Inishdawros 22nd July 2015

Just a few shots from last Wednesday at Inishdawros. The Hudsonian Godwit was never seen again despite several searches, God only knows where it could be now.

Knot

Knot

Adult Little Tern

Juvenile Little Tern

Juvenile Little Tern

Juvenile Little Tern

Inishdawros strand, Hudsonian Godwit site.

Inishdawros strand, Hudsonian Godwit site.

 

Inis Meáin July Birds

I took a spin out to Inis Meáin on Saturday 13th July mainly to check to see how the breeding terns are doing out there this year. The island is usually home to good numbers of Arctic and Little Terns which all breed on the beach on the North side of the island. I was disappointed to say the least to find no Little Terns breeding and only single figures of Arctics breeding. This has become a regular fate of nesting terns here in Galway in recent years with many of the large tern colonies having disappeared and while these colonies can be ephemeral in nature with terns regularly moving to different islands we haven't come across any major colonies on any of the Connemara islands in recent years. Hard to know what exactly the problem is but I would tend to think lack of food may be one of the significant factors.
I was also out there to look for the rare Great Yellow Bumblebee which now appear to be only found out on the Aran Islands having apparently completely disappeared from mainland Galway, more on that later.

Only Little Tern of the day with Arctic Tern.

First-summer Arctic Tern, I've previously noticed near double figure numbers of this age class at this colony which is a little odd.

First-summer Arctic Tern.

One Arctic Tern still trying his luck.

Arctic Tern

Pair of Arctic Terns.

Arctic Terns

Sandwich Tern also seemingly still in the mood, a few acquiring winter plumage already though.

Adult Common Gull mid way through primary moult.

Pair of Common Gulls giving a Lesser Black backed Gull the good news.

Eurasian Oystercatchers

First-summer and adult summer Eurasian Oystercatcher.

Adult summer Eurasian Oystercatcher

Manx Shearwaters

Skylark

Mr. and Mrs. WTE

Finally managed to record the wing tags on the female White-tailed Eagle out in Roundstone Bog while out looking for Merlin yesterday evening. They were just sitting out on very small rocky outcrop some distance from the nearest lough. The female dwarfed the male in size and was far less advanced plumage-wise compared to the male. Apparently she is supposed to be the same age of the male which is really amazing. I would have expected a fourth calendar bird to be far advanced than this. Unfortunately a stampede of Sheep spooked them before I could get any closer.


Female and male Star White-tailed Eagles



Mantle feather dropped by the female.

Common Sandpiper, Roundstone Bog



Quite a pale billed bird.



The rest of the shots are from down near Moyrus, Carna and Cleggan taken this week.

Little Tern, near Carna.

Sandwich Tern, near Carna.