I have visited the Courtmacsherry Estuary in August, you can read about that here if you like:
But as someone who was quite new to birdwatching, this is my first time visiting the Courtmacsherry Estuary during the Winter, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!
Note, for the pedants out there, this walk also took me out to Woodpoint, and I just want to say, I understand you, and I see you, because I’m a pedant too!
So, one of the first birds I encountered, was this character.
Good afternoon.
This is a great northern diver. They are very hard to photograph, because, well, the name explains it. So, I got very frustrated trying to photograph this one, because they’d dive every time I had the camera at the ready. Turns out I needn’t have panicked so much, I later realized there were an absolute ton of great northern divers around, saw a few today even, but at the time I was worried I wouldn’t be getting another sighting. But as luck would have it I saw a lot more of them.
I’ve written before about photographing birds in flight here:
And photographing birds in flight is strange, because, pointing the camera in the general direction of a bird and hoping for the best will often get you the photo you want as often as slowly and carefully trying to get a good photo. The former style of photography yielded me this:
Splendid colours.
A shellduck. These guys took over the estuary yesterday, and presumably there’s a load of them down there today. Quite tremendously good colours all things considered!
Now, I’ve talked before about one of the drawbacks of the Courtmacsherry Estuary as a bird watching location. And that is, it’s right next to a busy road. This can be extremely frustrating, as soon as the haunting sounds of the landscape have just taken you away, that’s when a lorry will pass and fill your brain with horrible engine noise. I have for some time been hoping to get a recording of the absolutely magical and haunting sound of the curlew, I even considered making it part of next year’s wildlife goals. But, for a very short time, the road quietened down, and I managed to get this recording of a curlew:
And this amazing luck would visit me not once, but twice. Here’s a recording of a curlew and a black headed gull.
So at this point you’re probably thinking, “A great northern diver, a shellduck in flight, and audio recordings of curlews, these events were so spectacular that I’m confident that it’s all downhill from here and that there’s no need to read any more of this blog.”
But, dear reader, you would be wrong. Spectacularly wrong!
Say hello to this finely feathered citizen of the estuary.
Tremendously good feathers!
That’s a lapwing, quite a magnificent bird. As I got closer to Timoleague, I saw more and more of these wonders. I saw them in very large groups almost like a city of lapwings!
Lapwings!
A Desert of Lapwings!
Now you may be thinking, while my humour is typically terrible, usually there is some sort of rhyme or reason to my jokes, some sort of punchline even if it’s a bad one, so what’s the joke in referring to lapwings as a desert?
It’s not a joke. For reasons that I’ve never understood, and for reasons that I’m not sure anyone understands, the collective nouns for birds are famously awful. How awful. Look at all this carry on!
A confusion of guinea fowl
A harassment of hen harriers
A mutation of thrushes
What is this tomfoolery! It’s like the collective noun namer of the birds had only a week left on the job and didn’t give a shit. Is there any collective noun for birds that’s actually good?
A parliament of rooks.
Actually that one is pretty kick ass. A parliament of rooks!
So, encountering the lapwings in and of itself made me so happy. But what I saw next is just, I don’t know do photographs represent it well or not, or do you just have to see it, but I hope the photographs do it some sort of justice.
Flight!
Catching the lapwings in flight was absolutely incredible. The way the Winter sun brought out the bright colour of their feathers is not something I’ll soon forget.
Lucky it was a bright sunny day.
Wonders of the sky.
Zoomed in on these two to bring out the detail.
I reached Timoleague where I knew I’d see some of my favourite birds, pigeons!
Proud resident of Timoleague Abbey.
I’m quite the pigeon apologist don’t you know. In fact, before I left Courtmacsherry for Timoleague, I thought, “Great birdlife here, but what about some pigeons?” And then I saw this character.
A Courtmacsherry woodpigeon.
I really like these misunderstood birds, the pigeons. You might say “pigeon” is my middle name. If not for the fact that it’s actually my first name.
Of late I’ve been trying to learn the names of birds in Irish. This is the Irish for a woodpigeon.
Colm coille
And this is the Irish for feral pigeon.
Colm aille
My first name means “Dove”. The reason the Irish language refers to pigeons as doves is because scientifically, doves and pigeons are the same. So I just thought it’s apt that I’m named after a bird, and now am a fanatical bird guy, it’d be like if my name meant “Guitar” or “Telescope” or “The one who never falls silent”. That last one would be good because I don’t have the capacity to stop talking.
So anyway my name is pigeon. But, since we’re on the subject of these awesome birds that a lot of people don’t like, let’s give it up for the crows! Saw some hooded crows on my travels yesterday.
Flying with the dinner!
Happy Crow!
And earlier on my walk, I took this audio recording of a jackdaw. Jackdaws are great!
My point basically is that crows are brilliant. And anybody who thinks otherwise needs to be sent to the naughty step, for all eternity!
As my journey was near completion, I had seen and heard so many birds that my brain was starting to go into a state of overwhelm through the joy of it all. After all this excitement I had to consider watching paint dry for a week, incase I burnt out the happiness circuit in my brain and I had to order a new one, and there’s no way that’d be here on time before Christmas!
But, there was still one bird I wanted to see before I could finish my bird related adventure. A widgeon because they’re so cute AWWWWWWWWW!!!!! Luckily I did see a few widgeons right as my walk was nearly finished.
Aren’t you the best!
Quacking away!
Some birds have all the luck, not only adorable looking but also an adorable name!
I returned back to where I was staying, my brain doing absolute somersaults from the joyful experience I had just had. When I started my walk, I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to see a great northern diver, I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough get an audio recording of a curlew, or that I’d get a shellduck in flight, I wasn’t sure I’d get to see the lapwings and I definitely didn’t think I’d get to see them take to the sky in such a majestic and magnificent fashion.
A day of wonder among some of the most magnificent creatures on Earth.
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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