County Louth (formerly Dundalk Bay) local patch. (22 Viewers)

[Peter Phillips]

I'm not fond of Turnips, and was dissappointed when the farmer renting the field beside my house decided to turn half off the field over to turnip propagation.

Last year he had a huge field of carrots and potatoes which saved me a fortune on vegatables. The rest of my family thought this was great and on visits to there county relatives, would don the wellies and hop across the fence to help themselves to this most natural of harvests.

Needless to say nobody in the family is too fond of the humble turnip and, this year visits from my relatives have been few and far between.

In the last week or two they have started harvesting the turnips, about a row a week. I have noticed a persistant flock of Goldfinch and Linnets hanging around and went out today to investigate. It turned out there were about 300 finches feeding in the field. All the Irish farmland sedeaters species were present(except Twite). The crop has a large number of weed species and the bare ground held some Meadow Pipits and Skylark. I walked along the hedge bordering the crop and kepy flushing Thrushes (about 50 birds). I assumed they were Redwing but on lifting my bins I saw they were all Song Thrush.
I have read that they like broad leaved crops like Turnip,( they like to forage in cover for snails and stuff) but never thought that so many would use such a small area. At the end of the field 300 Starlings
were feedind on the bare soil. The reasons I write this is that this brought me back to my misspent youth. When I used to frequent the fields around Baldoyle racecource and such sights were common. I cant remember the last time I saw such a variety of farmland birds in such a small area. Normally the fields are full of winter wheat with no more than a couple of dozen farmland bird present. The lack of winter vegtables in the arable landscape is obviously having a big impact on bird diversity in the countryside.
On the way home I saw a Merlin hunting over the field.This is only the second I have seen on the farm in 7 years.

I came home with a new found respect for Turnips. So if you care about your farmland birds put locally grown turnips on your shopping list!

 

[breffni]

Similar situation regarding potatoes around here, except the opposite. The surronding fields are either sheep/pasture/silage or barley or potatoes. This year the farmer de-stoned the field and added two extra rounds of herbicide and insecticide. As a result the field was, and continues to be, almost sterile, withneither weeds nor insects. The raptors (mainly buzzard and kestrel but also probably long-eared owl) do benefit from the copious rats and mice on the bare earth, feeding on the potato spill...

The barley generally has winter kale sown along with the summer barley, because the quick-growing barley crowds out everything, the kale only comes through after the barely is cut. So right now there is some grain spill, kale coming through and a few weeds and grasses pushing through the stubble, attracting about 500 odd finches, reed buntings and tree sparrows, about a dozen skylarks and, when its wet, lapwing, golden plover and curlew.

An Iceland gull at Cooley Point this morning, which is a nice home patch tick - unfortunately a walker put it up before i could get a decent shot - it flew towards Balaggan point. I figured it for a first winter bird.

Anthony's talk (2 hours 30 mins) was an inspiration, covering NI natural history, orthinological history, sites, anecdotes and even a bit of politics. The part about the development of Belfast Lough reserve was especially interesting. I particularly enjoyed the forthright comments regarding relesing red kites ("bolloks"), the plantation of large estates ("a good thing") and the long distance identification of long-tailed skuas ("easy").

 

[breffni]

Flushed a Jack Snipe from the stubble this morning - another nice home patch tick!

 

[breffni]

Positive ID of a Barn Owl flying over the bypass past Xerox at the new roundabout at 23:58 tonight
Maybe we should try to find out their nest sites to protect them or even just provide an alternate artificial nest box in the area?
What kind of area do they normally cover in their territory?

Barn owls typically maintain breeding territories of around 100 acres, small for a raptor. If you put a compass point along the area of ardee road where the bird has been seen and draw a circle 1000 metres in diameter, that would cover it.. the bird will be roosting in an empty farm building inside this area. BTO advises against nest boxes in proximity to any motorway or busy raod as this accounts for much mortality; rodenticide being the second chief suspect in their decline. In Ireland (the extreme limit of their European range) they eat pygmy shrews, mice and juv rats and so are attracted to areas of stubble and woodland margins (in Europe and the UK they have a differnt range of prey and so use different habitats). I think that it would be easiest to find the roost/nesting site in simmer when the birds are busy going back and forth and the checks make noise...

 

[Derek Watters]

Barn owls typically maintain breeding territories of around 100 acres, small for a raptor. If you put a compass point along the area of ardee road where the bird has been seen and draw a circle 1000 metres in diameter, that would cover it.. the bird will be roosting in an empty farm building inside this area.

Hi Breffni

I have been keeping a map of Owl recordings over this past 2 - 3 years in the Dundalk area, which may be of interest. From same, I tried to tie down possible nesting / roosting sites, but to no avail.

 

[HH75]

interesting. I particularly enjoyed the forthright comments regarding relesing red kites ("bolloks"), the plantation of large estates ("a good thing") and the long distance identification of long-tailed skuas ("easy").

Red Kites would seem to have been taking their own sweet time to recolonise Ireland, with no known breeding attempts since that failed one in NI a few years back.
As for LTS, I wouldn't agree that any smaller skuas are easy at a distance, even Pomarine and Arctic can be tough at range...

 

[breffni]

Red Kites would seem to have been taking their own sweet time to recolonise Ireland, with no known breeding attempts since that failed one in NI a few years back.
As for LTS, I wouldn't agree that any smaller skuas are easy at a distance, even Pomarine and Arctic can be tough at range...

Hi Harry,
According to Anthony they were never breeding here in the first place! The scattering of bone records dating from the 10th century are all associated with human detritus (but then that why it was excavated in the first place). Anthony thinks that these may have been visiting vagrants not resident breeders.

Regarding the LTS id methodology (a species i have only seen once at Ballycotton), you would have to have been there but I was convinced. There was reference to the New Approach...btw any idea where a copy of this can be obtained?

If you ever get a chance to hear Anthony speak I would recommend it!

 

[HH75]

Hi Harry,
According to Anthony they were never breeding here in the first place! The scattering of bone records dating from the 10th century are all associated with human detritus (but then that why it was excavated in the first place). Anthony thinks that these may have been visiting vagrants not resident breeders.

Well, given that any proposed reintroduction has to completely satisfy all legal requirements before being allowed to go ahead, and given many references, albeit semi-anecdotal, to kites being found here (Smith in his work on the birds of Co. Cork refers to the species as being so common as to need no introduction, and goes on to refer to its forked tail, and the fact that it was resident, which leaves little doubt that another raptor species may have been being referred to). When bone records are taken in combination with such evidence, there seems a very strong case for Red Kite as having been found here in the past, stronger evidence, in many ways, than exists for Great Spotted Woodpecker...

Regarding the LTS id methodology (a species i have only seen once at Ballycotton), you would have to have been there but I was convinced. There was reference to the New Approach...btw any idea where a copy of this can be obtained?

When was this LTS at Ballycotton? I ask with my CBR hat on! I can say, from personal experience, that, while admitting to my own failings, and perhaps others are genuinely far better with skuas than me, any identification of distant small skuas can be fraught with danger, as the nature of such observations would lend themselves to an over-reliance on jizz, and this can be misleading. Nobody would claim identification of, say, Glaucous and Iceland Gulls at sea a few miles away was easy, so why suggest the same for three species whose plumage overlaps to an extent, especially in juvenile plumage, and given that not all Pomarines are huge bulky beasts, and some Arctics can look quite slight and slim...?
I say all this with the upmost respect for AMcG, of course, and acknowledge that he has spent many hours looking at skua passage, going back 30-odd years, but there's a hell of a difference between having a personal handle on distant skua ID on the one hand, and calling it 'easy' on the other!

 

[breffni]

They hover like kestrels in the lee of the waves....as i say, you would have had to been there.

The LTS i got from the high carpark in early autumn about three years ago - it was an adult and flew straight by 100 yards out on a fairly calm sunshiney day- i can see it now! I'll try to find the date...

 

[breffni]

Hi Breffni

I have been keeping a map of Owl recordings over this past 2 - 3 years in the Dundalk area, which may be of interest. From same, I tried to tie down possible nesting / roosting sites, but to no avail.

Add two at the haynestown roundabout, one just before the bypass opened and the other last year sometime. This year i had a bird in the vicinity of knockbridge/stephenstown pond, further out... The pattern would suggest that the bird is inside the bypass somewhere...an area i have never checked. What about those old railway buildings near balmers bog - any way to get into them?

 

[HH75]

They hover like kestrels in the lee of the waves....as i say, you would have had to been there.

I read that before, in an interesting article that AMcG wrote for Birdwatch in the mid 90s (also reprinted in Eric's 'Irish Birdwatching News' quarterly journal, which is where I saw it), but have to admit to never having seen a LTS hovering, out of the few dozen that I have seen (most of which have been on the west coast). I don't doubt that they do, just pointing out that they don't habitually behave this way when on active passage.

 

[breffni]

You know I think it was the day you buttonholed me at the beach to buy a copy of the CBR - later on that same day...

 

[HH75]

You know I think it was the day you buttonholed me at the beach to buy a copy of the CBR - later on that same day...

I don't even remember what YEAR that happened, never mind the month or date...

 

[Helsinki Birder]

Harry's right. Over reliance on jizz for this group can be a mistake.
Ive seen lots of LT skuas at this stage and have only seen one hover as described.
Other aspects of their flight action have also been reasonably scarce to present themselves in my opinion.

I wonder how many records of LTS have gone on the books because some esteemed birder counted dots hovering or "hitting brick walls".

Owen

 

[Gerry o Neill]

G W E

Hi Breffni

I have been keeping a map of Owl recordings over this past 2 - 3 years in the Dundalk area, which may be of interest. From same, I tried to tie down possible nesting / roosting sites, but to no avail.

A Great White Egret seen from E.L. house this morning 8.10 at Knockbridge going west towards Louth village.

 

[Steve29]

Hi Breffni

I have been keeping a map of Owl recordings over this past 2 - 3 years in the Dundalk area, which may be of interest. From same, I tried to tie down possible nesting / roosting sites, but to no avail.

Hi guys, have seen L.E. owls regularly in the last few years along the Ardee Road around Fairhill. They were definitely nesting near to the quarry/famine graveyard area. The chicks sound like a squeaky gate dont they? On one occassion early one evening I disturbed four owls walking down the lane. The same year I walked around a wall and two birds flew off from the ground nearby - it was very early and still very bright so I got quite a shock!

 

[Derek Watters]

Hi guys, have seen L.E. owls regularly in the last few years along the Ardee Road around Fairhill. They were definitely nesting near to the quarry/famine graveyard area. The chicks sound like a squeaky gate dont they? On one occassion early one evening I disturbed four owls walking down the lane. The same year I walked around a wall and two birds flew off from the ground nearby - it was very early and still very bright so I got quite a shock!

Thanks Steve for the info. You are correct on the squeaky gate sounds. Any idea what time of the year you seen the 4 birds, as LEO's regularly form communal winter roosts. Is Fairhill out beside St Olivers hospital - if so, this is the same area beanbagbirder reported seeing barn owls on three occassions recently. I just had a look at Google Earth, but cannot find a quarry/graveyard in that area - could you give us some more details as to how to get there? Thanks. Derek.

 

[breffni]

Subspecies
I had an eastern jackdaw at Greenore (inside the port) a few days ago. Also white wagtail, dark-bellied brent, greenland-type wheatear, argentatus herring gull, poss intermedius lesser black backed gull, britannicus coal tit (in fact i'm not sure if I have a real hibernicus, assuming that the split has any validity).

 

[Steve29]

Hi Derek,
there are a couple of ways to get to Fairhill. Opposite Texaco garage on Ardee Road just out of town there is a lane that goes alongside old brewery. If you walk to the end of the lane thats where I disturbed the 4 owls. I had thought they were from same brood as it was close enough to where i heard the chicks calling at night. It was around late August when I saw them. If you walk across the field to the left there is a small hill and over that is the graveyard. Out the gate of the graveyard to the left is the quarry and to the right is a lane that leads back down to the Ardee Road which is pretty much the area where Beanbagbirder had the barn owls. The lane is pretty overgrown and quite difficult to get through in places. You can also get to the quarry from the road, out the Ardee Road and take the turn off down to Mullaharlin Junction and after 3/4 houses on left is quarry entrance. Theres a couple of boulders in way but room to a park car, climb the fence and follow the track around. Saw my first owl in field to left of quarry while out watching some badgers, since then have seen them quite regularly esp in autumn when fields are cut. Great area for buzzards too - unfortunately area gets a lot of attention from hunters esp for wood pidgeons, pheasants and also foxes. One night coming home i met 4 guys with huge rifles, lamps and electronic lures to draw the foxes out so watch yourself!
As for possible roosting/nesting sites I live in Brook St near brewery now Brookville Business Park and a neighbour has seen barn owl in brewery complex. There are quite a few disused buildings mainly along railway line.
Give me a buzz on 086 3976690 if you want to meet for a tour, Derek!

 

[Peter Phillips]

Well Done Derek Watters!

A few photos of your 14 Waxwings at the pitch and putt course beside Dundalk DIT today.:t: