Tufted ducks are breeding in UCD!! For the first time today I noticed two Tufted duck chicks swimming and diving in the Main lake.
Tufted ducks do breed in Ireland, but it's so not common around Dublin, so to see some Tufted duck chicks on the Main lake was a bit of a thrill.
Image quality not great, taken with my iphone.
This shows the little chick taking a good old jump in the air before diving, there's also a glimpse of the Mute swan cygnets who are now nearly 4 months old, Moorhen chicks and the Mallard chicks now considerably larger. You'll notice too that all of the Mallards are in eclipse.
A glimpse of the 4 cygnets on UCD main lake, now at 4 months old.
You can hear 3 Sparrowhawks calling in the ucd woods. I caught a glimpse of one of them.
Different UCD woods, 3 Sparrowhawks calling again (plus jogger jogging by and a few walkers). I'm guessing the same Sparrowhawks flew over to these woods as I arrived, but I didn't take that long to walk over to these other woods and I wouldn't be surprised if there are 2 Sparrowhawk families in the UCD grounds, it depends how far territories have to be from each other, and that I don't know. At some points the calls nearly sound like gulls, but I caught glimpses and saw 2 of the Sparrowhawks having a tumble with each other.
