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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

County Louth (formerly Dundalk Bay) local patch. (4 Viewers)

Cheers for that. Went down to Clogher head last Saturday, parked at the beach as you said and walked up the hill. Its a lovely walk. Not much in the way of strange birds though.
Plenty of Finches on the move around there Linnet mostly I think. Some Brent Geese at the pier in Annagassan along with plenty of Turnstone.
I'll take a spin out to Balaggan on Sunday hopefully.
 
october update

Wintering waders and wildfowl numbers steadily building. Recent arrivals include whooper swans (seemed healthy enough), greylag geese with pink footed and white fronted seen, and a dark bellied brent (lurgangreen/seabank) + a barnacle goose. Also recently reported a gull-billed tern, common tern, arctic skuas, 3 twite and a cooperative merlin (all at "hermitage" - the south boundry of the patch), good numbers of red throat and great northern divers offshore. Passerines scarce with passing wheatear, a few chiffchaff, and an apparent minor influx of goldcreast...also a beached porpoise off lurgangreen - a few crappy shots attached...
Breffni
http://www.spiritstore.ie/birds/spirit_store_ecosystem.php
 

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Took the dog for a walk down past Balaggan on Monday. Plenty of Waders about alright. Also say 3 Brent geese and some Wheatear. Found ( My dog did ) 2 dead Auks there also.
 
northerly gales...

...have brought in a big arrival of redwing and fieldfare around the fields in Cooley, snipe along the shore, huge numbers of wigeon. Also seen recently were twite (hermitage), short eared owl (lurgangreen), redpoll (ballymac bay and elsewhere), waxwing (three near carlingford), late whimbrel (balaggan/carlingford)...
 

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Hi, great to see a local thread running. I heard that there are some waxwings in Dundalk, did anybody hear where abouts they were or if they are still around. I've never seen one and decided to try and spot one this winter.

I thought I'd mention too in case you haven't tried it before, the road along the Boyne estuary, running from Drogheda to Baltray, is excellent for birdwatching. I've seen up to 5 little egrets there (although they are a bit elusive at the moment) and there tends to be good numbers of your other usuals. It's not great for parking but is certainly worth checking out if you haven't been there before.
 
Hi Ardnasx1,

Haven't heard about any Waxwings in the area though I have been busy with work lately. I might take a look down at that location for the Egrets though as I'm spending a lot of time working in Drogheda at the minute.
Anyway nice to see another local birder on the thread !
 
Welcome indeed - the more people watching dundalk bay the better - on the last iweb count in December, with limited hours of daylight and not a great tidal situation, i tried to see how many species i could get in a single day (6 hours) - the result is below - a total of 77 species. I believe that it should be fairly easy to hit 100 species on a good day September/October. For 2005, in terms of raritities, the best were probably the white-rumped and pectoral sandpipers, the little auk, the gull-billed tern and the ring necked duck, black redstart - there are probably others...(past rarities have included American Bittern, Little Bittern, Night Heron, Blue-winged Teal, Green-winged Teal, King Eider, Gyr Falcon, Baird's Sandpiper, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Dowitcher sp., Lesser Yellowlegs, Wilson's Phalarope, Laughing Gull, Franklin's Gull, Forster's Tern, White-winged Black Tern, Pallid Swift, Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush, Radde's Warbler, Hobby, Black-throat Diver etc etc)


Bar-tailed Godwit
Black Guillemot
Blackbird
Black-headed Gull
Black-tailed Godwit
Blue Tit
Buzzard
Coal Tit
Collared Dove
Common Gull
Common Scoter
Coot
Cormorant
Curlew
Curlew sandpiper
Dipper
Dunlin
Dunnock
Firecrest
Golden Plover
Goldeneye
Goldfinch
Great Black-backed Gull
Great Crested Grebe
Great Northern Diver
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Greenshank
Grey Heron
Grey Plover
Guillemot
Herring Gull
Hooded Crow
House Sparrow
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Kingfisher
Knot
Lapwing
Less Black-backed Gull
Light-bellied Brent Goose
Linnet
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Magpie
Mallard
Meadow Pipit
Merlin
Mistle thrush
Moorhen
Mute Swan
Oystercatcher
Pied Wagtail
Pintail
Red-breasted Merganser
Redshank
Red-throated Diver
Reed Bunting
Ringed Plover
Rock Pipit
Rook
Sanderling
Scaup
Shag
Shag
Shelduck
Shoveler
Song thrush
Starling
Stonechat
Teal
Tree sparrow
Turnstone
Whooper Swan
Wigeon
Wood pigeon
Wren
 
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Wow, that's some selection of birds to spot in the one day.

The little egret was along the Boyne at lunchtime today. It was there about 3 days ago also, they used to be there all the time but now it could be only once a week when I'd see one. I managed to see 3 jays in Dunany at the weekend. I rarely ever see them, are they normally widespread or is it just that I never see them ?
 
Freddie

Hi to all you local birders! I've just picked up on this thread. I will endeavour to
add any local news/sightings etc. as they come along. Wasn't out much over Christmas due to family reasons but hope to make up for it in the New Year.
 
Hi Freddie,

Attached photos of the previously noted snowy owl (in fact a leucistic crow, maybe an albino - the legs and bill were pinkinh in the field though i couldnt make out the eye colour). Seen at the end of the marsh road so still hanging around marsh south (between blackrock and dundalk). Looks a bit like a rook from some angles...
 

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Freddie Vernon said:
Thanks Breffni,

An interesting bird for sure but not very owlish!! Hope to bump into you one of these days. The Carlingford weekend sounds great.

actually when i first saw it, it came into view in my scope as i was scanning some linnets - i initially thought it was a parrot because it stared so steadily straight at me with those beady binocular eyes - quite unnerving actually! Bird also seemed huge...attached pic from about 150 yards distance...
 

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I thought Rook ( Of sorts ) when looking at the pics first, but it does seem pretty big in that last photo. I'll try and take a trip down there tomoorrow as i'm off work.
 
Saw a lovely view of 2 Buzzards in the field across the road from Sextons pub. They were being mobbed by crows. Would have made a great photo as they perched quite close to the road but I had no camera at the time :(
 
gareth2005 said:
Saw a lovely view of 2 Buzzards in the field across the road from Sextons pub. They were being mobbed by crows. Would have made a great photo as they perched quite close to the road but I had no camera at the time :(

i see them along the dundalk bypass regularly now - nearly caused a pileup to stop and look the other day - i think they like the road edge because prey species gather there blocked by the road...also saw jays in the small woodland behind the church at dunaney/hermitage. There is a flock of redpoll wt some mealys at north of cursetown in the filed with weeds...
 
Carlingford photo competition

Carlingford are running a bird photography competition (http://www.carlingford.ie/wildlife.htm) - according to the rules "Winning photographs will feature a bird species common to the area and IDEALLY some identifiable feature of Carlingford or the Cooley landscape." So if you have any kind of decent photo please submit to [email protected] - there is also a talk by Eric Dempsey on the 11th February and a field outing the following day (http://www.carlingford.ie/events.htm)...
 
Redpolls

Hi Breffni, Gareth et al,

In addition to the mealy redpolls there was a Slavonian Grebe at Salterstown. It would appear that there are 3 in the bay at present (this one and 2 at Lurgangreen per Enda). In recent years January seems to be the month for slavs although I had a november bird at Hermitage in 2004. According to my records we are due a red necked grebe in the next few weeks!! Bins and scopes at the ready.

My home patch at Stabannon is a great area for buzzards, mainly due to the topography of the area. In recent weeks a wing tagged bird (large red tag on left wing) has been seen in the area - once by me about 30m from my house and once by unknown around the N33/M1 interchange.
 
Have you noticed how many more buzzards there seem to be around these days? A year or two ago I found it rare to spot one, but they seem to be much more widespread and numerous in the last while, a couple of months ago I saw 9 in the sky together. Someone told me a load of them were released from the North into Co Louth, does anyone know if that is the case?
 
Buzzards slowly colonised from the north since use strichnine poison was banned. It was first banned in the north in the 80's, then in the south in the 90's (farmers used to bait carrion with strichnine to kill foxes, because Buzzards will take carrion they were wiped out by this practice). Their recolonisation, starting in the north, has been completely natural without any artificial intervention.

I see buzzards almost every day at the minute - in the full moon you can often see them hunting from the street lights around ballymac roundabout. Also in the fields adjacent yesterday there was a large mixed flock of redwing and fieldfare surveyed by a buzzard - this one with a very bright breast band...

BTW yesterday i had the twite down at soldiers point (alas no frontal photo but the bill is the diagnostic bright yellow) - bird was found by someone called gallagher from dublin (thanks!). Was going from the bushes to the fields in the small estate last turn on the right as you approach soldiers point. There were also three bullfinches together, a bit atypical - maybe northern bulls, probably not.

(crappy photos due to twilight conditions...)
 

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Hi Breffni,

had the twite on Sunday around 13:30 in the trees on the wasteground. There were at least 4 consorting with the linnets.I have some (really bad) pics if you would be interested in seeing them.
The numbers wintering in Louth must be down big time on years ago.

John Gallagher
 
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