at 8.15 and there about 40 birders on board.

It is the most glorious of mornings and Anthony and I go and meet the visiting birders. We then head straight out towards the East End. There is an amazing sunrise over the Twelve Pins of Connemara to greet us.

We make our way down the road overlooking where we saw the bird and with lots of eyes try to find the bird.

We all search for a few hours but sadly for all the other birders it does not reappear. Anthony and I then head back towards the cottage and Pete Tierney who owns the house in the foreground in the sunrise photo above asks us in for some tea and apple pie. As we are walking back from his house we see a skein off 175 Barnacle Geese coming in off the sea. These birds usually winter on the neighbouring island of Inishark.

While we are having our lunch we hear a Lesser Whitethroat has been seen down by the church. We also have a few requests from people wanting to stay the night. We head down to see the Lesser Whitethroat but no luck. Then A and I head upto the airfield in Middlequarter to see if there are any Golden Plover which we have heard a few times but not seen. Then we head towards some more willows above Loch Bofinne and on the way come across some very short heather where we sit down and I am scanning the Loch when I hear this snoring and Anthony is out cold!!

That evening we had Hugh Delaney, Victor Caschera, John Coveney and Tom Shevlin staying and I cooked them all Spaghetti Carbonara. Tom Shevlin has this excellent website Wildlifesnaps. One of the great things about it is the list of rarities found in Ireland on this day on the left hand side of the site. It was really nice to meet these guys who were only names that I had seen on IBN Irish Bird Network

On the friday we bought our evening meal at the Community Centre where they were raising money for a charity. We had a really good stew made by the lovely Aileen Murray. She is the manager of the Doonmore Hotel. While we were in the community centre all the islanders there were asking about the Waxwing. After a delicious tea and scone we took a few sunset shots. This is looking back at the deserted Inishark.

On the saturday we traversed the whole island again. I had seen around sixty species of bird in the week but only heard Golden Plover, Chaffinch and Water Rail however on my last day we traversed the whole island again and caught up with these three. The Water Rail I disturbed in a ditch and it flew away from us and we found four Golden Plover over at the West End.
That evening for the first time in the week the Dolphin Hotel was open and we went to have a pint only to find there was a woman having her 50th birthday with 20 of her female friends. Strangely two of which had been customers of mine when I had my cafe/delicatessen in Belfast. They had a couple of guys singing and Anthony and I ended up dancing till about three in the morning. It was a brilliant evening.

Inishbofin is a wonderful island.This was my third visit. The landscape is great , there are three nice beaches with the small one in the Westquarter which is absolutely fabulous. The islanders are extremely friendly. I am looking to stay there next May for a week with my family.

Do I have any complaints. Very few. I found the women working in the shop particularly unfriendly in total contrast to everybody else we met on the Island. I wish that some of the abandoned cars were removed. Infact the harbour area could do with a bit of tidying up. Also I think the planning office that allowed this house to be built out at the East End absolutely barking mad. It is a real eyesore But apart from these little issues I would highly recommend Inishbofin to everyone to go and visit and you never know you might find another first for Ireland!!

Anthony and I have found a Cedar Waxwing on Inishbofin Co Galway A First for Ireland!!!

2009-10-14T15:21:00.003+01:00

Inishbofin Bound

2009-10-09T15:53:00.002+01:00

I am off for a week to Inishbofin off Co Galway for a week. Will blog on return!

Diary from the Deep by Anthony McGeehan

2009-09-26T18:14:00.001+01:00

CELTIC EXPLORER

It all began with a rendezvous in the wee small hours with David Williams (one of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group’s observers) in Belfast. The drive to Cobh passed quickly; Ireland’s new road system has shrunk the country. At anchor and shrouded in misty rain, the Celtic Explorer’s green livery shone like fresh green leaves. The cabin I was allocated to share with Dermot Breen would not have been out of place in the upmarket end of a Holiday Inn. Lots of plug sockets and storage space blew away worries about cramped conditions on the high seas and a forced return to pen and paper to record the days ahead. The afternoon and evening were spent in briefings and a growing expectation of seabirds at dawn in a world whose dry land bonds will be slipped tonight.

Along with Dermot, Maggie Hall and David Tierney, I was on board to enumerate all bird encounters over the forthcoming twelve days. A dozen more naturalists have other tasks. However, the peg upon which the voyage hangs is, in the words of Dave Wall, Irish Whale and Dolphin Group luminary and cruise Chief Scientist: “To conduct a habitat-specific survey of deep-diving cetaceans, particularly the little known beaked whales. These whales, of which five species have been recorded in Ireland (Sowerby’s, Gervais, True’s, Cuvier’s and Northern Bottle-nose Whale) favour deep waters (in excess of 1000 metres) with complex bathymetry. Little is known of their distribution or biology, and all are listed as ‘data deficient’. Focus will be on deepwater canyons, which slice the slopes of the Porcupine Bank west of Ireland.” It came as a shock to learn that cetaceans were susceptible to displacement by underwater sounds generated by humankind’s economic rumblings and military mischief. For example, by detonating explosions that send shockwaves revealing ‘drillable’ oil-bearing sediments northwest of Ireland (in Rockall’s neck of the woods). The sounds may well disorientate – or frighten away – beaked whales from canyon homes. Sperm Whales, common in the same vast Inner Space, could also be at risk – for a different reason. They hunt Giant Squid but return to the surface and refuel slowly by lengthy deep breathing, which stokes up tissues with oxygen. Then they submerge and head for the depths for up to 90 minutes. Alien acoustic bangs and other sonic interference reverberate over many miles (and leagues) and can cause dives to be aborted. Besides the racket of economic exploitation, there are the smoke-and-daggers shenanigans of the military. Prima facie evidence links naval exercises at sea with the discovery of ‘Cetacean Free Zones’ once the Doctor Strangeloves of this planet have finished playing war games. The voyage, therefore, had a serious purpose.

Day 1: Wednesday 19 August

Gone is the stationary sedateness of sitting in port. The quiet rumble of resting leviathan engines stirred into life and gradually the underlying heave of the North Atlantic asserted itself. Lying in bed with plenty of thinking time started to raise questions about surviving mal de mer. Dawn will tell. First light revealed total grey. Sea and sky almost merged. No white wave tops despite a ruffled ocean. After the expected ignition sequence – Fulmar, Gannet, Great Black-backed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull – the first binocular scan locked onto a shearwater. It was a Great! Storm Petrels were scurrying past (all going in the same direction, whatever that was) and then a Bonxie and Manx Shearwaters

MANX SHEARWATER
were added to the tally. I assumed that we were southwest of Cork. Wrong. I glanced across to the other side of the ship and spotted the familiar silhouettes of Dursey Island and the outlying islands of the Bull and the Calf. In reality we were less than ten miles offshore and not yet over the horizon. Time for indoctrination into the survey’s techniques. Basically, shout out everything to a scribe and categorize each species under number, distance, direction of travel and activity. Only after a bird was tracked visually could binoculars be used to ascertain identity. Hence, Storm Petrels tended to be under-recorded on the data sheets, despite the species being common. Furthermore, only those species seen ‘in quadrant’ were logged: counts were limited to a 90 degrees sweep ‘ahead and starboard’ or ‘ahead and port’. Never mind. I’m no scientist.

The scale of a large vessel chugging along and not pausing to deploy chum meant that attempting to sift through Storm Petrels and check for Wilson’s became a difficult task. The birds were not close. Dermot and I had suspicions about one or two out of 300 Stormies seen in the course of the day. As the morning worn on a cocktail of inclement weather put a dampener on earlier good vibrations. The wind picked up, rain was more on than off, and white tops spread like measles over an increasingly lumpy sea. The promise of a bright afternoon was extinguished. Just as a sense of fatigue was setting in, I spotted a large shape in the water. I didn’t think it could be a cetacean and ran to the rail, shouting simultaneously. I looked down to see a bed-sized Leatherback Turtle looking back at me. Wowser! Human sails refilled instantly. Then, just as we were headed for the continental shelf, a girl from IWDG fell and wrenched her ankle. Poor thing. The skipper decided to get her ashore. We turned around and headed for Dingle Bay. The remainder of the day was spent re-crossing inshore waters. Back came the large flocks of Manx Shearwaters, rafts of Guillemots and little clusters of Storm Petrels. Squads of Common Dolphins raced to accompany the ship and despite rain-soaked binoculars it was a delight to slice through teeming rafts of intermixed dolphins and birds. A Blue Fulmar swimming
BLUE FULMAR
alongside a typical Fulmar was followed by a late evening Cory’s Shearwater. Quality at the end of a long day. It laboured into flight about seven miles west of the Tearaght, Kerry, and slid away south – out of the path of an incoming westerly gale.

Day 2: Thursday 20 August

A malaise set in at bedtime. I took a Stugeron tablet and hit the pillow before ten o’clock. Although I had a long and deep sleep the new morning was likely to usher in seriously rough weather. I woke about 0700hrs and lay in bed wondering when I should get up and how. Should I lever myself slowly, Lazarus style, and remain still for a while? Maybe that would accustom my balance to the endless roll? Best not to ricochet around in case I succumb to real seasickness. Neither Dermot nor I stirred until sometime after 0800hrs. By then chinks of sun formed a halo peeping around the heavy flange clamped like an iron curtain over the porthole.

VIEW FROM PORTHOLE
Dermot creaked it out of the way. Full daylight revealed Great Shearwaters just yards from our bunks! Pandemonium ensued. He pulled on trousers, jacket and binoculars and was gone. My mentally rehearsed manoeuvres were abandoned. A minute later I was on deck – feeling fine – and gawking at a flying carpet of 50 or more Great Shearwaters cruising, circling and cavorting in a playful game of round-and-round the boat. A few Sooty Shearwaters and Bonxies were in the throng but not much else. The sea shone blue in the sunlight and the birds sparkled like diamonds. Breakfast was forgotten. News came through that today’s survey was cancelled due to high winds in excess of Force 5. None of this bothered the birds – or me. It became obvious that Great Shearwaters were slipstreaming the boat on an ad hoc basis. Occasionally a splinter group settled on the sea. Then more arrived. Maybe they were the same birds back again? Who knows. [In fact, watching Great Shearwaters on subsequent days, the same birds really do take ‘time outs’ and then fly back along the wake to rejoin the boat. This is made considerably easier for them since we steam along at a snail’s pace due to towing hydrophones. The speed is no more than eight knots, often less.] They were amazing to watch. Two were in moult; the first time I have seen ratty specimens on this side of the North Atlantic. I loved the way many dropped one foot to keep themselves up off the surface while skimming to within touching distance of it. Motorbike racers do much the same thing when they lean into bends at gravity-defying inclinations. Another trick was to trail, momentarily a wing tip in the water, ‘downhill skier’ style.

GREAT SHEARWATER
Again, this seemed to be an action designed to administer a slight steerage correction. Tail raising and splaying both feet astern to create drag, were other feats employed to adjust rate and direction of travel. Colours across the wings’ curved upper surface switched from pale to dark with the tilt of the bird. Depending on how the sunshine struck, the secondaries could, one moment, shine like silver – and then be plunged into darkness. Furthermore, secondaries on one wing were capable of turning frosty while those on the other remained dark. Precisely the same ‘asymmetric light trick’ plays across Sooty Shearwater wings. The rising and falling of the flock was endless silent choreography. Mesmerizing to watch. And so the day went on. Giant waves and Great Shearwaters. The ocean was up and roiling. Occasionally huge walls of sea reared up and gleamed black as obsidian before calving into white spray, making smithereens of themselves and sending up clouds of spume that hung in the air like wreaths of smoke over a battlefield. Then, at around 1730hrs, I rolled a six. I latched onto a smaller, faster-moving shape just beyond some wheeling Great Shearwaters. Eyes went to binoculars and image went to brain. The answer came instantly. Luckily it was something I knew and zero time was lost. The bird hung there like Polaris, the brightest star in a firmament of ocean. It was a Fea’s Petrel. Seabirds don’t come any better than this. A lifer for Dermot. Several of us saw it. Like the Great Shearwaters, it had its wings locked in a good-to-go aerofoil setting and zipped along well clear of cavernous troughs. It was clearly smaller than the rest of the cast. Having been blessed on four previous occasions I am no longer blinded by adrenaline when I see the species and took time to take it all in. The combination of a tubby cigar body on boomerang-shaped wings is so characteristic. The wings’ outline is smooth (as though planed) so a soft angle at the carpal is as aerodynamic as a bent fin. The wing tip is a blunt point, streamlining the bird into a suit of plumage fit to cut through the air as effortlessly as a scythe. Fea’s Petrel is a boy racer among gliding seabirds. The dark underwings against a white belly and little white ‘leading light’ armpits were obvious eye-catchers. So too the dark outer wings, ‘zoned’ grey inner wings and back, and a lighter grey tail – like a Fulmar’s. The bird was planing in an arc that took it around the front of the vessel. Dermot and I were forced to abandon good shelter and dash to the opposite side and pray that we could pick it up in mountainous Roaring Forties seas bathed in silver light. We did, and still in colour since it remained ahead of the ship, alas steadily vanishing into thin air – still sweeping, still soaring, still suggesting that flying into a 35mph headwind was a cakewalk. Yeah baby!

Life tasted very sweet at around 1800hrs, fuelled by food smells that wafted up from the galley on the deck below. We went down for dinner. High spirits were enhanced further when Dermot spotted a small petrel hunkering down low among the waves. Thanks to our height above the sea it didn’t take long to upgrade Dermot’s suspicion that this was no ordinary Stormie. He was right. Wilson’s at last! In the wind, the bird was attempting to hold itself firmly. The wings were held in a ‘raked-back yet cupped-in’ plane: so no wings aloft, ‘big bat’ silhouette. Nor any classic puppet-on-a-chain walking on water. Actually, the bird looked quite long – probably due its chopstick legs accentuating the tail appendage. Under the circumstances we saw it well, although the frosty upperwing panel was not that easy to see in a half gale. After dinner we were back. The swirl of shearwaters was still there. As I staggered through doors and onto the open deck (staggering through doors is de rigueur in today’s weather) I saw an adult Sabine’s hanging over the wake.
SABINE'S GULL WINTER PLUMAGE
I met Dermot and we nailed the Sabine’s again; Maggie was also able to add it to her life list. Next came a snatched view that seemed destined for anything but a conclusion. Dermot mentioned that he had seen a small shorebird – Dunlin, probably – flying over the sea. Minutes later, there it was. Its little wings were beating so fast that sometimes they seemed a-quiver. Nonetheless, it was zooming around and, although hard to follow, it occasionally came close. As it swept around the wake it pushed closer to where we were, high on the sides of the bow. First it came up the port side, then swung back, then tried to make headway along the starboard side. Bit-by-bit, its features could be checked. It had a short bill, neat breast band ‘high’ across the chest, immaculate white underparts like a summer-plumaged Sanderling, upperparts that often shone with the tone and texture of a digestive biscuit and a thin wingbar. It seemed crazy, but the inescapable truth was that the bird was a Baird’s Sandpiper. Repeat: I was looking at a Baird’s Sandpiper fluttering around the Celtic Explorer in wild seas 160 miles west of Kerry. Was this for real? Well, yes it was. Dermot agreed and Maggie, Dave and Jane all saw it too and could see the same set of distinguishing marks. Everyone was happy and, in the end, the bird made no more frantic appearances. Perhaps it landed on the ship? Time will tell. I quit for the day to begin writing this stuff. Meanwhile Dermot stayed on deck and returned with news of a Grey Phalarope. What a day.

Day 3: Friday 21 August

There was an air of expectation as I looked out the porthole just after first light. The sun was not yet up but the grey light of dawn would be sufficient to reveal the anticipated seabird phalanx. Nothing. No Great Shearwaters, no Fulmars, no birds. Strange. As the sun rose and turned the sea a wonderful Technicolor blue I kept staring at a blank ocean. The theories started. Could the dearth be explained by comparing the weather prelude to yesterday’s cornucopia of Great Shearwaters with today? Put simply, perhaps Wednesday’s heavy precipitation and accompanying southwest winds had compressed a pulse of migrants into our path. The theory continued with the Great Shearwaters stumbling into the ship and attaching themselves to it in the hope of either scavenging some food – indeed, jettisoned scraps were seized – or riding the eddies and lee in our little universe of wind. By mid-afternoon the theory bit the dust. And for two reasons. First, the only birds that were recorded in six hours were in transit. Nothing was feeding or loafing. We were in a bird-free world. A pathetic tally of two juvenile Gannets; a juvenile Kittiwake; a lone Great Shearwater;
GREAT SHEARWATER
two resting Grey Phalaropes and no more than a dozen juvenile LBBGs drifting southwards. No Bonxies or Stormies were seen during ten hours of watches. Secondly, our path was over deep water. Yesterday we cruised southwest over the outer reaches of the Porcupine Bank, depth 300m. Today we were further southwest (before turning northeast in mid-morning) and spent the day coursing over seas that were a dizzy 3000m deep. Out here the marine environment, in its bird-accessible surface layers, must equate to the Sahara. Deep-diving whales inhabit such waters – both Sperm and Fin Whales were seen and heard today – but not winged life forms. As the day wore on the sheer absence of birds became, of itself, interesting. I said to David Tierney, “Today will have been worthwhile if, at the end of the voyage, it stands out as a gap.” The deep abyssal plain would, de facto, have revealed a secret and added a nugget of knowledge about seabird distribution. That is, avoid looking over deep water? However, the weather was more than kind, with warm sun and just two-eighths cloud. The sea rocked us at sharp tangents all day since we were running northeast but in a westerly wind and three-metre swells. At mealtimes, if the canteen floor had been stable, the explanation for all the flying crockery and utensils would have been an army of poltergeists. Despite the impoverished avifauna there was a highlight. An adult Long-tailed Skua drifted by in mid-afternoon and a V of 13 Whimbels passed southeast. How did they know that they were going in precisely the right direction for Iberia? Two calling Oystercatchers seemed very incongruous this far from land (165 miles out). Turnstones were encountered on a few occasions. One group consisted of 13; in total, 20 passed. At about 1800hrs a splendid pod of three Pilot Whales broke the surface. Their sweptback fins, squash-ball heads and glistening wet blackness surging through white water were a terrific sight.

Day 4: Saturday 22 August

The ship was stationary through most of the night. The sideways roll was considerable. I had an uncomfortable night’s sleep on account of being tipped back and forth, not violently enough to be dumped onto the floor, but that seemed an ever-present possibility. Outside, Saturday morning looked wet. Sea and sky mingled into one dark, drizzling mass. Everything was blotted out save a foreground of frothy breaking crests tall enough to swamp a caravan. Occasionally waves lapped against the porthole. Temporarily, the cabin was below the sea and the room was bathed in a glacial green light of the sort that you associate with underwater wildlife films. Pilot Whales were close by and gave Sea World views tearing through a raft of Fulmars. The mammals raced at the napping tubenoses as though trying to take them unawares. Apparently, that is precisely what they were up to: bad-tempered beasts that wouldn’t think twice at having Fulmar for breakfast. Outdoors, conditions were dodgy. The lowest deck, appropriately emblazoned WET DECK, was sloshed by run-off. I stood, camera in hand, curious to see how the ship handled the Law of Physics that says ‘buoyancy overcomes water’, only to find that the mathematical equation proving a large wall of water divides in two when it hits a solid surface, meant that several tons of crashing sea was suddenly heading directly at me. Luckily the wet lab door was open and I leapt inside seconds before a large measure of the North Atlantic drenched both camera and me. Phew! I decided that the bridge was the place to be – inside and able to look out from behind huge armoured glass windows.
VIEW FROM BRIDGE
Although spray-splattered, the views were breathtaking. The ever-friendly crew gave everyone free reign, even turning on windscreen washers and wipers to improve the panorama of a sea onion-weathered by the wind. Richard, the second-mate from Schull in west Cork, told me that it was gale force eight and that the wind was southerly. Since we were heading northeast the roll wasn’t ‘too bad’. Shortly we turned northwest but it didn’t feel much worse on the bridge. Our position was 53 degrees N and 14 degrees W. We are still over deep water (2000m) and heading into a deeper canyon (4000m). The hydrophones are picking up clicks from Sperm Whales feeding on Giant Squid in the inky depths below us. I put on headphones to hear their intermittent lisping notes, emitted to echolocate prey in the dark. The faint noise resembled a begging Meadow Pipit chick. Odd that one of the largest living things can sound so meek. Unfortunately, in the bad visibility, nobody saw any surfacing for air. Along with Simon Berrow, I did see some Striped Dolphins: smaller and whiter-faced than Common Dolphins and amazingly energetic leapers. A small gaggle of up to half a dozen Great Shearwaters tucked in behind the boat. Fulmars outnumbered them by about three to one. At least three Sooty Shearwaters put in cameo appearances,
SOOTY SHEARWATER
as did a juvenile Arctic Tern, about ten LBBGs (two adults), an adult Gannet and – briefly – a Leach’s Petrel. Hypnotic ogling of Great Shearwaters was the drug of choice. The simple elegance of the species in winds gusting up to 53 knots is a joy to behold. What a privilege to be out here watching them in conditions of unbridled opulence. Lunch was chicken Kiev with homemade tart for dessert. I opted for the starter only – delicious chunky vegetable soup and crusty rolls. All queasiness is gone. So long as I don’t impersonate King Canute on the Wet Deck I should be okay.

Day 5: Sunday 23 August

53 degrees, 33 minutes N; 14 degrees, 38 minutes W. At around 0430hrs the cabin phone rang. I heard Dermot talking. I had no idea what was going on. “That was Eugene. He has seen a landbird flying beside the ship.” Sleep was forgotten. Minutes later I was on deck watching no less than eight Wheatears yo-yoing up and down in the ship’s lights. At times they came within arm’s length. One moment fast-moving blobs, blanched to white by the Starship Enterprise lightshow. Then, when one dropped low against the sea, natural colours were revealed. All looked the same: sandy-backed with buff bellies and warm ginger-brown chests and cheeks. They kept pace with our slow 8 knots. They were beating into a southwest headwind and driving rain. When I stepped out of a lee and leaned over the rails to peer down at one, the cold wet night set me shivering in seconds. It was hard not to feel sorry for the waifs, using up energy in constantly undulating flight. Tonight is a battle against the elements. I explained to Eugene and Jane that the little songbird pilgrims may well have left Greenland two days ago, perhaps at dusk on Friday. Instead of getting a tailwind from the northwest, they have encountered adversity. All through Friday and Saturday the winds have been strong southwest or south. Such conditions ground migrant Wheatears around Ireland’s western seaboard. I have seen that happen. Instead of being unapproachable and sprightly, little packs sit near each other, huddled and crestfallen. Might they settle on the ship at dawn? Through the night they know to keep flying. The dark is for migration, not resting. It would be fantastic to see one perched in daylight. Right now it is strangely unnerving to get out of bed on the high seas and see the small print of migration in action. Having read about the mind-boggling transoceanic flight performed by Greenland Wheatears, it is a shock to witness it at first-hand on a black night and gaze at a tiny bird facing a watery grave if it gives up the struggle against driving rain and sapping headwind.

Awake again at 0930hrs, I got the news that one Wheatear was on the ship at dawn but flew off immediately. The morning was bright and clear. Lots of sunshine and pockets of puffy white cloud. The wind was southwest, around force four, although sometimes force five: the hallmark of which is said to be white caps blown off wave crests and turned into spray. Another day of ‘canyoning’ is planned. The hydrophones are in the sea and picking up plenty of Sperm Whales. We track along and across canyons (depth 4000 metres) and hope for cetacean sightings, the Holy Grail of which would be beaked whales. Three came up while I was asleep, so there is a buzz among the IWDG contingent. However, writing this at 1600hrs after most of the day on deck, I am becoming even more convinced that deep water is a seabird desert. The canyon edges are not proving to be the realm of anything except Fulmars. They are out here in low densities and appear to be the only thing with wings that regards the zone as home. Maybe they feed at night? Each morning a group of them is to be found loafing astern. During the day a small gathering of, usually, less than ten criss-cross the wake. From time to time Great and Sooty Shearwaters appear in their midst. A handful of Gannets
GANNET IMMATURE
appear and then disappear, as do tiny numbers of Kittiwakes. LBBGs are the only big gull in town. Juveniles outnumber adults, although sometimes a pairing of adult-with-offspring suggests familial ties. Apart from the preceding list of ‘regulars’ there is the prospect of a range of ‘possibles’: each in transit and none inhabiting this Empty Quarter. So far, today’s haul includes, one apiece: adult Sabine’s Gull, sub-adult Long-tailed Skua, Blue Fulmar, Grey Phalarope, Arctic Tern and, like the LBBGs, another migrant from Iceland: a juvenile Black-headed Gull. It is (sort of) fascinating to construct a picture of seabird distribution on the basis of what we are not seeing. No bird-harrying skuas (there is almost nothing to harass); no Stormies; no auks (not even Puffin); no numbers of shearwaters. A Manx Shearwater did pass and the only petrels were (two) Wilson’s Petrels. Steaks tonight. The culinary odours are driving Mr Breen and me mad on our watch point above the galley.
GANNET SURFING
Black Forest gateaux had hardly hit our stomachs by the time we were due back on watch. The final two hours were, like the rest of today, a giant lucky dip. Concentrate hard enough and you might knock off a respectable scalp. So, although the soup of seabirds was definitely consommé, there were a few titbits floating near the surface. Specifically, another adult Sabine’s Gull, a Cory’s Shearwater, a handful of Great Shearwaters (day total approximately 30), a Bonxie and, new for the trip, a juvenile Sanderling flying past at close quarters. By 2000hrs the sea started to look menacing. Walls of black water reared up and thudded against the bows, their surfaces striated in white, akin to spilled yoghurt sent flying for six. Wind gauges high on the mast began to spin like palm fronds in a hurricane and rigging wires whined in the wind. The sound was ominous. It was such a noise that, if heard indoors on dry land, would cause more logs to be thrown on a fire while hearing the elements howl.

Day 6: Monday 24 August

That was a wild night. I went down to the cabin at around 2230hrs to find the chair lying against the door and the floor covered with moveable objects: laptop, books, leads and papers. You get into the habit of ramming cases and bags between immovable fixtures and putting binoculars into lockable cupboard drawers stuffed with clothes to ensure that nothing goes clunk in the night. I sleep against a barricade of pillows that help jam my camera bag into the ‘canyon’ (ha, ha) between bed and corner seating. Sleep proved to be impossible. Lying in my bunk, the degree of pivot was too much. It was like being shoved from one side to the other. The action was in slow motion but the result was the same. There was the inevitable tipping point when all your body’s molecules lurched to port, then back to starboard. The pendulum was accompanied by a Big Dipper stomach-sinking. Outside, the swells brushed the ship’s flanks with a roar that resembled a jet taking off. Loud dead bangs were uncannily similar to the thud of a container being dropped in Belfast docks. The cacophony was topped by the deep glug, glug, glug of sea slobbering and salivating against the porthole. I heard Dermot get up in the middle of the night. He dressed, opened the cabin door, and went outside, Captain Oates style. A few hours later I peered out at Monday. Grey walls of water suggested a slalom course outside the porthole. Strange that, when green sea obliterated the view above sea level, the underwater image looked no different to the bubbles circulating against the inside of a washing machine door. Time to get up, brace myself against the worktop, strap down the chair, and write myself awake. Job done. Now for a full Irish!

No one I spoke to had much sleep. All seemed a bit shell-shocked this morning. The prospect was, for most, a day lost to weather. The wind was due to pick up to severe gale force nine and the swells remained in the region of six metres (20ft) all day. Still, looking at the parade of seabirds slipstreaming the boat, the prevailing conditions were no more unsettling to them than a summertide gust. The notion that Great Shearwaters
GREAT SHEARWATER
and Fulmars are ever adversely affected by gales is a myth. If they are prevented from finding food then it is conceivable that they might weaken and be forced to drift and capitulate to a high tailwind sweeping all before it. If healthy, they are the masters. I spent most of the day in shelter – if not comfort – in a corner of the Wet Deck at the rear of the ship. A few birds swept in from the tempest and joined Fulmars (up to 30), Great Shearwaters (up to ten at once), Gannets (at least eight individuals through the day) and LBBGS (around a dozen). The newcomers were: Sabine’s Gull (2 adults), Kittiwake (twelve), Storm Petrel, Arctic Tern (eight), Sooty Shearwater (4), Bonxie and, best of all, a one-year-old Long-tailed Skua that appeared after dinner, at around 1930hrs.
ADULT LONG TAILED SKUA in WINTER PLUMAGE
It drifted back among the LBBGs and Fulmars and was difficult to keep track of, due to most views being head-on of a brown dot. Occasionally it broke clear of the pack and drifted closer, broadside on. I watched it swoop and check the wake and then swing back into its chosen position: starboard fullback behind the Fulmar midfield.

Day 7: Tuesday 25 August

At breakfast time Cillian Roden mentioned that a shorebird had circled the ship through the night. When he said that it was calling a lot, I did a Whimbrel impersonation. “Sounds just like it,” he said. Today is National Little Shearwater Day in Ireland. Most records fall on this date, including the bird I saw off Ramore Head, Antrim. Over my shoulder, I can see that the sky is a palate of high heaps of cloud and leads of open canvas, so brightness cannot be far off. The sea is down and no longer is the ship possessed by a kick from The Exorcist. Apart from an irregular gentle heave, it was a restful night. I turned in early just after the 2130hrs weather forecast. The meteorologist was RTE’s Evelyn Cusack. If she is correct, today will be nice. I could be asleep for part of it. I woke with a hangover. That’s what it felt like. No alcohol on this ship, so I must be dehydrated. Perhaps the endless fuzziness induced by having constantly to steady yourself to compensate for the force of gravity coming from all directions rather than just downwards, is the explanation. On the other hand, with urine the colour of Carlsberg, I ought to start drinking water. Back to birds. The only way to establish what is out here is to load up the Celtic Explorer with chum and have a four-hour chum stop every day. The crew tell me that when they haul nets (they occasionally catch fish for various sorts of monitoring purposes) the boat is surrounded. That would be a real sample. I know that certain species would be put off – Sabine’s shy away from boats when a mob of larger birds gather and small petrels do much the same – but the draw would be galactic for everything else. So far, there has been three Long-tailed Skuas on this trip. Technically, none of them are ‘recordable’ due to the exigencies of the methodology. Glad the IRBC don’t have these rules! A few other thoughts, while they are in my head. Great Black-backed Gulls go under the title of Larus marinus. No prizes for translating that title. I know that they loiter offshore but they are completely absent once any more than, roughly, ten miles out. Put another way, might they operate in the zone between land and the horizon? Via email at sea, Bruce Mactavish dispelled my inference that GBBGs might not be as pelagic as I thought. He says that Newfoundland GBBGs do not push offshore until autumn. That would explain their current absence. Herring Gulls are also AWOL. I saw one first-winter on the first day off Cork. Large gulls are being scrutinized daily as there is always the possibility of an Azorean Yellow-legged or North American Herring Gull. But all are LBBGs. A delight to have them around and the juveniles can look a bit scary.
LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL JUVENILE
Yesterday one was remarkably swarthy and had a light belly. I leapt from cover behind huge rollers and pirouetted across the Wet Deck, semi-convinced that I might have stumbled into a juvenile Laughing Gull. Nope, just a runtish LBBG. At other times – depending on the light – juveniles can appear remarkably ‘mealy’ in upperparts texture. To boot, the inner primaries can stand out as a lighter block. This can set alarm bells ringing although for what species I do not know. Over the next few days we will be swinging closer to the northwest corner of Mayo. That may well put us within reach of birds tracking down from the northwest. DIM Wallace and I have always regarded the band of ocean northwest of Inishbofin as the source of seabird riches. When there is a strong puff from that zone we see an almost instantaneous reaction from shore. Grey Phalaropes, Sabine’s Gulls and Long-tailed Skuas have all weighed in without much of a time lag. Our conjecture is that ‘the stuff’ ain’t that far away and must be passing south, just over the horizon. That would put it, not out over the Shelf Break or beyond, but in the ‘inshore’ band between coast and continental shelf. If so, that really is a bit of a paradigm shift in my thinking of where most seabirds are.

Fast-forward twelve hours. Today just might have thrown up a new insight. The birds were pretty good, although not stellar. In the early morning a full-tailed adult Pomarine Skua idled past over an undulating but not disturbed ocean. A few petrels appeared. At least a couple of Wilson’s were nailed among a sample of no more than six Stormies. A trickle of other delights included Great Shearwaters (fewer than yesterday and most were ‘at sea’ rather than wake-watching), four separate adult Sabine’s Gulls
SABINE'S GULL ADULT
and an adult Long-tailed Skua ‘sans streamers’. Then something mysterious happened. Around early afternoon petrels suddenly became fairly common. It was possible to scan and expect to see three or four in a 90 degrees quadrant. That quantity of Stormies has not been in evidence since 19 August: the day we were in shallow seas off west Cork. At least two more Wilson’s Petrels were noted. I watched one Wilson’s gliding quickly like a wannabe shearwater. It was swinging from side-to-side, trying to maximise lift by scissoring to gain momentum, rather than truly banking. Its speed through the air was impressive; never mind its shortcomings in the matter of careening. In the same busy spell, a few Bonxies, Manx Shearwaters, Arctic Terns and Kittiwakes showed up. By, roughly, 1500hrs the Stormie tally must have hit 40 individuals. Then nothing. For the rest of the day we saw, almost literally, diddlysquat. Very occasionally a Fulmar rode the breezes near the ship and some of the same squad of LBBGs that have been with us all day (5 juveniles, a one-year-old, 3 adults) played about looking for non-existent scraps. A Whimbrel flew southeast. Was there an explanation for Ground Zero, the Empty Quarter that we were traversing? Well, there might be. The contrast of seabirds versus no seabirds was so dramatic that David Tierney and I checked the submarine contours. I knew that we had been canyoning west of Achill. It transpired that when we were ‘into birds’ we were transiting over a canyon rim. The canyon was 4,800 metres deep. However, its precipitous rim rose to 470 metres. Beyond the rim lay the edge of an 80-mile peneplain running back to Ireland. Had we struck birds because they represented the start of a shallow ‘home turf’ zone stretching back to shore? An alternative explanation is that the canyon walls created a plume of up-welling plankton in a discrete band. Had this concentrated the Stormies and others? Looking at the 3D maps of the underwater topography on the Celtic Explorer’s arsenal of sophisticated computer screens is pure Jules Verne.

Day 8: Wednesday 26 August

The new day boasts an RAF blue ceiling illuminated by Roseate Tern pink in a cummerbund encircling the eastern horizon. Little rivulets of white mark the peaks of a sea taking deep breaths. There is a palpable swell but it is gentle. I will, in a few minutes, quit this laptop and be able to plonk tea and toast on the worktop and shout ‘Halleluiah!’ as mug and plate stay put. So it is a kind of big avuncular swell. A bounce as deep and slow as an overweight American on a trampoline.
BOW WAVE
Tomorrow we are to pick up the remnants of Hurricane Bill. Preliminary predictions are of cloud and some rain – but nothing that smacks of high winds and American passerines rattling the portholes, unfortunately.

As has become routine, I checked the wake to see what had either tagged along during the night or drawn alongside at dawn. For the first time, there was nought. Sweeps of all compass points revealed the same charisma-bypass result. Put simply, deep water is dead water. We were canyoning again. However, the day was bright and clear and a keen, chilly wind was blowing out of the WNW. Until around 1800hrs the wind remained in the same quadrant and hovered close to 20 knots. Dermot and Maggie were on duty outdoors on the Bridge Deck and covered the early shift from 0830hrs to 1030hrs. I took up a more sheltered position near the stern. None of us saw much to write home about. Best was an adult Pomarine Skua.
POMARINE SKUA
It was crushingly clear that we were crossing a void. Might there be an oasis? In theory, yes. Yesterday’s notion hailing canyon rims as hotspots where plankton plumes deflect upwards – like eddies of wind along a cliff face – held true. By checking the water depth, there really did seem to be a connection. It was hard work but by scanning the sea regularly with 15x56 binoculars, it was possible to locate petrels. None was witnessed feeding but all were skimming low and travelling fast, on the lookout for grub. The real difficulty was trying to pick out Wilson’s under taxing viewing conditions. It was like trying to follow houseflies from a bicycle. I reckoned that 30 or more Storm Petrels were seen. Dermot got a definite Wilson’s Petrel and I saw two certain Leach’s Petrels. Thank heavens for Leach’s unmistakeable large size and aura of ‘dark phase juvenile Long-tailed Skua’. So the canyon rims really do hold petrels. But nothing else. The underwater relief resembled inselbergs or giant sea-stacks; outliers rising from braided valleys running towards the canyon’s steep drop-offs. That’s enough theorizing. It is one thing to collect the observations but quite another to make sense of them. It is important to remember what the birds are up to, which will help explain their distribution. They are here for one of three reasons. One: they are finding food. Two: they are flying to or from feeding areas. Three: they are on migration and not feeding while en route. With so much high-tech kit on this ship it is easy to make the mistake of leaving common sense behind.

It was a long day. I kept watching, shift or no shift. Few birds were seen. A single adult Sabine’s Gull (still no juveniles) was scarcely enough to save the day. In fact, cetaceans stole the show. I saw a blow while astern. Independently, Dermot saw it too – plus a view of the majestic beast, a Fin Whale. Around 1700hrs I could take no more binocular scans and went off to the cabin for forty winks. I went out cold. Dinner was slept through but then the ship’s phone rang. It was David. The sea was boiling with Bottle-nosed Dolphins. And so it was. Dermot rushed down to fetch me. The camaraderie of our foursome is superb and also that of everyone on this ‘happy hippie’ ship. If it is possible to sprint up stairs then that is what I did. The sea was different from that which I left 90 minutes earlier. It was calmer and had a new, oily complexion. Its surface was strafed and punctured by an armada of fins and leaping pods of dolphins.
COMMON DOLPHIN
White-water depth charges gave a clue to where the action had just been or was about to start. Mothers with calves by their sides could be picked out. ‘Copy mum’ leaping lessons were being enacted in front of our very eyes. The vinyl black backs of Pilot Whales rolled ponderously into view, high fins evoking the menace of Killer Whales. It was a scene out of Genesis. As far as the eye could see, squadron after squadron of Bottle-nosed Dolphins hove into view. Estimates varied from at least 100 to maybe double that amount. Jubilation was all around, crew included. The show had so many encores that someone should tell the compilers at The Guinness Book of Records. In its aftermath I was given leave to grab some dinner but sneaked off to photograph the low evening sun through a tumble-drier load of clouds. Not yet a sunset but rapidly turning into a Turner in pastels.

Day 9: Thursday 27 August

Hurricane Bill has been and gone. It was, almost literally, airbrushed out. Nobody seems to know what piece of cloud and rain
RAIN SQUALL
belonged to Bill. Today began as an ashen morning. Sea and sky separated by texture not colour. It looked so uninviting outdoors that I decided to catch up with breakfast (I usually miss it through being on deck) and rest my eyes until around 1000hrs. I had no sooner stepped outdoors when – Bam! – an adult Sabine’s drifted by. Not long after a Pomarine Skua sailed low and away. But that was it. The taps were turned on and sheets of heavy soaking rain obscured sea and sky. The ship was enveloped in a smoky curtain, its hem consisting of dancing raindrops over a shiny sea. However, the omens felt good. Especially the news that the Celtic Explorer was being redeployed on a thirty-hour detour. We were required to up sticks and head back down to the position of Databuoy M6. It was faulty and its replacement has been perched above the stern since we left Cobh. Apparently, the weather might improve sufficiently for it to be moored on Saturday, although no one seems to have located the aforementioned benign meteorological prediction. This signals an end to ‘canyon fever’ and it will be good to take off and cruise through the huge transect all the way from where we are at present (30 miles west of The Mullet, Mayo) and finish up 240 miles west of Cork. Wind and sea got up and lifted spirits. We were back in a Roaring Forties seascape, minus albatrosses. By recent standards a veritable horde of seabirds accumulated around the boat and rode the wind astern. Almost 30 Fulmars were there, including a Blue Fulmar. It made one close pass and I got some pictures.

BLUE FULMAR
Its bill pattern was no different to other Fulmars (in the past I thought that Blue Fulmars had a more clearly ‘ring-billed’ pattern, now I see this as present in many Fulmars too) but it did have more extensive dark eye patches and grey underwings: features that make Blue Fulmar more than just a Fulmar turned grey. A super bird, they always look rare. Among the Fulmars were Gannets, two Sooty Shearwaters and occasional others: Bonxies (4), Arctic Tern (3), Sabine’s Gull (1). At sea, there were Manx Shearwaters and Storm Petrels. However, for the second time on this voyage, attention switched to landbirds. Dermot saw a warbler flit past over the rear decks. We looked for it in vain. Almost certainly it was a phylloscopus – most likely Willow Warbler. Next up was a Sand Martin. It fluttered around the more sheltered amphitheatre of the rear lower decks and was probably the small bird spotted by a crewmember perched near a doorway at 2115hrs. The sighting caused Dermot, Maggie and me to abandon Mock the Week. When there was no sign of our quarry we went scurrying back for more Frankie Boyle. The search was called off in record time. If The Rose of Tralee had been on again we would probably have donned snorkels and checked keel n’ all.

Day 10: Friday 28 August

Good news: Great Shearwaters are back in the wake.
GREAT SHEARWATERS
About 20 were skimming and banking, strung out behind the ship like prayer flags in the wind. The sea was running high with six metre swells. Walls of white water spontaneously combusted into spray. As the shards of water droplets metamorphosed into mist, a rainbow was formed arcing over an erstwhile turquoise blue trough. Only large waves were commemorated in this way. A fitting finale to a life ended by hitting the self-destruct button. The sunshine coupled with high seas and air saturated with spray provided a cocktail for a bizarre phenomenon: salt crystals festooning decks and handrails. Holding onto rails, or brushing against the white superstructure, coated hands and clothing with sea-salt. Jackets looked as though they had just come out of the freezer. I had to lick salt off the camera for fear that it might do some damage. The first mouthfuls tasted delicious! We were steaming at full tilt to rendezvous with Data Buoy M6. Slamming into the heavy weather 100 miles west of Achill Island (wind WNW Force 6-7) we were travelling into the oncoming rollers rather than heading straight for our destination. Doing that would create even more roll. Apparently, we were often over the edge of the continental shelf. That seems irrelevant today. Seabirds will probably be making the most of these conditions and shifting elsewhere by running down the wind. Dermot managed to get through to the Internet and discovered that 42 Sabine’s Gulls had passed the Bridges of Ross, Clare, by lunchtime. We had not seen any. We are a speck in the ocean with no ability to concentrate birds. There is no food on offer to detain a passing seabird. I watched the morning’s loose line of Great Shearwaters gather themselves into a flock and head away. The species is phenomenal in its ability to synchronise and go. I have seen them do it before. In 2006, a roosting flotilla off Tory Island, Donegal, rose and curled into formation for departure. We ploughed on across a spectacular sea dotted with the serried white pinnacles of giant waves, glimpsing little but taking it all in. A tally of (one apiece) Pomarine Skua, Bonxie, Sooty Shearwater, Manx Shearwater, Storm Petrel and Arctic Tern sounds not so bad. In truth, it was a famine.

Day 11: Saturday 29 August

0730hrs. Bang on target, there was defunct Data Buoy M6 bobbing up and down off the starboard bow on a relatively smooth sea. So began the slow manoeuvring that eventually led to the deployment of a new Data Buoy. [Note: if being read aloud, stress Data Buoy to avoid confusion with ‘date a boy’.]. There was much unrolling of cables and winching. Knots of hard-hatted crewmembers watched inscrutably as coils of steel rope were fed astern. The upshot of all this activity was a ship virtually becalmed on the high seas 240 miles west of Cork. Time to deploy my secret weapon – chum. Like a sorcerer I crumbled rice cakes into a large Tupperware bowl and added cod-liver oil. I emptied the potion over the side and legged it. By the time I got to one of the higher decks it was obvious that the experiment had worked in its first objective, which was the creation of a slick. But what would it attract? A couple of Fulmars came over for a sniff and an adult and juvenile LBBG pecked at the desiccated rice cakes. That was it. I kept a surreptitious watch on the slick that remained intact and not too far adrift for the next half an hour. On a pelagic trip, a few Stormies would have appeared within minutes. I found it fascinating that none did. Proof that there just weren’t any out here. Eventually a singleton materialized. Alas, slick and ship had by now parted company and I was left squinting at an unidentifiable black dot. Steadily the engineering machinations reached a conclusion and by late morning the new M6 was plopped in the water. Its maiden float created a glassy envelope of water. The effect was incredible. Birds were attracted to the Data Buoy! Two Wilson’s Petrels began to pitter-patter right beside it and were joined by a brace of Great Shearwaters that glided around it. One of the shearwaters indulged in a peculiar activity of throwing itself flat onto the sea surface in a series of belly flops. What it was up to I do not know. On one occasion it also made shallow dives. Were its antics designed to startle fish or other prey? Was it crashing about to rid itself of lice? The Wilson’s Petrels were interesting too. They were not close enough to see well but there was no doubt about their identification. Grey carpal bars were on show and so too the lack of a white underwing stripe. However, the shape they presented was reminiscent of a short-winged Common Swift. The wings looked long and swept back, rather than fat and wide, until the owners fanned them and broke into feeding flutters. Telling Storm Petrel from Wilson’s Petrel has been surprisingly difficult.
WILSON'S PETREL
Rather, it has been made so by, not just distance from the birds, but the angle of view. Seen from a tall deck, it is often tricky to see the diagnostic white underwing stripe of a Storm Petrel. You have to keep watching and hope that the bird twists sufficiently to ‘turn on that light bulb’. The heaving swells bring out a different jizz in the humble Storm Petrel. It is less of a beetling mite and more of a battling Ellen Macarthur. Storm Petrels glide more freely and can look larger and more ‘powerful’ than before. Yes, Wilson’s
WILSON'S PETREL
is a strong, fixed-wing glider but Storm Petrel gives it a good run for its money. What about Wilson’s? The bend on its wing (yes, it has a carpal joint) is actually closer to its body than any other small North Atlantic petrel. From the bend there is a long sweeping wing chord that finishes in a point. When looked at side-on with the bird sweeping along in a ‘power glide’, the wings look long and pointed. Cripes! However, when the bird banks (or breaks into a foraging flutter) the wing is presented in a different plane and appears as a fat sail with a hooked tip. Fluttering is, of course, not a definitive guide to species: Storm Petrels flutter too. However, the bigger, more rounded wings of Wilson’s are dark below. Although slightly two-toned, and a few even show a lighter median strip, they lack the telltale white underwing bar of Storm Petrel. To my eyes Wilson’s wings look as if they are made of thinner black paper than the wings of Storm Petrel. With hindsight, I should have brought a telescope.

Since the Celtic Explorer moved exceedingly slowly for most of the day (and was often parked for long periods) it became a target for passing seabirds. They checked us out. Presumably, we might have been a fishing boat offering surrogate food. For the first time since leaving Cobh we turned Pied Piper and drew a following. The cast was tremendous. I guess most birds were migrants and simply dropped in on the way south. Saturday 29 August 2009 became Skua Day. First up was a Pomarine,
POMARINE SKUA
followed by Bonxies, then another Pomarine, then Arctics and, eventually, a splendid adult Long-tailed Skua.
LONG TAILED SKUA SUB ADULT
Two of the Pomarine Skuas circled so low overhead that they must have felt the blast of heat from the ship’s funnels. The totals were: Bonxie 6, Pomarine 4, Arctic 3, Long-tailed 2. The first Long-tailed Skua might still have had streamers but the second did not. Both adults (and a streamer-less adult seen several days ago) had developed scattered dusky blotching high on the chest and side of the face. This must be the onset of winter plumage. The effect, at distance, can suggest a breast band and might spark thoughts that the bird is not a Long-tailed Skua and is, instead, an Arctic? Few observers seem to be aware of the blotching. Never mind. The combination of unicoloured grey underwings and belly (including all of vent) is characteristic. So too the merged transition of grey belly to small white chest. As I said to others watching the bird with me, in plumage and structure adult Long-tailed Skua resembles an anorexic Peregrine. All agreed. Other passers-by today were: Blue Fulmar (fourth of trip), Fulmar 40, LBBG 3, Gannet 6, Arctic Tern 8, Great Shearwater 5, Sooty Shearwater 1, Manx Shearwater 8.
MANX SHEARWATERS
Once again, all Manx Shearwaters were powering along and seemed to be saying, “South America here I come.” Some floating plastic rubbish appeared in the wake of the ship at just before dinner. A sad sight but there was a silver lining: Dermot saw a Wilson’s Petrel pitter-pattering over it in the off chance that something was edible. Sauce bottles were among the detritus, so perhaps the Wilson’s had been attracted by the smell? A Fin Whale surfaced just behind the boat at 2115hrs. Several times today I saw blows that were put down to Fin Whales. No hydrophones were operational due to all the cable hauling. Probably, they would have confirmed the whales’ identity.

Day 12: Sunday 30 August

The final day dawned murky and stayed that way. Poor visibility and, by late afternoon, continuous rain did its best to smother us. However, a little miracle was played out on a stage that spanned just a few hundred metres. Into our orbit passed a succession of stars. At 0500hrs we were on the eastern edge of the Porcupine Bank and were over relatively shallow seas – depth around 300 metres – for the rest of daylight. Storm Petrels were back in numbers (easily 100 in the course of the day) and so too Gannets (75). We encountered a group of 22 LBBGs around 60 miles west of Slyne Head, Galway. Apart from three adults, all were juveniles. It was as if we had run into a mob of Flying Foxes. A parade of seabird glitterati kicked off with an adult Sabine’s Gull in full summer plumage. After that, it was like watching an encore of the last fortnight’s highlights. There were adult Pomarine Skuas (ten), Long-tailed Skuas (two adults), two more Sabine’s Gulls, three apiece of Great and Sooty Shearwaters, a few Manx Shearwaters, six Bonxies

GREAT SKUA
including the only juvenile of the trip, three Arctic Skuas and then a mint condition Blue Fulmar. Heavy rain closed everything down around 1800hrs but not before a final Pomarine Skua lumbered by. Its sinister bulk slunk off into the gathering gloom, disappearing enigmatically like a U-boat into the grey of the North Atlantic. Lost to mist, it left you there, on your own, marvelling at the mysteries of this vast watery wilderness.

SUNSET FROM CELTIC EXPLORER

Photos by Anthony McGeehan and Dermot Breen

National Vulture Awareness Day 5 September 2009

2009-09-04T20:47:00.007+01:00

National Vulture Awareness Day aims to create awareness of the plight of southern Africa’s vultures and to highlight the conservation work being done to protect these birds and their habitats. This year the day will be celebrated on Saturday 5 September.

“The success of our Vulture Awareness Day over the past three years has created international interest, and organisations involved in vulture conservation worldwide have now established an International Vulture Awareness Day, which will be commemorated on the first Saturday of September every year,” says Andre Botha, manager of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Birds of Prey Working Group (EWT-BoPWG). “The Birds of Prey Working Group and its partners and associates, which include the provincial conservation bodies and several other NGOs, will however continue to drive the day’s activities in southern Africa,” says Botha.

EWT-BoPWG field staff are arranging vulture counts at colonies and feeding sites across South Africa, with the help of volunteers and landowners interested in helping with the conservation of vultures in their areas. There will also be several events countrywide where members of the public can participate in live displays and other fun activities.

South Africa is home to no less than nine vulture species. Seven of these face a threat of extinction. The Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) is one of only two bird species already listed as Regionally Extinct in South Africa. The Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), whose range in southern Africa is restricted to the Maluti-Drakensberg mountains in South Africa and Lesotho is classified as Endangered and continues to decline in numbers. The Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres) only occurs within southern Africa and its conservation remains one of the EWT-BoPWG’s main focal areas. Other species, such as the Lappet-faced (Torgos tracheliotus), Hooded (Necrosyrtes monachus), White-headed (Trigonoceps occipitalis) and African White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus) mostly occur only in large conservation areas and are listed as Vulnerable.

The threats facing vultures include poisoning, persecution, electrocution on and collision with power lines, drowning in farm reservoirs, a shortage of safe food sources and loss of suitable habitat. There is also strong evidence to suggest that vultures are among the animals most threatened by the trade in traditional medicine. Research shows that these birds are highly mobile and can cover up to 100 km in a day in search of food. This makes the implementation of effective conservation measures difficult.

There is also strong evidence to suggest that vultures are among the animals most threatened by the trade in traditional medicine. This appears to be partly responsible for the current rapid decline of vulture populations on the subcontinent. Poachers use strong poisons to kill the birds and then sell them on to the large urban muthi markets around the country. Consumers who unknowingly buy parts of these poisoned birds, risk death or at best serious illness.

One of the best-known conservation measures to have benefited vultures is the establishment of a wide network of supplementary feeding sites, known as vulture restaurants. These provide a safe and reliable source of food in areas where large predators no longer occur and where modern livestock farming methods have severely reduced the food available to vultures. Well run vulture restaurants have also developed into popular tourist attractions.

A threat to vulture restaurants is the use of carcasses containing potentially lethal veterinary medicines, tranquilising drugs and lead fragments from bullets. The use of diclofenac in Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAID’s) on cattle in Asia has been identified as the major, if not the only, cause for the collapse of populations of the Oriental Whitebacked, Slender-billed and Long-billed Vultures in India and Pakistan. Concerns that other veterinary drugs in use locally could have the same effect on South African vulture populations, and the Onderstepoort Veterinary Faculty of the University of Pretoria, in association with the Rhino & Lion NPO, have initiated research to determine which substances could be potentially harmful to these birds. As information on potentially harmful substances become available, it is disseminated via various communication channels to ensure that any impacts are minimised and that the managers of feeding sites do not provide vultures with food
that could be lethal.

Information about the 67 global partner organisations and the activities that they will be involved in International Vulture Awareness Day on 5 September 2009 is available at www.ivad09.org and www.ivad09.org/wp/. For information on South African activities on National Vulture Awareness Day, contact the EWT-BoPWG directly on +27 (0)11 646-4629 or andreb@ewt.org.za. The EWT-BoPWG can also be contacted about any other issues related to the conservation and monitoring of vultures.

WWW.NATURESCAPES.NET Bird Image of the Week

2009-08-25T15:19:00.005+01:00

I was really pleased to find that my photograph of an Albatross at Kaikoura in New Zealand has been chosen as Image of the Week in the Birds section of Naturescapes .

Knot on the Beach at Killard NR

2009-08-23T14:16:00.005+01:00

I headed out to Killard NR in the afternoon. I am not that fond of visiting on weekends as there can be too many people out there for my liking but Pickle needed a walk. There was quite a few cars parked where I park so the omens weren't good. If one is into Bird Photography as I am it can be quite frustrating getting closer and closer to a particular bird when unbeknownst to you a person is walking nearby and spooks it. The tide was just turning from High and there were tons of Ringed Plover and quite a few Dunlin feeding on the recently uncovered tideline all were fairly easily spooked, nice to see in such numbers nevertheless.

The Sandmartins are still here in quite large numbers (It has been a fantastic year for them at Killard) and it cannot be long before they head southwards again. There are lots of butterflies about settling on the Ragweed. Over the past week a couple of contractors have been pulling all the Ragweed and leaving it in black plastic bags to be picked up later, so the place is littered with bags. I have pulled Ragwort years ago on my parents farm in Donegal and I do not envy them there job. Infact I think they are doing a wonderful job.

I was about two thirds of my way round to Ben Dearg Beach when these two microlights came towards Killard from the Ards Peninsula they were flying quite low. I dont mind them but I do mind when they fly really low over the coastline disturbing everything.The Oystercatchers, Whimbrel, Curlew and Gulls were flying in every direction. It just put me in a mood.

This mood was to be lifted!!!! One of the things I like about spontaneous Bird Photography is that you never know what you are going to see and whether you are going to get nice images or not. As I got to the beach there seemed to be a few people at the far end and lots of Ringed Plover and Dunlin about. Again I couldnt get very close to them. I walked to the waters edge and chucked a stone in the sea for the dog when a flock of about 25 Knot flew past. I have only seen a few Knot at Killard in the last ten years so this was a nice surprise and then they landed about 50 yards away.

I walked slowly towards them and before long they took off again and flew down the beach and back again and this time landed about 20-30 feet away.
I then lay down on a soaking wet beach and crept closer and closer and meanwhile they edged closer and closer to me. Magical!!
Pickle was digging a hole in the beach and not interested in them thank goodness. I took lots of shots annoyingly I could rarely separate them. What was nice was that the background matched their colours. Then some people were walking towards me and the Knot flew away and out of sight. I left the beach on a total high!! Bird Photography is one of the best Drugs!!!

So what originally was very frustrating turned into a brill afternoon even if my front did get totally soaked!!
You can click on photos for a larger image except this one below which doesn't need to be blown up as it is big enough already ;-)

Evening Boat Trip around the Copeland Islands and some Manx Shearwaters

2009-08-16T10:20:00.009+01:00

I receive a mailout from the Copeland Bird Observatory and there was the offer of an evening out by boat to go round the Copeland Islands and for a brief visit to the Copeland Bird Observatory. So I rang Neville McKee and booked a place on the boat.

I do not on the whole do much in the evenings as I get up for work at 2.15 each day and like to be in bed by 9.30. But anyway I arrived at Donaghadee (The top right hand corner of Co.Down) to meet the boat at 6 O'Clock.I have not visited Donaghadee for a few years. The last time I was there I was looking at gravestones at a church in the centre of the town. My mothers side of the family came from Scotland to Northern Ireland in 1608 and settled just outside Donaghadee. There are gravestones in the church in Donaghadee that go back to the early 1800's for our family.

On the pier there was Neville McKee (Who has been ringing birds on the Copelands since the 1950's) There was also one of the Belfast Harbour ex volunteers , a couple of other faces that I didn't know and Anthony McGeehan. We all got into this lobster boat and headed out of the Harbour. The Copeland Islands are only a few miles from the coast.They consist of three Islands Copeland, Mew and Lighthouse Island. It is Lighthouse where the bird observatory is situated. We headed out towards Mew Island with the present day lighthouse.

There wasnt much activity on the water a few Gannets flying past , a couple of Fulmars and far off in the distance a few Manxies shearing the water but nothing close up. As we were rounding the Light house a Peregrine flew up and perched in one of the lighthouse windows. This is a heavily cropped image.

There were a few seals on the rocks and lots of Kittiwakes and a couple of Sanderling.
We then landed on the Lighthouse Island where the the Copeland Bird Observatory is based.

We all made our way upto the observatory at the top of the island. There were lots of wildflowers, a few rabbits and quite a number of gulls. The views were great here is a photo looking towards Kilroot Power Sation on the North side of Belfast Lough.
and looking down on Mew Island and the lighthouse you can just make out Scotland in the background..At the top Neville McKee introduced those of us that hadnt been before to the Observatory. The kitchen, Sitting Room,(A fab library of bird books!) The showers!!!! Basically Hand pump sprayers!!! and then to the ringing room and all its paraphernalia. He showed us a couple of tracking devices which are being used on three manxies at the moment.
On the island at the moment is Kerry Leonard (see update at bottom of page) and an Oxford PHD Student Holly, who was studying the Manx Shearwaters. They had been tracking three Shearwaters and she showed us the results of where they had been feeding in the Irish Sea. One had been going up to the Firth of Forth in Scotland another had been feeding off the eastern side of the Isle of Man and the other more locally. Anthony was saying that it was surprising none were feeding down towards St John's Point in South Down as one can quite often see hundreds of them from there. Holly usually does her studies on Skomer Island in Wales and had tracked the Manxies from there and alot came over from Wales to the east coast of Ireland and made their way up the coast with some surprisingly feeding just off the Copeland Islands before returning to Skomer. So from that I must assume that many of the Manxies I see from Killard NR are probably from Skomer!! and not the Copelands as I had always thought.
After showing us the results we went down the Island to some of the study burrows that is to say a burrow that has a concrete block over the nesting area so that the block is removed and the ringers can easily access the chicks and adults.
Kerry Leonard showed us a couple of chicks.

At the mouth of some of the study burrows particularly the ones where the birds have tracking devices there are little markers to tell them that the Adult has returned. So when the stick has been knocked over they know the adult has returned.
The chicks were lovely and had the softest down on them and they even smelled wonderful.

The chicks were returned to their burrows to await the adults returning with food during the night. Whereas we headed back to the boat and went to look for some Shearwaters on the water. George Henderson another ringer directed us from the Island.
There was a small flock on the water
As we got closer they started to take off and flyby. The light was really poor for photography and I was using a high iso to get any decent shutter speed. These were the two best efforts

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable evening apart from the fact I got to bed at 11.15pm and had to be up again in three hours time!!

UPDATE: Kerry Leonard is in charge of the Copeland end of the shearwater tracking studies. He obtained the funding from the NIEA for the study and is a cooperative venture between the Zoology Department of Oxford University (headed by Prof Tim Guilford, who was not on the island last week), The Copeland Bird Observatory and Sterna Environmental (Kerry Leonards company name)

Beyond Belfast Harbour RSPB

2009-08-09T09:29:00.005+01:00

On a number of mornings recently I have been sitting out on the breakwater beyond the RSPB Belfast Harbour Reserve. There is the main channel that leads down into the centre of Belfast and to the Harland and Wolff dry docks. From the reserve hide it looks quite narrow but in effect has to be 400 metres wide. Here is a picture of a cruise liner taken from the reserve going down this channel.

I enjoy just sitting in one position for an hour or more as you really get to observe what is going on around you. Also the birds tend not to worry about you after a while. I had been watching some Common Sandpipers flying past and in a 90 minute period about 25 flew past. One of them landed pretty close to me.

and here is another coming into land.

They are a lovely wee bird and in flight can be easily identified they have a stiff wingbeat which is spasmodic and then they glide with their wings in the downward position with some flickering wingbeats.

Overhead meanwhile the Common Terns and Arctic Terns are returning with food for their young on the Tern Islands within the Reserve. I have seen them carrying small crabs, prawns, sandeels and small fish.

I was also fortunate to hear a Little Tern flying amongst the Terns. This would be the second time only that I have seen a Little Tern at the reserve.

As the tide rises in Belfast Lough many of the waders such as Curlew and Oystercatcher will fly towards Belfast and go and roost at the Belfast Harbour Reserve. So they all tend to fly down this channel. Here is a Curlew and Oystercatcher.

While I was sitting there a party of Eider Duck swam by.

Also you can see Black Guillemots feeding in the channel heres one flying.

Next weekend this channel will be filled with tall ships as Belfast has been chosen as the destination for the final leg of the 2009 Atlantic Challenge Tall Ships Race. So it will be Tall Ships not Birds I will be photographing for that weekend!!

Stormy Conditions at Killard NR bring in the Arctic Skuas

2009-07-27T14:27:00.005+01:00

In the past few days there has been a strong southerly wind coming up the Irish Sea. This is when it is great to go out to Killard as the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks is awesome. It is conditions like these that you can on occasion get to see Storm Petrels feeding in the outer surf and Manx Shearwaters can come in quite close. There is also the chance of seeing Arctic Skua mobbing the Terns to get their catches.

On Saturday I was out there and unfortunately was texting a friend when an Arctic Skua flew directly over my head and out towards Kearney on the side of the entrance into Strangford Lough. I didnt notice it until it was flying away so only got a distant shot. I then watched it for about 20 minutes mobbing both Terns and Gannets.This was an Adult pale morph bird.(I stand to be corrected though)

This is the view on a calmer day from Killard towards Kearney on the Ards Peninsula taking in the Tower on the Angus Rocks at the entrance to Strangford Lough.

On Sunday I was out again and there were quite a few Gannets here is one with the Isle of Man in the background.

There are also quite a few Sandwich Terns that fly south of Killard to collect fish to take back to their chicks in Strangford Lough. This is one heading South

and this one is heading back North after a successful catch.

On this occasion I didnt go onto the beach as the waves were pretty big and my dog just runs straight into the sea so walked behind the beach where I saw a couple of Wheatear. I couldn't get that close to them. I then headed to a little sheltered spot where I have a makeshift seat from driftwood from which to scan the sea. It was from here that I saw over a period of an hour hundreds of Manx Shearwater flying by and two Storm Petrels. They are quite hard to get onto and as the waves were fairly big one minute you see them and the next they are in the trough.They are the same size as a Wheatear only about 15cms long.

This has to be one of my favourite spots in Northern Ireland.

Storm Petrel

2009-07-21T19:20:00.002+01:00

The BBC have used one of my images of Storm Petrels on their Out of the Wild website

The Gannet and the Dog

2009-07-17T11:24:00.005+01:00

On Monday I went down to Baltray to see the Little Terns. The noise of them in the air as you approached the breeding area was brilliant. They have had a very succesful breeding season this year.

This was my best image of the day I had far better success last year. There was also this very confiding Pied Wagtail.
There were also quite a few Ringed Plover.

On my way back I saw what I thought were two Gannets on the water and on looking closer saw it was this dog and the Gannet. The Gannet escaped. I wouldnt have liked the dogs chances anyway having once found a Gannet grounded out at Killard. When I went to pick it up it stabbed me in the arm!! I took it to one of the National Trust Wardens at Castleward. Kit fed it on a diet of sardines.Unfortunately it died about three days later.

A Lesson Learnt!!!!! in Misidentification

2009-07-05T18:56:00.008+01:00

On Birdguides yesterday there was a report of a Ist year Sabine's gull at Blanket Nook. I thought I would go to Blanket Nook on the way from Altnagelvin hospital to my parents home in Donegal. As I was visiting my mother at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry, who had had surgery to remove bowel cancer a few days before.

When I got there there was one other birder, who I hadnt come across before and he asked me if I wanted to look at the Sabine's Gull. I have only seen an adult before so wasnt sure about the id and took the birder's advice and then I took a few photos.

I then sent them off to a couple of sites. I then decided to look up Sabine's Gull in "Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America" by Klaus Malling Olsen and realised that the photos I had sent were not a Sabine's Gull :-(

Joe Doolan of Irishbirding.comthen put me right.It was a juvenile Black Headed Gull. Thank you Joe.

I then went out to Killard NR and photographed this Ringed Plover (I hope)

There was also this Tiger Moth

Spotted Redshank at the Quoile Pondage

2009-07-01T17:21:00.002+01:00

Spotted Redshank

There has been a summer plumaged Spotted Redshank (Tringa erythropus) at the Quoile for about a week. It has generally been on the far shore from the Castle Island Hide. It was the first time I have seen a summer plummage bird in Northern Ireland. I have seen them at Minsmere before.
I have a very distant image but here is a far better image by a Scottish Photographer Alister Benn, who lives in China. In my mind a very fine Landscape Photographer as well as Birds.

Birdwatch Magazine

2009-06-25T13:01:00.003+01:00

Excellent Issue of Birdwatch Magazine this month. Firstly it has a couple of my photos adorning it's pages. Secondly on the front cover is a free CD "Birding from the Hip" A Sound approach anthology.
It is a foretaste of Anthony McGeehan's new book of the same name that is coming out at the Birdfair in August.it will also have accompanying CD's .It also has some nice illustrations by Killian Mullarney who in my opinion is one of the finest bird illustrators in the world.This particular CD has three stories. The first about the Dupont's Lark, The second about how he identifies a "peep" from a "British Birds" picture Quiz and thirdly a story from the RSPB Belfast Harbour Reserve.

The first is informative and if you don't know much about the Dupont's Lark you will hear how beautifully they sing. The second and third are amusing stories especially the Belfast Harbour story in light of recent events. Oh yes by the way The Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland found there was no case to answer in the supposed illegal trapping on the Belfast Harbour Reserve for which he was sacked.. I think the RSPB will have difficulty at an Industrial Tribunal where I hope that intelligence will overcome stupidity.

Go and buy it!!!!!

A Confiding Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus)

2009-06-02T20:11:00.007+01:00

Last friday I stopped off on my way home from work at the Castle Island Hide on the Quoile Pondage. There wasn't much activity on the water but in the trees surrounding the hide there was lots of singing from both Blackcap and Willow Warbler. As I do not have any passable images of Blackcap I went home collected my camera and had a go. Five days later I still do not have any passable images of Blackcap. They are very difficult to photograph.These are my very poor efforts.

They can be quite close to you but now the ash trees have lots of foliage they are difficult to see. Even when you do see them they seem to move really quickly from perch to perch.

However there was this Willow Warbler that seemed to follow me around as I was looking for the Blackcap. It was so close that it was within the minimum focusing on my lens and I had to put an extension tube to make up for it. It was calling all the time. On one occasion it flew towards me landed on my shirt sleeve and then flew back to the branch. I am fairly sure it is a male. There is another Willow warbler that doesnt come quite as close and is the one that seems to have a beakful of insects all the time and disappears to its nest which I have not been able to locate. One minute she is there and the next has disappeared.

In the image above when you blow it up to maximum resolution you can see my reflection in its eye.

Well I have taken hundreds of shots over five days and these are the best images.

I showed Anthony McGeehan some of the images and he had this to say about them.

"The Willow Warblers that breed in Ireland are remarkably colourless. If they had about 1% lighter chests there would be no yellow tint at all. Autumn juveniles (technically, first-winters since they have a body moult in late summer) are such a contrast. They have the gorgeous yellow underparts. Adults, according to Neville McKee of the Copeland Bird Observatory, moult too but have only yellow on the chest after the moult - leaving the belly whitish. In spring, the differences between Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff are so subtle. Plumage colour is just about useless. Both are different beasts in autumn. Bird books haven't grasped the seasonal chameleon effect."

UPDATE: I was out again today and got this brief shot of the Blackcap that has been singing. Here it is singing Listen!

Finally took a photo of a Great Spotted Woodpecker in Northern Ireland

2009-05-26T12:14:00.005+01:00

Ireland is one of the only countries in Europe that does not have any Woodpeckers. However over the last two it has been suspected that the Great Spotted Woodpecker are now breeding in a number of locations from Co.Wicklow, Co.Dublin Co. Louth and Co.Down. The pair in Co. Down are only about three miles from my house as the crow flies and were believed to have bred for the first time last year with two young. They are breeding this year and fortunately for me they go and feed at some peanut feeders of friends of mine. Last Sunday Jill asked me if I would like to come and photograph them. So I headed over and spent an hour waiting to no avail. Of course I had only left when Jill rang to say it was back and later on in the evening there were two of them.

I have been waiting for some nice weather and I spent nearly four hours yesterday sitting in a hide near the feeder and I first of all heard the chip, chip sound they make and the male flew onto the feeder that I didn't have my camera trained on. Typical !! as I tried to manouevre the lens around it caught sight of movement and was off!! Then shortly after the female did exactly the reverse it landed on the feeder I had just been focused on and same again it was off. It was also getting very cloudy and dark so I called it a day.

This morning I finished work and it was a beautiful morning so I headed back and as I pulled up in the car I could see it on the feeder so I crept out of the car and got quite close and started to fire away. This was the best shot.

This is a British race adult male. Bill and fawn wash indicate that it is not a Scandinavian. There has been some speculation that they may have originally come from Scandinavia.

American Wigeon (Lifer) and some Black Guillemots and a small RSPB update.

2009-05-16T07:56:00.009+01:00

Earlier in the week I decided that as the American Wigeon that had been found at the Ballycarry Bridge near Larne about a week earlier was still around I should go and see it. I finished work and headed to the bridge. When I got there the tide was right out and I scanned both sides but to no avail. Lots of Shelduck,a few Curlew and when I looked over the side of the causeway I flushed four Whimbrel and annoyingly my camera was in the car so didn't get any shots. I was feeling slightly miffed that I hadnt seen the bird I was looking for so decided on one last scan when I noticed a Mallard asleep fairly close to the road and just beyond it almost completely hidden was the American Wigeon. No 437 to the life list. I use the Facebook Birdwatching app to create my Lifelist.

On Thursday I went along to Bangor Marina to see if I could get some shots of Black Guillemot. When I arrived I walked along the pier and noticed these Gull footprints in the concrete.

There was one Black Guillemot on the pier and about 20 in the water.
They are both easy and difficult to photograph. Easy in that they are not shy birds but difficult because of exposure. They have a very bright white patch on their wings and are extremely dark on the rest of the bird. An exposure nightmare.

They were mostly in pairs and displaying to each other. I watched one dive and it seemed to spend ages under water before reappearing. I decided to time their trips underwater and they ranged from 45 secs to 85secs and on one occasion this bird popped up with a very small Plaice.

This bird was calling to another that had just gone into the water.

I moved away from the main harbour down Ballyholme Road and saw this Rock Pipit collecting food for its young.

As I particularly like to photograph Birds in Flight I wasted many shots attempting to get a decent one. This is my best effort and I have cloned out a ring on his leg. These birds have been monitored and ringed for years by Julian Greenwood , who is on the main RSPB Council.

Talking of the RSPB I was very happy to hear that Anthony Mcgeehan's brother Gerard had received a letter from them saying that they were happy for him to work for the contractors on the Belfast Harbour Reserve after all. Also that Anthony's wife had been to a meeting with them and is going to continue to do the books for Reserve. Not what they were expecting I suspect. All power to her.

Last night I went to a party that the Belfast Harbour Reserve Volunteers had organised for Anthony and Mairead. There were twenty of us and it was a great night if tinged by a little sadness. There used to be a real sort of family atmosphere at the Hide amongst the volunteers and Anthony. David Lindsay gave a nice speech, he had known Anthony for nearly 40 years. Anthony responded and told everybody what he was upto. He was doing a Dawn Chorus for WWT at castle Espie today. Next week he is doing a Birdwatching Course on Inishbofin. Co Galway There are a few places available and you can book on the Dolphin Hotel website HERE and he is in the process of getting ready for the launch of his new book that is being published by the "Sound Approach" in a few months time. Hopefully he will let me review it here. I will be biased of course!!!

Out at Killard Nature Reserve over the last two days with lots of friendly Dunlin.

2009-05-11T18:37:00.006+01:00

On Saturday there was the BTO Garden Birdwatch Conference at Oxford Island and I unfortunately for the guests did the second talk showing my photographs and talking about my three patches of Belfast Harbour Reserve, Quoile pondage and Killard Nature Reserve. I had never spoken in public and I never will again. So feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing I took Pickle and headed out to Killard.

The weather over the last two days has been absolutely brilliant (for a change) and the first bird I saw on getting out of the car was a Whitethroat. As you walk out to Killard there is a Sand Martin Colony on the left , which over the last couple of years has only had a few birds nesting. This year I counted 70 on Sunday and similar today. They are everywhere! I tried to photograph them but its not easy.

Out at Ben Derg beach there were Sanderling feeding
in the surfline. They flew off and I caught up with them feeding with a Dunlin on the seaweed. It was nice to see the Sanderling and Dunlin in their summer plumage.

I always keep an eye out to sea and I saw an Arctic Skua mobbing a Sandwich Tern which dropped its food and the Skua dived down and sat on the water feeding on the degorged prey. Infact over the last two days I have seen large numbers of Brent Geese heading northwards, a few Red throated Divers heading southwards. Lots of Gannets and today my first Manx Shearwater of the year. When I am sea watching I wish I had 10x42 rather than 8x42, too expensive to change now!!!

There were also a number of Wheatear around as well. As I got further round the peninsula I came across some Dunlin.

They were fairly tame and even with a dog with me I could get close enough to the odd individual to get reasonable shots.

The other thing that surprised me was that there were three Purple Sandpiper and I had it in my mind that they had left on migration by now. Here is one of them.

As I was leaving Killard I got talking to an elderly gentleman and we were discussing birds for a while and then he showed me his interest which was Archaeology. He took me to an area where there was evidence of stoneage knapping of flints. We both found some flint shards. He also pointed out various things on the shoreline of archaeological interest. He was Jack Smith ex Professor of Computing at Queens. It was a pleasure to meet him.

Godwits at Belfast Harbour Reserve

2009-04-29T14:47:00.004+01:00

Today the RSPB in Northern Ireland are having a staff day out at Crawfordsburn Country Park (I love to see how the memberships are put to waste) I think it will probably be a Team rebuilding effort now that Anthony McGeehan has been sacked. I just hope they actually tell the rest of the staff why they have sacked him. I suspect it will all be glossed over.

Anthony told me some time ago about a previous staff day where the question was put "What should an RSPB employee be" and he rather succinctly put it that "An RSPB employee should be fired with enthusiasm or fired with enthusiasm" some didnt understand what he meant. Now ironically he has been fired with enthusiasm for being fired with enthusiasm.

Well in the last few weeks I have been taking a few photos of the Black Tailed Godwits at the Harbour Reserve now that food is being put out for them and are coming close enough to photograph.

If you click on an image they will appear at a larger size in a seperate window.

Whiskered Tern on Quoile Pondage. A first for Northern Ireland

2009-04-26T19:56:00.007+01:00

Another Rare Tern on my local patch. Infact a first for Northern Ireland found by Keith Bennett. A Text came through saying there was a Whiskered Tern at the Quoile Pondage so I said to my wife Penny that I was heading off to see it. Instead of going for a walk at my other local patch Killard with her and Charlie my youngest son and on his birthday as well. Didn't go down very well. I drove down and there were so many cars parked outside the Castle Island Hide that I thought I would turn around go for the walk and come back later.

Went out to Killard. Initially saw a Heron being mobbed by a Hooded Crow. As I walked further there were quite alot of Whimbrel on the shore and about eight Eider offshore. All the time I was thinking I must get back to the Quoile.

Anyway we finished walk and when I had dropped of Charlie and Penny I headed down to the hide to find Gerard McGeehan and Shirley with the bird in sight a hundred yards in front of the hide. It was starting to spit with rain so chances of getting a reasonably good photo wasnt very likely. these are the ones I did get.

As I was leaving Breffni Martin from Co. Louth arrived so had a quick chat with him before heading off home.
So I have now seen both Whiskered and Foster's tern within a couple of miles of my house.

The Whiskered Tern Chlidonias hybridus when I saw the latin name it made me wonder from what it was a hybrid. However it was so named because of its similarities between Black terns and White terns (Sterna). There are three geographical races of this bird.This was probably the Eurasian Whiskered Tern as opposed to the African or Australasian Whiskered tern.

Kea at Arthur's Pass

2009-04-13T17:52:00.008+01:00

After leaving Kaikoura I made my way to Arthur's Pass in the Central Southern Alps. I stopped a few miles out of Kaikoura on the shoreline because I had seen some Terns that I hadn't seen before and was glad that I caught up with the Black-Fronted Tern (Tarapiroe)

They were on a bar where one of the braided streams met the sea. There were also a number of Caspian Terns (Taranui)

I love the Caspian Tern it is the biggest of the Terns and is distributed throughout the world. I saw them previously in Namibia.
On the beach there were quite a few black phase Variable Oystercatcher a NZ endemic. They were quite approachable.

The other bird on the beach were a number of Pied Shag (Karuhiruhi) also approachable but not to the same extent as the Oystercatcher.

I had three days before picking my son Jeremy up from Christchurch Airport and one of the stops I had decided on was Arthur's Pass to see and hopefully photograph the Kea. Then potentially onto Twizel to catch up with a very rare bird the Black Stilt (Kaki). It is the rarest wader in the world with at present no more than 61 adults in the wild, and of these only 14 are known to be female. Just seven productive breeding pairs exist in the wild.

However!!! after driving the very scenic route upto Arthur's Pass and at this stage having driven nearly 3000 kilometres in all I was exhausted and I decided to stay the three days in Arthur's Pass. I stayed in the Youth Hostel in a room of my own for NZ $55 per night which I thought was pretty good value. I ate in the Wobbly Kea Cafe and Bar each night and had excellent food. On the first night I was having a pint of beer outside and I saw my first Kea of the trip landing on top of the Arthur's Pass Store, which is opposite the Wobbly Kea Cafe.

It then flew down to the road and started to cross it towards me.

The road through the village is one of the main highways from the East Coast to the West Coast and many people stop and photograph the birds.

The Kea (Nestor notabilis) is one of the few Alpine Parrots in the world and found only in the forested and alpine regions of the South Island of New Zealand. There population is unknown but thought to number around 5000. they are now a protected rare endemic. It has an omnivorous diet and also feeds on carrion. They have the reputation as sheep killers while they may feed on dead sheep and occasionally kill sick and injured sheep only a very few birds have been known to kill healthy animals. They are attracted by the prospect of scraps and will often carry off unguarded items of clothing. They also will attack the rubber on cars and many a tourist has returned to find his windscreen wipers in shreds. In Arthur's Pass there are a number of signs requesting the public not to feed the Kea.

The following day I thought I would take a day off from photographing birds and went down to the Dept of Conservation (DOC) office to buy a local map and ask where I might find Blue Duck another rare endemic known to be in the region. The lady behind the counter told me and I rather naively said that I would walk over the hill to the river on the other side of the valley. Whereupon she told me that it was a mountaineers track and suggested very politely that I didn't. In the end I saw a small track that went from the youth hostel upto a peak behind Arthur's Pass so I decided to climb that instead. When you go hill walking or tramping as they call it in NZ you fill out a form and leave it with DOC saying where you are going and then you return the bottom portion of the form when you return. If they do not hear from you within 24 hours they then call the police.

It was a beautiful day around 24C or 75F and I started off on what was to be an epic day for me!!! (It also taught me to map read properly in future) The climb to Avalanche Peak (1875m) from the village was 1200metres or about 4000 feet in 2 kilometres. In Scotland there are only seven mountains over 4000 ft. It took me 7.5hrs to get up and down. I had climbed to above the bush line and was feeling absolutely knackered and was seriously doubting whether I could go on as I had about 500m to climb at this point. When out of the blue a Kea landed on one of the waymark poles within twenty feet of me.

This bird completely changed my frame of mind which at the time were very much in the negative: thinking I wouldn't be able to get to the top and I didn't feel very good about it. I sat down and for twenty minutes this bird stayed around me. First of all it landed on my backpack

Then it walked around and started picking things off the bottom of my hiking boots.

I put on my wide angle lens and it came to within a few inches of the camera which meant I could get some quite interesting angles to photograph it.

I also quite like this shot of the bird in its true habitat.

I had at the point just before the Kea landed been cursing myself for bringing a camera and two lenses with me as they were quite heavy but now was delighted and the rest of the journey to the top was alot easier. When I finally got to the top I was ecstatic and reckoned it was the most energetic thing I had done in the last twenty years. This is a self taken photo.

These were the views from the top the first looking towards MT. Rolleston at (2275m)

The journey down was exhausting and even though I had taken a few litres of water with me I was desperate for water and probably had one of the best pints of beer I had ever had when I got back to the village. My legs were killing me and I got cramp a few times in the night.

The following day I walked 10 kilometres up to the head waters of the Mingha River climbing 400m and then back again looking for Blue Duck which I failed to see. So all in all I had a very energetic few days before I headed back to Christchurch to pick Jeremy up from the Airport before driving to Kaikoura to take him on another Albatross watch.

Jeremy and I then stayed with my Aunt Sally and her husband Bob near Nelson at Stafford Place their Bed and Breakfast. Jeremy and I went out for a day in the Abel Tasman National Park and we saw this Arctic Skua chasing a White fronted Tern

All in all I had an absolutely wonderful holiday and now I am back can't wait to go back there. I must also thank my father very much for funding most of the trip. Here is a photo of three generations of Nash in New Zealand.

Kaikoura: One of the Best Birding Experiences of my Life with Albatross Encounter

2009-04-04T16:18:00.021+01:00

Having left Kapiti Island we stayed in Wellington with my father's first cousin Jan for a few days before we headed to the South Island and went our seperate ways. I wanted to see Albatrosses at Kaikoura and Kea in Arthur's Pass and my father wanted to visit friends and go fishing.

I arrived in Kaikoura and stayed in the Adelphi Backpackers Lodge.I had booked to go out with Albatross Encounter about a week earlier on the internet. I got up on a beautiful morning and headed to the Encounter building. I had made sure I had taken my seasickness tablets the previous night and an hour before we were to leave. At the Encounter centre there is a really nice cafe serving excellent breakfasts and great coffee. so i had a quick coffee before our group of seven were to meet up with our guide Alastair Judkins.

Alastair drove us from the centre around a headland to where we would board the boat. Pretty much the same as Kapiti we got onto boat and it was then reversed into harbour. We made our way out to an offshore canyon which is pretty close to the shore.It is about a mile deep. It is here that two currents converge and forces nutrient rich water upwards which in turn supports a wide variety of fish and marine animals creating a wonderful feeding habitat for many different species of seabird.

The first we were to see were the Cape Pigeon or Cape Petrel.

They have a black and white colour and were named cape pigeons because they frequent Cape Horn. They are not a pigeon but a Petrel and in NZ follow fishing boats looking for scraps.

Once we were over the canyon Alastair put a bag of frozen chum overboard and what felt like seconds birds were coming in all directions. There were Great Northern Petrels,
Mollymawks,
Albatrosses and as they came in Alastair was pointing them out and naming them as they came in, as I was trying to photograph them. Westland petrel, Sooty Shearwater, White Chinned Petrel,
Buller's Shearwater,
Hutton's Shearwater, Salvin's Mollymawk,
Gibson's Wandering Albatross.

The shear beauty of these very large birds cleaving the water as they bank over the waves was awe inspiring. Also the backdrop of the Kaikoura Mountains made it all the more spectacular. To me it was one of the greatest birding experiences I have ever had.

Alastair then shouted Chatham Island Mollymawk.

This had to be the bird of the whole NZ trip for me. It is critically endangered on the IUCN red list. There are about 4500 pairs in the world and they breed on a rock called the Pyramid 800 miles to the East in the Chatham Islands. They would be a very rare visitor to New Zealand and this was only the third time in six or seven years that Alastair had seen one.It is one of the three sub species of Shy Mollymawk. It flew round the boat before coming into land right next to the chum. It really was a beautiful bird.

It then flew off not to be seen again. I then tried to take photos with my sigma 10-20mm lens with my camera body as low to the water as possible. I got a range of shots. In this one immediately below the tip of his bill is only about an inch away from the lens!!!

Then we were visited by a Black-browed Albatross of the Campbell Island Race. It is one of the most widespread albatrosses. It looks as though it is wearing eyeshadow.

The only other Mollymawk we saw was a New zealand White -capped Mollymawk. This one is immature.

Alastair then headed to show us the Spotted Shag Colony on a rock just a few hundreds from the shore when we stopped at a group of Buller's Shearwaters sitting on the water. We looked and photographed them and then he chucked the remaining chum into the water. The albatrosses and the giant petrels went into a feeding frenzy.It was a pretty noisy affair.

As a photographic experience it was second to none.It had to be one of the best mornings of my life. The next time I am in NZ I will definately go out on an earlier trip in the day to experience the early morning sunlight. I would also love to photograph the birds from an underwater perspective.

I entered this photograph, which I changed to Black and White, into the Birdforum Monthly Photo Competition (In this case the title was Monochrome Birds) and it won so I was pretty pleased with that.

Kapiti Island

2009-03-28T13:12:00.010Z

[Remember click on an image and it will come up in a larger size on a seperate screen]

Having travelled South from Hawkes Bay and spending a night at Herbertville further down the coast. We then visited Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu the longest place name in the world!!! Not alot to see apart from a hill after which this is named.

We then went across the North Island and stayed a couple of nights at Foxton Beach adjacent to the Manawatu Estuary. I had heard this was one of the best spots for waders on the West Coast of NZ. It is a RAMSAR site. The Manawatu estuary is a large coastal inlet in the lower half of North Island. It is a site used by migratory waders mainly from Alaska and Siberia during their winter. Here I saw Bar-Tailed Godwit, Red Knot, Wrybill, Pacific Golden Plover, NZ Dotterel, Caspian Tern, Pied Oystercatcher and Pied Stilt but not the Royal Spoonbill that I was told were there.

I also met an American guy who was studying the Bar Tailed Godwits and was noting all their plumage changes especially in the ringed birds.

We then left to go to Paraparaumu Beach where we were to collect the ferry to Kapiti Island. Kapiti Island is about four miles from the South-West Coast of North Island New Zealand. It is about 6 miles in length and about a mile wide. The west coast of the island has precipitous cliffs and at the highest point is 521metres or 1700ft.

It is one of New Zealand's top publicly accessible Nature Reserves. Well having said that you do have to get permits to go on the Island infact you have to have two one for each end of the Island. These can be obtained in Wellington at the Department of Conservation or DOC as everybody in NZ knows it. I had pre-booked my stay on Kapiti with Minnie at Kapiti Island Alive Kapiti has the largest single area of lowland coastal forest that is free from introduced animal herbivores and predators. It took nearly a hundred years to eradicate the possums that were introduced in the 1890's and until as recently as 1996 to eradicate all the rats on the island.It now is the home to about 65 species of bird including a number of relocated endemics. The Brown Teal(Pateke) Kokako, Stitchbird (Hihi), Takahe, Saddleback (Tieke). Of which I didn't see the Kokako or Stitchbird.

You get onto the ferry on the beach and it is then reversed on its trailer by a tractor into the sea.
Then once it is afloat off you go! We were staying the night on the North end of the Island so didnt visit the South end of the Island. We dropped off about fifteen people and then headed upto the other end where we were met on the beach and had our luggage taken upto the lodge. Meanwhile we went to a covered building near the Okupe Lagoon. It was here we were given a talk about the birds and the history of the Island. As we were being lectured there were birds everywhere. It was my first sighting of the Weka.

There are four subspecies of Weka of which most disappeared before 1940 in North island . There are only very small populations remaining on South island. They are quite an endearing bird and you have to watch your lunch as they are always on the lookout to see if they can pick up a scrap. The other problem with introduced birds such as these is that they prey on some of the native animals. They will also eat nesting groundbirds lizards and giant land snails. We were told how some birds will try and force the Long Tailed Cuckoo into the ground where it has difficulty taking off and the Weka will get them.

The other bird that was everywhere particularly feeding on the pollen from the New Zealand Flax was the Bellbird (Korimako) anthornis melanura

The yellow on their heads is the pollen.

After the lecture Daddy and I made our way to the Lodge where we were going to stay the night.
It was here that we met Amo Clark and Rodney who it turned out were absolutely wonderful hosts:we were to have an absolutely wonderful 48 hours in their company.,
Amo along with her brother and sister in law are the owners of Kapiti Nature Lodge. Amo is a Maori and her tribe or (iwi) have been living on Kapiti since the early 1800's and have great knowledge of the Island's history and flora and fauna.
We were the only visitors to be staying the night. The remainder of the visitors would be leaving the island at around three thirty.

I decided to go on a walk and see what birds I could see and photograph. One of the first ones I came across was this Keruru or New Zealand Pigeon that was eating berries from a tree right in front of the Lodge.

It was a beautiful afternoon and I made my way towards the lagoon on the island where I came across the New Zealand Pipit.

I have to say I find pipit identification quite difficult and was glad there was only one species in NZ. As I walked along this track I saw a Whitehead and then a New Zealand Robin appeared. They are a lovely little bird and virtually unafraid. They will perch within a few feet of you infact I found they were almost too close to photograph.

My eldest son Jeremy who went on the Outward Bound Course at Anikiwa in the Marlborough Sounds in March said that when he was doing his solo a NZ Robin landed on his foot. (Solo is when the participants have to spend three days and three nights in the bush in a 10m square area on their own)

The other bird one heard and saw alot of was the Tui. It is a NZ endemic and one of the largest of the Honeyeater family. Early New Zealand emigrants called it the Parson Bird as at first glance it looks black with a bit of white around its neck. They feed on the pollen of the New Zealand Flax.

Another bird that was fairly common was the Silvereye or Waxeye. a small passerine native to Australia, New Zealand and some pacific islands.

One of the other birds that was everywhere was the Red Crowned Parakeet. There are three species of Parakeets in NZ. The Red Crowned,Yellow Crowned and the critically endangered Orange Fronted Parakeet.All of which have become endangered because of habitat destruction and nest predation by introduced species.

Having walked quite along way in the midday sun I headed back to the lodge for a cup of tea. As I was having the tea outside a Takahe walked past. There are a number on the island that have been introduced here. The Takahe is a remarkable bird.The Takahē is the largest living member of the Rallidae or Rail family. It is about 2 foot long and can weigh upto 6 lb's. It has a massive bill it reaches up and feeds on the seeds of grasses. The amazing thing about this bird is that it was thought to be extinct in 1898 after the last four known remaining birds were taken. However in 1948 more were found by Geoffrey Orbell in the Murchison Mountains near Lake Te Anau!!! There are at present only about 250 birds remaining.

As I was sitting outside the lodge a Kelp Gull ( Larus dominicanus) kept on landing on the roof and I liked this shot I got of it as it came by.

Daddy and I were shown to the hut
we were going to be sleeping in by Rodney, the brother of Amo's sister in law . He was also to take us out to look for Little Spotted Kiwi later. We had a really good supper with Amo and Rodney. Rodney then produced an envelope of Kiwi feathers. They were very soft indeeed. Then we went with Rodney to look for the Kiwi. We went round the back of lodge and sat on a bench and listened while Rodney with his red torchlight searched for them. We heard one and then a little later finally saw one. It was bigger than I expected about the size of a small chicken. Even though the Little Spotted Kiwi is the smallest of the Kiwi species. They have powerful legs and it wasnt long before it ran off into the grass.

I was really chuffed as this was my third visit to NZ and I hadn't seen any on my previous visits. We then continued to look for them further away from the lodge and the one sound that penetrated through the dark was the sound of the Morepork (Ruru). It is a small brown owl and it sounds exactly as it is called. Then one called very close by and Rodney shined the torch up into the branches and there it was. It didnt seem concerned by us and we were able to get pretty close. It was really exciting to get so close to an owl.

Then we went back to our hut and went to bed. In the morning the weather had changed and was very grey and drizzly and Rodney told us that the ferry had been cancelled. We of course didn't believe him. It had been and we tried to see if we get a helicopter of the Island but the cloud level was too low. So we spent a highly amusing extra 24 hours being entertained by Amo and Rodney.

Out in the bush there was a bird that made quite a racket which I learnt was a Long tailed Cuckoo and it made the noise just before flying off from where ever it was. I got this distant photo of it.

That evening Amo treated us to the Maori delicacy of Paua. It is a mollusc found on New Zealand shores. In other parts of the world it would be called Abalone. Well it was a revelation to me it has to be one of the best seafoods. It was absolutely delicious.

Just before I went to bed I thought I would try and see a Kiwi again. No further than 30 yards from our hut there was one and I got to look at it for alot longer than the previous evening. Brill!!

In the morning I heard some birds right beside the hut that I didnt recognize and was glad to catch up with the Saddleback.
After breakfast we made our way down to the shore along which was walking a White faced Heron.

The ferry appeared and Amo and Rodney came to see us off.

I would heartily recommend Kapiti to anyone remotely interested in birds. It was one of the highlights of our trip. I cannot wait to go back and hopefully I will be in November 2010 this time accompanied by my wife Penny.

Cape Kidnappers Gannet Colony

2009-03-16T17:18:00.007Z

My father and I left Miranda and visited the Coromandel Peninsular before heading south via Tauranga, where my father used to go on holiday as a child. He reckoned that the place he used to stay was now a ten story block of flats. We walked round the Mount a strange hill virtually surrounded by the sea. We then stayed a night at Whakatane before heading further south to Gisborne and then onto Hawkes Bay. The weather at this stage was amazing.

One of the bird hotspots that I wanted to visit was the Cape Kidnapper's Gannet Colony. It is one of the only mainland Gannet colonies in the world.There are three species of Gannet in the world. There is the Northern Gannet Morus bassanus which is based in the North Atlantic. There is the Cape Gannet Morus capensis from South Africa and then there is the Australasian Gannet Morus serrator known in Maori as Takapu.

They are usually found in large colonies on offshore islands around New Zealand and southern Australia and have been nesting here at Cape Kidnappers since the 1870s. There are around 6000 pairs here. The lifespan of the Gannet can range upto forty years. When the young gannets learn to fly they take off on a journey of about 2000 miles across the Tasman sea to Australia. Here they will stay for a few years before returning to breed at around five years old and then from then on spend their lives in New Zealand waters.

The Cape Kidnappers Gannet Reserve is managed by the Department of Conservation to protect the gannet nesting sites. the reserve covers about 30 acres, which includes the Saddle and Black Reef colonies both of which are closed to the public.It is the Plateau colony that is the main viewing area on this headland.

We spent the night in a fairly decrepit overflow camp at Clifton before taking a tractor tour to the Cape Kidnappers Colony. We went with Gannet Beach Adventures which is eco-friendly beach tour to the foot of the gannet sanctuary. You travel on cushioned trailers pulled by these vintage tractors along the beach below these towering cliffs at low tide.

Meanwhile the guides stop regularly and point out the various geology and earthquake faults.

My father and I thought the commentary was going to be dreadful as when we got on the trailers Colin the owner said "Good Morning" and virtually nobody responded and in good pantomine style he said he was going home. He then said "Good Morning" again and everybody answered this time. However we were wrong the whole trip was really professional and loads of information was given to us. Every now and again we would stop and Colin would tell us another snippet of info whether about the Gannets or the Geology of the area. And here he is below teaching us to count Australian style!!!!

You spend about one and a half hours at Cape Kidnappers which leaves ample time for a swim or a picnic but not enough time in my mind to visit the Gannet Colony which is a 25 to 30 minute walk uphill to view the Saddle and Plateau colonies .You only get about 30 mins to photograph the birds. On the return journey, a brief stop is made at the Black Reef Colony.

The Gannets can be viewed from a very close distance.

At the end of the beach and before you climb upto the plateau colony there is a Department of Conservation rest shelter which provides information boards on geology and Gannets. The shelter also provides fresh water, along with picnic and toilet facilities.

The photographic opportunities are excellent and I would have loved to have more time.

Excellent opportunities for flight photography at close range.

You can watch the adults preening

and there are lots of juveniles in their soft downy plumage

A nice danish couple were interested in me photographing the birds and asked if I wanted a portrait with Gannets in the background.

When we got back to the campsite we made our way to a Te Awa Winery for a fantastic lunch.