More New Life at Vico - an Otter!

The terns have arrived

One day earlier than 2009.

Irish Whale and Dolphin Group: Strandings Search

http://www.iwdg.ie/iscope/strandings/details.asp?id=3576

Giant squid

Something to alarm intrepid swimmers on Channel 4 tonight:

Not all Dolphins are "Flipper"

One lone, sociable dolphin was locally
acclaimed for ‘saving’ a drowning boy (‘Flipper’); however,
others achieved notoriety for ‘abducting’ people who then had
to be saved by boat (e.g. ‘Donald’, ‘Percy’). At least 13 dolphins
had periods of mis-directed sexual behaviour towards humans,
buoys, and/or vessels, and approximately two-thirds (at least 18)
directed aggressive behaviour towards humans. Dolphin-tohuman
aggression sometimes resulted in such serious human
injury as unconsciousness, a ruptured spleen, and broken ribs,
(e.g. ‘Donald’, an unnamed dolphin from Florida Keys) or even
death (‘Tiao’).

Extract from: http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lb/Samuels%20Bejder%20et%20al%202003.pdf

Birdwatch Ireland Events - Autumn 2010

Here are some events which might be of interest:

• The State of the Nation's Seabirds, from gulls to gannets to guillemots - Kingston Hotel, 7th September 8pm
• Beneath the Waves: a Maritime Perspective of Dublin Bay  - Kingston Hotel, 2nd November 8pm
• A Year of Birds: A photographic journey with Eric Dempsey -Botanic Gardens, 11th November 7:30pm

Dalkey Island Welcoming Committee

The red carpet was well and truely laid out for me at the jetty today!

Minke Whale by Paraig

Ireland's Eye

Some photos from the birdwatching expedition.
The list:

• Great black-backed gull Larus marinus
• Herring Gull Larus argentatus
• Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla
• Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis
• Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo
• Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis
• Guillemot Uria aalge
• Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle
• Puffin Fratercula arctica
• Gannet Sula bassana
• Reed bunting Emberiza schoeniclus
• Meadow Pipit Anthus pratensis
• Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus
• Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula
• Tern Sterna

Toby dons sunglasses

Summer has definitely arrived!

It's the Lizard Season

This very tame lizard was sunbathing this morning.

Not too cold for insects

Even though it was cold today I noticed the characteristic erratic flight of black-headed gulls catching insects, which have presumably hatched out from the piles of seaweed left behind from the winter storms.

Arctic tern's epic journey mapped

Interesting article on the travels of our summer visitors:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8451908.stm

More Gruesome critters

No flies on him!

Urban Fox

Caught sauntering up to the front door - it didn't see me standing in the shadow, camera in hand, until it heard the camera focussing.

Sharing lunch with juvenile Redshank

Amazed at how close this young redshank (at least I think it's a redshank?) approached me while having lunch at Blackrock seafront on Friday. Almost ate crumbs from my palm, quite remarkable for a wild bird.

An Irish Times article on the green lights in the water can be found here.

And a Wiki article on the Noctiluca scintillans can be found here.

Storm victim

Storm on Friday, and a victim (possibly a Black Guillemot)

Gulls

Here is a group of gulls in Scotsman's Bay. - three Mediterranean gulls and one Black-headed gull. The Mediterranean gulls were rare in Ireland until quite recently. Their Irish headquarters is at Sandycove.
Our resident black-headed gull looks a bit drab in comparison.

Jellyfish and strange creatures from the deep

A bit too many jellyfish were on patrol this morning, and on BBC TV springwatch tonight there was a feature on leatherback turtles in the Irish Sea brought here by the numerous jellyfish!

There was an even stranger visitor to these shores - from Lappland?