Squirrel Surprise

After a game in Parteen I said I would drive over the road to check out the great spotted woodpeckers that frequented an area over there. I had brought my camera with me and was hoping to get some nice shots. I got out of the car at the spot which was on a bridge looking over this beautiful river valley with trees on the banks either side overlooking the river. 25 minutes had passed and there was still no sign of the woodpeckers and I was starting to lose hope when at the corner of my eye I spotted some movement. Woodpecker? No but instead it was this beautiful Red Squirrel running across the road. I remained still and watched on and next thing the Squirrel hopped onto the wall of the bridge and started running towards me. It got extremely close which allowed me to get some amazing close-up photos before it eventually clocked me and proceeded to turn quickly and run back off the wall and down the valley towards the riverbed.

                   

                  Squirrel checking me out on the bridge

I messed up some of my shots but I can't complain as I still got my best Squirrel shots to date and only a few minutes later to top it off I looked to my side to see a great spotted woodpecker fly onto the top of the telephone pole beside me. The light was bad as I was looking into the sun and it proceeded to fly into the dense foliage of the canopy of trees overlooking the river so I couldn't manage any great photos but I still got great views of a new species for me which brings my Irish species list up to 136 and one step closer to the 150 I'm hoping to get by the end of the year. The squirrel activity continued for the next 15 minutes as I waited hoping the Woodpecker would show its face again which apart from one or 2 extremely brief distant sightings that I'm not even 100% sure were woodpeckers it didnt but i got great views of another Squirrel as it hopped along the trees on the left bank of the river and managed some decent shots too. Not a bad day out!

Great Spotted Woodpecker on telephone pole

Black Tern at Ballyallia

I was just coming out of school when I got a WhatsApp saying that there was a Black Tern at Ballyallia Lake just a few minutes over the road from school. I had never seen a black tern before so really wanted to head over to check it out as these birds breed in the marshes of Central and Eastern Europe so only a few occur in Ireland every year as scarce vagrants in spring and autumn and generally these occur on the east coast or out at sea so this was likely to be my best opportunity to see one. I had to sort something else out after school so couldn't go straight away but about 40 mins later I was getting out of the car and walking through the fields towards the lake shore where i met John Murphy who had eyes on the bird and kindly gave me the loan of his binoculars as i had nothing on me after coming from school. In hindsight i could have gone home quickly beforehand and got my camera and bins but i was scared the bird would be gone by the time I had gotten there as it had happened a few times before with various birds *cough* great white egret *cough*. I still havent seen a GWE after missing that one by about 20 mins. 

But anyways after getting great views of the bird with John i decided i would go home afterall and get my camera because as John said himself I may not get as good a view of this bird in Ireland ever again as this bird was quite literally hunting a couple of feet away from us. So i went home, got my camera and returned to the lake in the hope it was still there. It was!

I spent about an hour at the lake upon returning taking lots of pictures in the beautiful golden hour sunlight. It even perched on a rock literally 2 metres away from me which was awesome. I met with a few more birders over that hour, Tom and Nuala Lynch aswell as Stan Nugent as i was leaving and had a lovely chat with them also and overall i had a great time viewing this gorgeous little tern and an experience i wont be forgetting anytime soon.