Animals | Writing for life

September 2010
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Whale Watch Ireland 2010

Animals, Education, Environment, Events, West Cork, Wildlife, family No Responses »

Aug 192010

Whale Watch Ireland is an annual all-Ireland land-based whale watching event run by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG). This year’s watch will take place on Sunday 22 August between 2pm and 5pm at 15 headlands around the Irish coast.

This is a completely free land based watch (no boat-trips involved), and experienced IWDG guides / spotters will be on hand to give you the best chance of spotting some of the 24 cetacean species encountered around the Irish coast.

Some of the species you’re most likely to spot include harbour porpoise, common dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, minke whale, if you’re lucky you may see fin whales blowing offshore, and if you’re REALLY lucky perhaps a humpback will put in an appearance.

As with all wildlife related events, there are no guarantees you’ll see anything – but the anticipation and uncertainty all adds to the excitement… and it’s a fabulous, free family outing at some of Ireland’s most spectacular natural locations.

Here’s a list of Whale Watch Ireland 2010 locations from the IWDG site:

Location	Meeting Point	Watch Leader
Howth Head, Dublin	Balscadden Car Park	Brian Glanville
Bray Head, Wicklow	Pitch & putt car park	Dinah Boyne
Hook Head, Wexford	Hook Lighthouse	Kevin Mc Cormick
Ardmore, Waterford	Ram Head signal tower	Andrew Malcolm
Galley Head, Cork	Lighthouse	Pádraig Whooley
Garranes, Beara, Cork	Dzogchen Beara Ctr	Patrick Lyne
Slea Head, Dingle Penisula, Kerry	Slea Head Shrine	Nick Massett
Brandon Point, Kerry	Car park	Mick O’Connell
Loop Head, Clare	Lighthouse	Aoife Foley
Black Head, Clare	Lighthouse	Joanne O’Brien
Downpatrick Head, Mayo	Car park	Conor Ryan
Mullaghmore Head, Sligo	Mullaghmore lay by	Fiona Farrell
Lough Swilly, Donegal	Fort Dunree	Dermot Mc Laughlin
Portstewart Head, Derry	Harbour Hill	Jim Allen
Larne, Antrim	Larne Town Park, Glenarm Rd	Ian Enlander

So get yourself to a headland near you on Sunday to find out more about the whales and dolphins around Ireland, and hopefully see a few for yourself.

I’ll be at the Galley Head watch in Cork… if you’re in the vicinity come say hello!

Kayaking with a seal entourage off West Cork

Animals, West Cork, Wildlife No Responses »

Aug 102010

Image via Wikipedia

The sea was like a sheet of black glass.

I’d never seen the Atlantic quite so calm before. It was eerily silent, not a breath of wind. As I dipped my paddle into the shimmering surface I couldn’t help but feel rising disquiet as I contemplated what the darkness beneath me might conceal.

I pushed the notion aside and paddled on.

Ahead of me the aptly named High Island rose out of the sea, illuminated, for once, by that scarcest of West Cork commodities: glorious morning sunshine. Viewed from the vantage point of a kayak out on the open water it was a truly breathtaking vista.

We’d spent the night camping on Rabbit Island just off the coast near Myross. There were nine of us in total: my wife and I, another couple and five children. We’d ferried all of the gear and people over on two inflatable kayaks the previous afternoon, and had a wonderful evening with a view out over High Island and the Atlantic Ocean that’s simply out of this world.

Early the next morning we heard the seals calling out around High Island and Seal Rock, it was flat calm, so two of us decided to hop in the kayaks to investigate.

The other island turned out to be further away than it looked, but we reached it without incident and headed around to the ocean-facing side through a channel between the rocks. That’s where we encountered the seals.

Chameleons, eat your heart out!

Animals, Wildlife No Responses »

Apr 182010

I love cephalopods (squid, octopuses and cuttlefish). They’re among my favourite marine animals.

When I was studying Marine Biology at The University of Liverpool, we rescued an octopus that ended up in the wet lab with some Nephrops norvegicus (scampi or langoustine).

We kept him for a while, in one of the tanks at the marine lab. I spent a long time just watching him… and the changes in skin colour and texture never ceased to amaze me.

Amazing footage of the cryptic and behavioural colour changes in cephalopods in the second half of this TED talk.

Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) photographs

Animals, Photo Blog, Photography, Wildlife 2 Responses »

Apr 082010

For me one of the most satisfying parts of photographing wildlife (or at least attempting to) is how even our most familiar wildlife species can offer the opportunity to capture truly spectacular images.

Whether it’s a robin in your back yard, a fox visiting your garden, or a couple of blackbirds squabbling in the local park… there’s action and drama all around you. More common species, are, by definition, more accessible, and are often easier to get close to… improving your chances of capturing that winning shot.

This Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) was hanging around Lough Ine, near Skibbereen on 06 April. I had the camera with me, and took a few shots as it came in to land

Nikon D90, Sigma 28-200 Zoom (300mm 35mm equivalent) @ f5.6

Killer whales in West Cork

Animals, West Cork, Wildlife No Responses »

Apr 052010

More and more killer whales are being spotted in Irish waters these days… with many of the recent sightings identifiable as members of a well known pod of whales known as the Scottish West Coast Community Group.

(Photo via the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group website, © John Dennihy)

Two of these whales were spotted from Colin Barnes’s whale watching vessel The Holly Joe not far from Galley Head, West Cork on 27th March 2010… (identity confirmed by Andy Foote from the University of Aberdeen), with a larger group of 4-5 killer whales spotted a little further west (close to Baltimore) later the same day.

Interestingly these sightings coincided with the first West Cork basking shark sightings of the season… leading Padraig Whooley, the IWDG sightings coordinator, to wonder whether the simultaneous arrival of the ocean’s apex predator and the huge but docile basking shark in Irish waters was somehow related.

Could basking shark be on the killer whale’s menu, or were they arriving together purely by chance?

There’s more information on these whale sightings on the IWDG website, and you can see details of all recent reported killer whale sightings around Ireland here.

Funding Humpback Whale Research in Ireland

Animals, West Cork, Wildlife No Responses »

Jan 312010

A humpback whale off West Cork, Ireland In the wake of the spectacular humpback whale encounters off the Wexford coast recently, and the incredible footage shown on the RTÉ news, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) is calling for funding to help them find out more about the humpback whales that visit Ireland’s coastline every year.

We’re incredibly lucky to have these amazing animals, and other large whale species, as regular visitors to our shores, and finding out more about them is a crucial step to the conservation of these magnificent animals.

I’ll let Dr. Simon Berrow of the IWDG explain:

I hope you have all got to the see the amazing images and footage of the humpback whale off Co. Wexford. Hopefully too, some of you will be able to go and see this magnificent creature for yourselves. It might not breach, but humpback whales are still one of the most enigmatic and popular species on the planet.

This is the 11th individual humpback whale the IWDG have recorded in Irish waters. All previous whales have been photographed in more than one year and although this is the first time we have recorded this one, we fully expect to see this whale again ! This shows that humpback whales are returning to Ireland each year where they are spending a considerable period of time, but we do not know if they are passing through on their way to somewhere else or where they go when they leave.

Halloween in West Cork: a real scary goat story

Animals, Children, Evening Echo Column, Weird, West Cork, Writing, family No Responses »

Nov 102009

“If you put a silk dress on a goat .... well, ...

Image by turtlemom4bacon via Flickr

Halloween is supposed to be scary. Goblins, ghouls and horrible little monsters looking for trick-or-treat goodies come with the territory. Goats… not so much.

But let’s rewind a little.

We’d been out to tackle the "spooky" Halloween Trail at Lisselan Estate just outside Clonakilty. The girls had a great time tearing around the gardens solving solving the riddles on their age-tailored clue-sheets. It was a fiver each for the children to take part in the Halloween Trail, which included a lucky-dip prize and a trick-or-treat goody bag each on completion. For once things were as they should be… refreshingly, Lisselan had opted not to charge anything for the accompanying adults.

Why is it that so many places insist on charging top whack for parents to get in to what are patently child orientated attractions? The attractions usually have zero appeal for adults, and if all you’re there for is to keep an eye on the kids, who have paid for their tickets, then I don’t really see why you should have to pay for the privilege.

Guster’s last stand

Animals, Children, Evening Echo Column, Food, Parenting, West Cork, Wildlife, Writing No Responses »

Sep 242009

Guster the wood pigeon was dead. There were no two ways about it… this was an ex-pigeon, a pigeon that had ceased to be.

The girls were sad… especially the little one. In the twenty minutes or so since they’d met (and named) Guster they’d grown quite attached to him.

When we found him Guster was in pretty bad shape. He was flapping about in the shallows of an inlet just off the path at Rineen Woods near Unionhall. He’d been attacked by a predator, probably a fox, and had feathers missing from his back and shoulders to reveal bare skin and some nasty looking puncture wounds. Floundering helplessly in the water, struggling to keep his head above the surface, he was a forlorn sight.

I sized up the situation as the girls pleaded with me to save him.

Grey Heron (Ardea cinera) on the wing

Animals, Photo Blog, Photography, Wildlife No Responses »

Jul 292009

Shot from the car window in Union Hall. This fellow was feeding in the lagoon.

For such big birds (up to 1 metre in height with a wingspan pushing 2 metres) they’re incredibly nervous and skittish.

As I stopped and lowered the car window this one moved quickly away, and then took flight. This image is cropped from the full frame (handy having 12MP to play with).

The shot I’m really after is a perfect reflection of a hunting heron in glass-calm water… but it’s proving a tricky endeavour. In the meantime I quite like this shot.

Ireland’s wildlife page on Facebook

Animals, Internet, Web, Wildlife, social media No Responses »

Jul 102009

If you’re on Facebook, check out my new page on Ireland’s Wildlife – and pass it on to all your friends. The page, and the twitter account on @wildireland, are the first steps in building an online community of wildlife enthusiasts in Ireland.

As time (and budget) allows I’m also working on an Ireland’s Wildlife website, sort of an online “hub” for all things wild in Ireland – a jumping off point, if you like, for Irish wildlife information, resources, links and discussion.

Wanted: wildlife content!

Core to the site will be the 200 or so species profiles I’ve written for the back page of Ireland’s Own over the years. I’m also on the look-out for potential regular contributors to the new site – so if you have relevant interests or expertise in any aspect of Irish wildlife and would like to volunteer your services / allow use of your content then please leave a note in the comments below, or drop me a line.

You can stay tuned here for updates by subscribing to the RSS Feed, become a fan of Ireland’s Wildlife on Facebook and/or follow Ireland’s Wildlife on Twitter.

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Whale Watch Ireland 2010

Kayaking with a seal entourage off West Cork

Chameleons, eat your heart out!

Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) photographs

Killer whales in West Cork

Funding Humpback Whale Research in Ireland

Halloween in West Cork: a real scary goat story

Guster’s last stand

Grey Heron (Ardea cinera) on the wing