Tralee Bay Wetland Centre, Wildlife Garden.

Tuesday 12th April.

Here is the before photograph taken of our IWT Wildlife Garden project at the Tralee Bay Wetland Centre. As you can see the flower beds here are very overgrown with grasses and the centre have kindly allowed us to plant a new wildflower garden and insect hotel on this area. After several failed attempts to start this garden we finally began clearing it on a beautifully clear calm night.

Wednesday 20th April
We did some more clearing this evening and took away another bag of grass from the bed at the Wetland Centre. Such a lovely warm dry evening too with Daubenton's Bats flying overhead, I counted 3 and a solitary Swallow too. Mallards have with 3 ducklings that are out on the pond too. The Mute Swans are rebuilding their nest (in the same spot) as the sun fades on a warm (16c) Tralee Bay. It was too dark by the time I'd stopped snapping the sunset and listening to the bats so here are my snaps.

Saturday 31st April

More clearing done to the second flower bed today and it turns out that Pampas Grass stalks will come in handy for the insect hotel. Much more will be done very soon. This is the before shot.

 Winter Waders and World Wetlands Day

31st January

Our Arkearagh trip proved that this is a very special wetland area for bird life indeed! An amazing overall count of 20 different types of species within this very small stretch of the North Kerry coastline. The Black Rock wetland area encompasses a fresh water stream, large dune system covered with Marram Grass and a tidal foreshore that gets covered in seaweed from time to time. This seaweed bounty is home to thousands of tiny invertebrates which the birds just love to eat.

Thanks to Killian Kelly for sharing his knowledge, listed below are what we saw:

Ringed Plover, 
Sanderling (100 - 150 maybe),
Dunlin (1-2), 
Bar tailed Godwit (6), 
Turnstone (15-25),
Cormorant (2), 
Redshank (2-3),
Lapwing (5 - 10 on top of the rock itself), 
Oytercatcher (c 100),
Herring Gull,
Black-Headed Gull, 
Great Black Backed Gull (2),
Chough (10 - 15 in the area), 
Rook, 
Starling, 
Rock Pipit, 
Stone Chat, 
Pied Wag Tail, 
Brent Geese (about 25) 
And a solitary Seal!

Brent 

Chough

Deer Rut in Killarney National Park

Sunday 18th October Deer Rut in Killarney National Park

Sean O'Callaghan providing great insight and knowledge to reward everyone who got up so early on a Sunday morning.

Below is  small collection of pictures from the event.

An early start

Taking control and showing whose boss
In the first picture bellowing, followed by intimidation

The tips of the antlers showing signs of wear and tear

Taking a break

Male and female; showing the stark contrast between them in the breeding season (Rut)

Some of the other sights:also seen was a red squirrel

Horse Chestnut

Sweet Chestnut

Long Tailed Tit

Snowberry

Another sighting closely related to the annual rut

"Don't Die in Autumn"

Thursday 8th October "Don't Die in Autumn"

Eric Dempsey's talk and book signing on the 8th was hugely successful, with a great turnout and a really enjoyable evening.  Eric as always was a very entertaining speaker, and he left with his load of books considerably lighter than when he arrived.

An interesting title selection by Eric, with its own amusing backstory....which will leave people to find in the book itself.