My Local Patch Killard. A Close encounter with a Peregrine and one of my Best ever finds out at Killard.

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A few days ago I got home from work and as it was a beautiful September day I grabbed the camera and then the dog and headed out to Killard. I stopped off on the way at a little bay between Strangford and Killard which can be really good for waders. There were Golden Plover, Greenshank, Dunlin,
Redshank,

Bar Tailed Godwit,
Ringed Plover,
and Curlew
all feeding as the tide went out.

There feeding was soon to be stopped as a Peregrine came in low from behind me over my head with a great whoosh of air as it passed overhead and tried to catch a Redshank to no avail. It then climbed high into the sky before diving back into the mass of waders flying in total panic in every direction. Yet again it failed to connect with a bird and then headed out into the Strangford Narrows.


My first frustration of the day was that I had my 1.4 extender on my 400mm lens which is not as quick to autofocus as the lens on its own so even though I photographed alot of the action only one image was sharp.

With most of the waders moving off I headed on over to Killard. I first of all took Pickle along the shoreline and let her have a swim.


We then headed up onto the small plateau above Killard. There were Goldfinches everywhere and with one flock probably in excess of two hundred birds.



There were also large numbers of linnets. On the plateau there are a large number of gorse bushes and I thought I would try my luck at photographing Wrens, of which I have very few images. They respond fairly well to spishing. The light was perfect but did any show close up to me. In a word NO. One appeared about twenty yards away before diving back into the bushes and then another for a brief moment directly in line with the sun. So I gave up and decided to photograph the spiders that have large spider webs amongst the gorse. However with my 400 f5.6 lens the minimum focus distance is quite far so I had to use some extension tubes to make the lens focus closer. The only problem with this is that it means that focusing on something further away is not possible.


Pickle was searching away in the gorse and suddenly she flushed a bird I have not seen since my childhood in Donegal, a Corncrake. It flew over the other side of the gorse and dropped down. Sod's law that I had my extension tubes on and couldn't focus on it. I then removed the tubes and walked around to the other side of the gorse and was just phoning a friend to tell them about the Corncrake when Pickle put it up again and this time I had the camera hanging off my shoulder and yet again didn't get a shot. Aaargh!!!!!!!! I looked for it for quite a while but no luck.

I then headed back down to the shore and started to photograph a flock of Turnstones.



All in all a brilliant birding afternoon.

Postscript: I was talking to Brian Black Ulster Television's Environment Correspondent about the Corncrake and he heard it while walking his dog the following day.

Anthony McGeehan's Pelagic off Inishbofin Island Co. Galway Summer 2008

I have always been a bit wary of going on a Pelagic as I am very prone to seasickness. In the Eighties I came back from New York on the QE2 and I was sick for the full five days!!! Then a couple of summers ago I decided I would go out deep sea fishing with my father out of Downings in Co. Donegal and had to be put ashore in Dunfanaghy the other side of Sheephaven Bay less than four miles away.

So the idea of heading out into the Atlantic from Inishbofin in Co Galway was to put it mildly fairly alarming to me. However on the positive side I was going with some fairly experienced seawatchers. There was also the added enticement of seeing a number of birds I had never seen let alone photograph. Anthony had asked me last year if I wanted to go out and I had chickened out. Then he posted a trip report on the Birds Ireland Website and when I saw the photos I thought I must go on the next one.

During the week running upto the Pelagic I told Anthony I would make up some chum for the trip. I went to my local Fish Wholesaler and got some mackerel and the filleted remains of some rainbow trout that he was going to throw out. I then added two tins of tuna and some cod liver oil , olive oil and bread and water before semi pureeing with a large stick blender. I then put the revolting looking mixture into the freezer.

On Saturday morning the RSPB Belfast Harbour Volunteers met up at the reserve , where Anthony was driving the minibus to Cleggan in Co.Galway. I was driving down seperately with the chum and some of the tents etc as there was little room for extra on the bus. I was also taking Rob Straughn The RSPB Northern Ireland's Red Kite Officer with me. (Kites have been recently reintroduced into Northern Ireland) Rob talks with a broad Geordie accent added to which he had a cold which almost required me having a translator to accompany him so that I could understand what he was saying.

We all met up in Westport Co.Mayo after a fairly rain soaked journey for a cup of tea before finally arriving at about 6.30 in Cleggan in time for the 6.45 last sailing of the day.

We unloaded onto the pier and Anthony met up with some Dutch Birders who were coming on the trip. There was Magnus Robb who had recently published "Petrels Night and Day The Sound Approach Guide" with Killian Mullarney. Also Pim Wolf another well known Dutch Ornithologist and Seabird Expert , who had won The Swarovski Digiscoper of the Year in 2006.
Anthony talking to Magnus

We then embarked on the Ferry and set off for Inishbofin.

As we were crossing I saw a strange looking Fulmer and I asked Anthony whether it was a young fulmer and he said it was a Blue Fulmer. There are two races of Fulmar - nominate glacialis in the Atlantic, and rodgersii in the Pacific. Each race has dark and light morphs, and everything in between. So Blue Fulmar is not a race, but a colour phase (dark) which, in the Atlantic, predominates in the high Arctic, and is basically a scarce visitor to the southern part of the range.
This Photo was taken last year by Anthony McGeehan on his Donegal Pelagic.

He reckoned this was a good omen for the following days Pelagic. We had got a call suggesting that the trip might be off because of the weather.
This photo is looking back out of the Inishbofin Harbour towards Inishark.

We disembarked and made our way up to the Hostel where at this point I didnt know whether I was camping or staying in the hostel fortunately they had one spare bed in the dormitory. I think it was the first time I had spent a night with eight other men in a room since leaving boarding school. I was on the bottom bunk. Some of the others set up their tents and then we all went and had a meal in the Dolphin Hotel. I was keeping in mind that one of the tips to avoid seasickness is not to drink much the night before so I had a pint of Guinness and left it at that. I finished my meal with a seasickness pill before heading to bed.

Kick off was going to be 9.00am so after having a fairly disturbed night with the upper bunk occupant getting out a few times in the night. I was woken at 8.00 had a breakfast of toast without anything and a banana and another pill. No point in spending money on breakfast to feed the fishes a few hours later. Especially as I could see white crests on the waves in the sound between the island and the mainland.

We met down at the pier where the second Inishbofin ferry was going to take us out on the Pelagic. At this point Eric Dempsey owner of the Birds Ireland Website turned up with some friends.

We then headed out to sea with a quick stop at a seal colony nearby. It was decided to go about six miles straight out from Inishbofin into the atlantic. As we were heading out there a couple of Great Skuas were seen. I was quite glad that the boat was quite big as the swells seemed to be fairly large and I was desperately watching the horizon to make sure I didnt feel bad. I decided I would sleep until we got to the area where the chum was going to be put in the sea.

In addition to the chum we were going to use DMS.DMS is DiMethyl Sulphide. It is a preservative for vegetables which has a very pungent smell and has been found very effective at attracting Petrels to chum.

Here is the block of chum floating above and below its visitors

I think it was the DMS that set me off for my first of three trips to the side of the boat to provide chum!!!

Its effect was fairly pronounced the first visitor was a shark then the Storm Petrels came in soon after followed by a Sooty Shearwater.

Sooty Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

The Sooty Shearwater Puffinus griseus spends its winter in our summer in the North Atlantic and then heads down to the bottom of South America to its breeding grounds.

The next bird to turn up was the Great Shearwater and definately my favourite of the trip.

Great Shearwater

Great Shearwater

Storm Petrel Great Shearwater and Fulmer

The Great Shearwater breeds in Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island in the South Atlantic. After the breeding season it migrates north along the American continents and spends its summer off the coasts of New England, Eastern Canada and South Greenland and then in late summer appears off the Western European coasts. One of the Pelagic party Brad Robson RSPB Fermanagh Area Manager is taking a year out to spend it on Tristan da Cunha working in Conservation. I wish him all the best.

Soon Anthony came down and said that Magnus Robb had thought he had seen a Wilson's Petrel and was trying to relocate it. It wasn't long before a shout went up and it appeared right next to the boat.

One of the diagnostic features of the Wilson's petrel is that it has yellowish webs between its toes.

Another feature is that there is a lack of white on the underwings as in the Storm Petrel.

The other feature is that its legs are longer than the Storm Petrel and extend beyond the tail feathers.

Here you can see the shorter legs of the Storm Petrel.

Another bird that I really love is the Fulmar they have to be one of the most graceful of flyers.


They were everywhere but unfortunately no 'Blue Fulmars' today.

The frozen chum worked particularly well as it was still providing a slick two hours after we first put it into the water. This ensured that the likes of the Great Shearwaters and Sooty Shearwaters hung round the boat alot longer than would normally be the case.

Around one o'clock Anthony called it a day as there were a few people who were feeling pretty awful and we headed back to Cleggan with a passenger transfer to the other ferry half way through our journey for those remaining on the Island for another night.


Some of the Birders waiting to disembark at Cleggan.

I have to give a Big Vote of Thanks from everybody to Anthony for arranging this trip which so easily could have been a logistical nightmare . It was a great success with three new lifers for me and two new birds for the Co. Galway List (Great Shearwater and Wilsons Petrel) and I hope the next time he can get a slightly better hold on the weather and frankly I wouldn't put it past him :-)

Ongava Lodge

Peregrine's Bird Photographers Recommendations Well this time I am not recommending a bird photographer but my best friend Jeremy Pollard who is a documentary cinematographer and photographer.He has been nominated for a BAFTA in 2001 and an EMMY in 2002. He is looking to branch out from documentary work and more into photography. When he was making documentaries over the years he has always carried his camera with him and has just set up his website www.jjpollard.com I really like his portraits. We first met when we both lived on Martha's Vineyard in 1984.


We left the Erongo Wilderness Lodge fairly early in the morning for our final two nights in Namibia. We drove to our final and most expensive lodge of our trip. Ongava Lodge. This is situated along the southern boundary of Etosha National Park set in the privately owned Ongava Game Reserve. it was about a three hour drive from The Erongo Mountains. As we drove along there were a number Eagles and Birds of Prey sitting on the telegraph posts.

Tawny Eagle ( Aquila rapax)


Martial Eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus)


Southern Pale Chanting Goshawk (Melierax canorus)


On arrival at Ongava we were met at the car parking area and were handed ice cold flannels to wipe the dust etc from our faces and then our luggage was taken to our chalet. At Ongava Lodge there are ten twin and double air conditioned chalets.They are pretty comfortable. When you arrive you climb up a small hill to the main open air lounge, bar and dining area which is under a thatch roof and has commanding views over the game reserve and a couple of floodlit waterholes immediately below.

As we were signing in the first thing I noticed was this Masked Weaver making a nest right beside the veranda. I was told it had already made two nests both of which had been rejected by the female and now it was working on its third!!!

Weaver on third nest with one of the rejects.


Female Southern Masked Weaver (The one causing all the grief!!!)


Male Southern Masked Weaver (Ploceus cucullatus)


After lunch Penny and I went to our chalet for a rest before going out in the evening in one of the lodge's Landrovers on a game drive. With the idea that we would go out the following day with them into the Etosha National Park.

We went out with another two couples who were more interested in the animals than the birds :-( However I did try and get the driver to slow down if I came across anything I hadnt seen.The first bird I saw was the African Grey Hornbill

African Grey Hornbill (Tockus nasutus)
followed by Kori Bustard. As we were driving round the reserve we saw Red Hartebeest,

Kudu,


Waterbuck,
Springbok, Wildebeest, Warthog and a Black Rhino which had been imported into the reserve. The best animal to me was the family of Giraffes.

There were a number of African Palm Swifts flying about.They have thin wings and a diagnostic deeply forked tail.

African Palm Swift Cypsirius parvus

Nearby a Lilac Breasted Roller flew overhead and I spotted an African Hoopoe with the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen in its beak.

African Hoopoe Upupa africana

We were driving down a track and there was a real racket coming from the bush and it was being created by a
Swainson's Spurfowl Pternistes swainsonii

and I wasn't sure why until I saw this Eagle sitting in a dead tree.


I reckoned it was a Juvenile Hawk Eagle and when I returned home posted it on Birdforum to get more expert opinion.
Here is the LINK. it looks as though I am wrong and it is probably a Snake Eagle. It was being mobbed by a Long-Tailed Paradise-Whydah one of those birds with enormously long tails compared to their bodies.

Time was getting on and a sunset was beginning to appear with distant peals of thunder in the distance. Our driver decided it was time for our sundowner which had been pre ordered before the gamedrive. So Penny and I drank Gin and Tonics with a stunning sunset in the background with the black rhino very close to the vehicle.What really annoyed me on this gamedrive was the surprising lack of knowledge of the guide when it came to bird identification. At this point I decided that we would drive ourselves into Etosha and not take the Lodge tour.

We then made our way back to the Lodge where we had a reasonable meal the only downside was the staff hovered over the table and the moment you finished your plate it was whisked away before the other person had finished their course. This happenned on both nights we were there and I found it really tiresome.As we had drunk a reasonable amount of wine we decided to go to bed in order to get an early start the following morning to visit Etosha proper.

The Erongo Wilderness Lodge

Peregrine's Bird Photographers Recommendations

On todays blog I am not going to recommend a photographer but I am going to recommend A Guide who can take you on a Birding or Photography Tour in Namibia. He is Vernon Swanepoel who runs Frantic Naturalist Tours and Safaris He was raised in the remote Kaisut desert in Northern Kenya, where he developed a love for the desert. He studied nature conservation and became a guide in Namibia. At the end of 2000 he moved to Sossusvlei Mountain Lodge, where he developed a serious interest in the desert ecology and in the birds of the area. He then completed his Inkwazi Ranger Training School at Phinda and took over the role of head ranger and lodge naturalist. He has extensive knowledge of all aspects of the desert including archaeology, geology, behaviour and adaptation of desert fauna and flora, and a special interest in both the birds and the reptiles. So if you need a really good guide he is your man!!

On our last morning at Walvis Bay I looked out of the window and an Artic Skua was chasing some Terns less than a hundred yards from my hotel room. I grabbed my camera and took a shot for it to say no card in camera. When will I learn. We left the Pelican Bay Hotel, which we felt was pretty awful. Nobody smiled or said hallo when you came into the hotel. Our hotel rooms air conditioning wasn’t working one of the lights wasn’t working and the shower head came to about waist height. They had a card to be filled out saying Hot or Not. Well in our opinion definitely Not.The only thing I would recommend is the view.

We drove on a tarred road to Swakopmund where incredibly frustratingly we had to wait for the next six hours while Penny made phone call after phone call and we went from garage to garage while they tried to make their mind up what the problem was with our car. In the end a spare hire car was brought to us from Walvis Bay. It was such a frustrating wait and I had planned to go to this rocky outcrop on the way to our next lodge to try and catch up with a near endemic called the Herero Chat. So that had to be cancelled while we drove on to our next lodge. Just as we turned of the main road for the last few kilometres to the lodge there was a massive thunderstorm in the distance.



The Erongo Wilderness Lodge is nestled amongst granite outcrops on the outskirts of an ancient volcano.
It is flanked by the Namib Desert to the West and mixed-woodland savannah to the East, the mountains form a rare confluence of ecosystems that give rise to a remarkable biodiversity, including a vast array of plant, reptile, mammal and bird species that are endemic to Namibia.The endemic birds I wanted to see were the Hartlaub's Francolin, The Rockrunner and the Carp's Tit. It was truly an amazing place once you turn left at the above sign you only have to drive about 600 metres but you have to have a good four wheel vehicle as there is a fairly steep rockface that you have to drive up to get to the lodge.There is parking further away and you can be collected. Within five minutes of being taken to our tented accommodation I vowed I would be back.

This is what it looks like from inside.


How often can you say that about a destination. I sat on the balcony with a nice bottle of cold Windhoek beer and watched firstly a Rock Kestrel calling and flying to a nest in the outcrop directly in front of us followed shortly after by a Monteiro’s Hornbill taking food to its young.

Closer to our tent was a Grey Go Away Bird and some Red Eyed Bulbul’s.


We then made our way up to get our dinner in the restaurant. It was a set menu and excellent. There were a couple of German birders and it transpired that one of them, Jürgen Lehnert, who spoke excellent English , was one of the top 25 world listers with just short of 7000 species to his name. He had started in 1990 and he reckoned it had cost him £200,000 and a marriage so far!!!!! Talking to him nearly cost me mine as well!!

After a bad night's sleep we had opted to go on the Eagle Walk at 7.00am. We left with our guide Regan and had barely gone a few yards when he pointed out a Diderick Cuckoo, at this stage it was just light and I got a record shot at most.Then within a very short distance i I got another record shot of a Klaas's Cuckoo. We headed up into the granite outcrop behind the camp and spotted Lovebirds, Spotted Flycatcher, Sabota Lark, Yellow Bellied Eremomela and a Rockrunner in the far off distance (Not really a tick) We climbed higher and higher until we came to the top of the mountain and then it was down the mountain which at times was quite steep. We looked over towards a rocky outcrop and saw firstly a Yellow Billed Kite and then further up in the sky a Verraux's Eagle or Black eagle as they are called here..


The Verraux's Eagle nests on this outcrop. You can find out more about it Here
On the walk there were a fair few different species of Butterfly of which these two were the easiest to photograph. The African Monarch



After our walk we had our breakfast where we met Jurgen again. He had been feeding the birds from the restaurant with the muesli and had attracted 18 different species. I spent most of the rest of the day photographing birds from the restaurant.

Cape Glossy Starling



Carp's Tit



Laughing Dove



Rosy Faced Lovebirds These are beautiful little birds and it is such a tragedy to see them in captivity when you realise the habitat that they live in. (They are a popular house bird in many parts of the world)


Monteiro's Hornbill I loved these birds as they seem to have a great character.



Namibian Rock Agama This is a male with the female having a totally different colour.


On our final evening we went for a guided drive to see some cave paintings by bushmen around 3000 years ago.


However on the way there we saw a Hartlaub's Francolin which made my whole day as I was getting worried that after three days I would have only heard one as opposed to seen one.


The cave paintings were quite impressive and well preserved. On the way back we saw a Kudu in the distance on a hilltop.
He looked suitably majestic. We also came across some Guineafowl which were making a great racket and a Roller flew overhead. While the two swiss tourists and penny had a beer watching the sun go down. Regan, the guide, and I went for a walk and came across a Bare Cheeked Babbler and a Black bellied Korhaan. We also came across some very fresh Leopard tracks in a river bed. I was quite relieved to get back to the safety of the Landrover.

I have to say i think the food at the lodge was absolutely excellent as was the service. In the evening you get a three course set meal and they have a very good wine list ranging from a few quid a bottle upto about twenty. They also serve an absolutely fantastic thirst quencher called the Rock Shandy. It is half lemonade, half soda water a splash of angostura bitters and loads of ice. Brilliant. Go on Try It.

On the final morning I got up early and it was a bit overcaste and I got a shot of the endemic Rockrunner. It was taken in fairly low light at a high iso so the image is quite noisy.


I also climbed a hill to take a photo of the Lodge area

and as I was doing so this Black Kite flew overhead.I was using a flash with better beamer to light up its underside.


As we were having our breakfast before setting of to the Etosha National Park this Rosy Faced Lovebird appeared on a rock just outside the restaurant. I like to think he was coming to say goodbye and hoping we would be back soon :-)