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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. (3 Viewers)

Hi Peter,

Sounds interesting.
Gull billeds have a very distinctive gizz. A very laid back marsh tern like flight and the call is very distinctive also.

Have you checked the stagrennan polder? (on the south side of the river?)
Good roost of gulls there usually. Could be a magnet for this species.

Regards

Owen

Thanks Owen and Breffni.I did not get a chance to look for the bird afterwards. It will have to go down as one that got away.

I finally caught up with Cuckoo this morning near Louth village.

my county year list

145 Cuckoo

Still missing Roseate Tern and Common Sandpiper from the summer migrants.

I take it that the Great White Egret seen flying north from Swords estuary today was not relocated?
 
Saw one in the presence of least terns at Cape May - they look gigantic in comparison...

A few recent shots - i assume that the blue tail is a blue tail and not a scarce blue tail? The juv tree sparrow is from my garden...

Anyone know what the bug and moth are?

The shelduckling is from an evening spent rescuing a clutch of them last week.

Hi Breffni,

Yes the damselfly is indeed a Blue-tailed Damselfly Ischnura elegans.
A similarly coloured Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly Ischnura pumilio would have blue on all of abdominal segment 9 and on the bottom quarter of segment 8. Blue-tailed I. elegans only has blue on segment 8 as seen in the photo. Scarce Blue-tailed is also a much daintier insect, like a flying sowing needle!

Was it yourself that had the Lesser Whitethroat at Broadlough a while ago???
If so where exactly? It would be nice to see in breeding habitat and singing.

Regards,
Niall
 
I see that there are now 22 nests at Baltray with at least 40 eggs. Given that some birds will lay three eggs we can probably expect up to 60 eggs - a 50% increase on last year and much earlier. The first birds should hatch in the next 10 days or so and there will follow the critical period when chicks are on the ground but not very mobile...

I wonder how things are at Kilkool?

Things aren't going the may west at Kilcoole.

A Fox got into the colony one night a while ago and ate 2/3 of the eggs. This was still early in the season though and by Monday there was an increase to 45 nests with 102 eggs which was great.

When I visited yesterday theres was again some bad news. Rooks got into the colony during the morning and took about 10 nests!

The poor wardens looked very disheartened. The on site pest controller has been doubling his efforts recently but there always seems to be the one or two crows who have the colony sussed that evade the end of the barrel!!!

110 adults, 4 chicks, 70+ eggs, min. 33 nests yesterday.

Regards,
Niall
 
Not me the lesser whitethroat at broadlough alas...though I heard there was a singing garden warbler at nearby blackditch, any news on that?

Baltray has some advantages over Kilkool in that it is very open; wardens can see the whole nesting area from one vantage point and any fox would have to cross a half mile of dunes to get to the site...I would also argue that our barrier is a lot more effective - sandy substrate helps. But for sure, a good "vertebrate control specialist" is key to success! But fingers crossed - more big tides coming in a few weeks...

I guess the nest count is up to 27 now...
 
The Garden Warbler was heard up Killoughter lane as far as I know. That was myself with Robert Vaughan and Conor Foley who bumped into ya at Killoughter marsh. We ended up having 4 different Marsh Harriers between there and 5-mile-point by the end of the evening!!!

Yeah the Baltray colony seems to have a fairly impenetrable fence system!!! Its a pity that the flimsy fencing at the Kilcoole colony is the best on offer given the nature of the substrate.

Regards,
Niall
 
Things aren't going the may west at Kilcoole.

A Fox got into the colony one night a while ago and ate 2/3 of the eggs. This was still early in the season though and by Monday there was an increase to 45 nests with 102 eggs which was great.

When I visited yesterday theres was again some bad news. Rooks got into the colony during the morning and took about 10 nests!

The poor wardens looked very disheartened. The on site pest controller has been doubling his efforts recently but there always seems to be the one or two crows who have the colony sussed that evade the end of the barrel!!!

110 adults, 4 chicks, 70+ eggs, min. 33 nests yesterday.

Regards,
Niall
The count at Baltray at the moment is 31 nests with 58 eggs, though we suspect that 4 of these have been abandoned, which would leave us with more realistic figures of 27 nests and 54 eggs. We had 21 successful nests last year so this is certainly a good improvement. The earliest possible hatching day is tomorrow, so we hope to have chicks in the next few days. We have 1 nest with 3 eggs so far, a lot with 2, and some with 1. We are still discovering new nests, and the egg numbers are increasing daily, so those numbers will still hopefully increase.

We have been lucky so far as we haven't lost any eggs to predators, but we'll be worried about foxes once the chicks hatch. Our volunteer effort doesn't stretch to overnight shifts (we currently cover from around 5am till 10.30pm), so we'll really be keeping our fingers crossed then. While our fencing has done a great job so far there really is no telling what could happen during the night if a fox really put its mind to it. We originally divided the enclosure into 4 sentions, and we've had to add two more on to the original fencing due to some nesting outside the enclosure. Our hope is that if a fox managed to get into one of the sections the damage would be limited to that section alone.
 
The Garden Warbler was heard up Killoughter lane as far as I know. That was myself with Robert Vaughan and Conor Foley who bumped into ya at Killoughter marsh. We ended up having 4 different Marsh Harriers between there and 5-mile-point by the end of the evening!!!

I thought i recognised Conor - he was very helpful when we were looking for a greenish warbler last year - saw neither marsh harrier nor hobby, which is what i was looking for that day...
 
I noticed the SPARROWS were having a feast on the Red Poker flower seeds in my daughters garden so I must of course grow them in my garden.
 

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I noticed the SPARROWS were having a feast on the Red Poker flower seeds in my daughters garden so I must of course grow them in my garden.
Lovely photo Dolce. I find that my garden is so noisy at the moment with young birds twittering at the parents for food, it is a lovely time for garden birds.
 
For the redord black guillemots are using at least two of the new nesting holes on the new pier and two on the old inner pier at Clogher - if anyone sees other nesting holes being used please let me know (or yellow banded birds). I also passed through beaulieu an dnoticed that the pond has significantly eutrophied adn the upper pond is heavlily overgrown with wild iris. Also the whole understory is now dominated by ground elder, which has a tendancy to spread and crowed out other stuff. Also all the open glades are now scrubbing up bigtime. Area needs management...I was sure of only one little egret nest and five or six heron nests...
 
Would it help if a dog was left with food and shelter at Baltry, ( chained up of course ) it might act as a deterrent to any Foxes etc?
 
Would it help if a dog was left with food and shelter at Baltry, ( chained up of course ) it might act as a deterrent to any Foxes etc?

HI Gareth

Good idea but my understanding is that a dog is likely to attract the interest of a fox: where there is a dog there may be food. Mr fox, being no fool, will quickly realise that the dog is chained and not a threat...we also considered high frequency sound deterrants - the area is much too large for these to be effective.
 
Thanks Margarat and isnt this wee fella just gorgeous. He can come to feed on his own now but that is not too far as I believe he is probably living in the spaces at back of garage between top of bricks and adjoining roof. He must be quite young still as he has no blue at all on his plumage yet. I see the Goldfinches back feeding after being missing for a while so I am now watching out for their new young.
 

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My hedge is full of juvenile birds at the moment...not to mention juvenile dogs (if anyone is interested in puppies, 90% collie, about half size, black with white chest, socks, let me know (0879145363!)

Also pic of black guillemots using new nesting holes (at least three are being used to date).
 

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Tern Patrol

We should have our first chicks any day now.

The juv. Starling flock seems to have doubled overnight
 

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Hi guys (and gals)

Some of you will have noticed that I've been quiet / absent on the forum over the past month, but rest assured I have been busy out knocking up some nice birds for my 2008 Louth list. (which is now at 179). The attached photos are all from the Cooley area and as some supression of records has already taken place, I thought it only fair for me to keep these few to myself.

Ok, before I'm shot :eek!: - only back from the Algarve in Southern Portugal. Plenty of birds (and a few dips as well). I will put together a report when I get a chance, but for the moment a few photos (unfortunately I decided not to bring my new camera with me so I was unable to capture many birds I did see :C). Oh by the way my Louth list is still round the mid 130's, so I've a bit of work to do!
 

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Pups

My hedge is full of juvenile birds at the moment...not to mention juvenile dogs (if anyone is interested in puppies, 90% collie, about half size, black with white chest, socks, let me know (0879145363!)

Also pic of black guillemots using new nesting holes (at least three are being used to date).

What kinda cross are they lab/Collie? They look lovely!
 
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