4am and I woke up to a storm outside, rain pelting on the roof and on the windows.
'That's Kilcoole cancelled' I figured and went back to sleep.
Woke up to blue skies and sunshine and headed down to Kilcoole for 10.30am.
The rest of the class were already there and we headed off down the path not knowing what to expect, except for dog crap, which is always guaranteed along Kilcoole.
And non stop watery eyes from the Kilcoole winds.
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| Kilcoole walkers must be stepping up their anti dog crap campaign - good luck to them |
A lot of what we saw today was pretty far off, plus it was windy, so pretty poor photos.
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| Greylag Geese, Kilcoole Mar 2012 |
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| Greylag Geese, Kilcoole Mar 2012. I like the feet! |
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| Greylag Geese, Kilcoole Mar 2012 |
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| Greylag Geese, Kilcoole Mar 2012 |
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| Greylag Geese and Brent Geese, Kilcoole Mar 2012. You can see how much bigger Greylags are compared to the Brent. |
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| Golden Plover and evidence of a killing behind them |
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| Wigeon, Shelduck, Cormorants with white breeding patch and Curlew over the channel, Kilcoole |
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| Difficult to see but there's actually a Buzzard in the middle of this picture. We managed to see a young male Hen Harrier gliding beautifully over the reeds in a sunny haze - lovely to watch for the few minutes. Eric said it was the black tips to the wings which made him think it was a juv male. |
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| Took a photo of these Lapwing in flight and noticed a bird at the bottom of the flock in the photo. Tried to work out from its marking what it was and figured it's a Redshank. |
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| In the Buckthorn we saw a Goldcrest and this Reed Bunting (lightened and cropped in camera editing). |
We had a great class outing and finished up by about 1pm.
Thanks to Eric and the rest of the class.
