Birding Eire
My wanderings in Ireland often included my binoculars and a special focus on birding. In addition to keeping watch for birds on my walks, I joined a few organized trips by local birding groups. One morning I joined the Galway birding group to hear the dawn chorus. The birdsong was lovely, but North American birds certainly have more colour.
The trip with the West Cork birding club was more adventuresome and productive. We took the boat out to Cape Clear Island and had a lovely day walking, talking and birding. When they learned I was an American, they adopted me to make sure I saw everything possible. The most unusual species was a rose-coloured starling, blown off course from its home in Eastern Europe.
On Inis Bo Finne, IU was hoping to find the now rare corn crake. I never saw one, but I thought I heard it one evening. The cliffs on the West side of the island provided suitable habitat for sea birds. I found evidence of a peregrin’s killing perch in one spot along the cliff face. Several fulmar carcasses had clearly served as a meal for this powerful predator.
Coastal Birding
While the diversity and numbers of Ireland's passerines is not very impressive, the colonies of sea birds are truly spectacular. The country has been deforested for so long, there are no native woodpeckers. But on the cliffs of Moher, and in this picture of Small Skellig, Ireland is a critical hapbitat to global sea bird poplulations. I belive this colony of Northern Gannets on Small Skellig is the largest in the world. These large sea birds make impressive plunges into the ocean in purusit of fish.