Great Sugar Loaf, Fancy.

Climbed 2 Wicklow peaks today, the Great Sugar Loaf and Fancy mountain (Luggala).
Both pretty easy and I say that as someone who is as far away from a mountain goat as you can get.
From carpark to the top of the Great Sugar Loaf it only took about half an hour and that was me stopping, looking, taking pics etc.
Lots of Skylarks and Meadow pipits and one Wheatear, no raptors that I saw.

The Great Sugar Loaf, view from the carpark

horses on the Great Sugar loaf

The last third of the climb is all stone underfoot, memories of a film we watched last week, Picnic at Hanging Rock, I didn't find any Time warps though.

Magnificent views of the Wicklow and Dublin mountains. The white building in the middle of the photo is Powerscourt estate.

Looking towards Wicklow head from the top of the Great Sugar loaf

Looking towards Dalkey and Howth head in the distance.

The N11 going through the Glen of the Downs, the splodge of water you can see up further is actually Kilcoole. I could see the caravans from the mountain, so gave Niall a call. Still no Terns nesting yet, but they seem to be going through the motions and should lay again, hopefully this week.

Once back down and still with energy for the day, I decided I'd try climbing to the top of Fancy mountain.

I've walked around the bottom of this area quite a bit, seen an Irish Hare, heard a Red Grouse and a few years ago saw a Peregrine here - taking a Skylark in flight.

The climb up Fancy was incredibly boggy, I guess the rain during the week added to the bog pools.
It was slow going, but I was in no rush.
No raptors again, but plenty of Skylarks at the bottom and Meadow pipits at the top.

The top of Fancy mountain is the peak on the left. Knocknacloghoge in the middle and (I think) the Scarr to the right.

I didn't hear or see any Red Grouse but I saw quite a few of their droppings. All these photos were taken with my small point and shoot so you can't see the detail of the white tip to the dropping in the foreground, this is diagnostic of Red Grouse - for a full explanation as to why, ask Sinéad Cummins next time you see her.

A non fancy way of marking the top of Fancy Mountain (Luggala)

View of Lough Dan from the top of Fancy mountain. Meadow pipits were going gung ho around here, display flights, landing on rocks, calling, more display flights. It was silent apart from the Meadow pipits, beautiful. I was quite glad I didn't see a Peregrine or a Merlin around.

Breathtaking, the view of Lough Tay from the other side of Fancy mountain. You could see the the Arklow wind farm from here and basically you could see for miles. I stayed up here for about an hour and had the place all to myself. Well, me, the midges, the ants, the butterflies, the beetles and the spiders.

The views of Wicklow and Dublin today were amazing rewards for relatively easy climbs.
I mention it a lot, but I don't want to take for granted, the ease in reaching these places from Drimnagh, well so long as you've got a car, is incredible.
I was at the Sugar loaf in less than 30 mins from home (via M50/N11), I can be at the Sally Gap in 40 mins (going N81 way), the coast is 30 mins and the woodland and acres of Phoenix park is 10.
It's what I love about Dublin, you can set off and within 40 mins you can be coastal, woodland, farmland, bogland, moorland, fresh water, canals, rivers, lakes, anywhere you liked, often the hardest bit of the day is choosing where to go!

I didn't want to say anything until Niall had, but for those who don't already know, there was a full on tragedy at the Kilcoole Little Tern colony last Sunday. A 4.2m high tide combined with strong Easterly gales resulted in the tide repeatedly crashing onto the shore and taking with it most of the Little Tern eggs. The 6 nests which were spared were eaten by Hooded Crows, scavenging the washed up seaweed.
So the 85 nests dropped to 0 nests and 0 eggs within an hour.
For a full report you can read Niall's blog here Kilcoole Little Tern blog.

bird feeders

The following photos were taken at my feeders in Drimnagh.
I wish.
No, the following photos were taken at the busiest feeders I have ever seen in my life. Despite several approaches from 2 dogs wanting love and affection, a cat definitely not wanting love and affection and a 21 year old jumping up and down on a couch (revenge is sweet E), these feeders still had approx 70 birds flitting around. No wonder though, these birds are being cared for with several feeders filled with top quality seeds and nuts in an amazing location.

A fraction of the birds at the feeders

Back detail of a Greenfinch

Greenfinch profile

Birdfeeder politics

Great tit

Goldfinch (top) with Great Tit with huge black marking onto left of it's side

Goldfinches

Chafffinches, Greenfinches and Goldfinches

With all these finches around, surely, SURELY, there'll be a Brambling in the mix.

Female Brambling (centre)

Female Brambling (left) and Male Chaffinch (right)

Female Chaffinch

Female Brambling

It was great to finally catch up with a Brambling.
I'll admit, I'd really wanted to just be out and about when I first saw one, but the window for that happening was nearly up, so I was thankful to see one at Sarah's house. For all the above reasons, especially the 21 year old practicing her star jumps on the couch, the birds were very jumpy so it was difficult to get a decent long look. They'd be down for 5 seconds and up again, but I managed a look through the bins and a pic so I was happy.

After watching the birds at the feeders for a while, we drove to a spot where I thought I'd seen a Merlin making a kill. Stopping off at one of the car parks along the way we saw a sorry sight.
I'm posting these pics as a warning to other drivers to be really wary parking their cars when they go off walking. Maybe leave your glove compartment open and what's in your boot visible and you might avoid this. It happened to my car last year, they smashed in my back window when I left it to go walking in Loch Dan and unfortunately it looks like it's a growing trend. It's a very cold drive back let me tell you.

Back window smashed in

They had pulled down the back seats and rifled through the glove compartment. Shit buzz to come back to after a lovely walk.

Glenmacnass, Co. Wicklow

We drove on to Glenmalure, heard Blue tits, Robins, saw Long tailed tits and heard Goldcrests. We also saw loads of frogspawn and a small pool with at least 3 frogs jumping around already. On the way back we saw an amazing Rook roosting session near Vartry Reservoir, I'd never seen one with so many birds, it was so noisy - and late, 6.40pm.
Great afternoon's birding.

Wicklow weather

Thought I might head inland to Wicklow. Found myself parking up opposite the entrance to the Lough Dan walk and taking my compulsory look down at what has to be the bleakest, most ominous, blackest, most unforgiving bit of water going - Lough Tay - always makes me thankful to be on land.
Drove down to Sally Gap and took a left on to Military Road. I got out and walked a few parts along this road, the landscape is so amazing. It was noticeably silent of bird song or raptor calls. No small birds = no big birds.
The blue sky of the morning had obviously been a temporary hurrah as the afternoon brought rainclouds, several hailstorms and several downpours.
Standing in the same spot on Military Road these photos show how rapidly the weather can change in the Wicklow mountains within 10 minutes. Every photo has the same landscape and a different sky.

When I saw a break in the weather and a continuous blue sky developing again, I started a bit of a climb up Gravale mountain.
There's no path/track going up Gravale, but I figured it might be the only chance I had to get a bit of a walk in, so up I climbed. Even if Gravale is just like a big, heathery, boggy hill the views were amazing.

After a while I decided I wasn't going to go any further and I had a lie down in the heather, face up to the sun and listened to the silence. A raptor flying across or a red grouse appearing out of the heather would have been perfect but instead my phone rang. I was suprised I had reception. 'What you doing', 'lying in the heather', 'well I think I'm going to head down to Derrybawn'. I wasn't going to make it to Derrybawn, but I took that call as the nudge I needed that it was time to head back, so down I skidded back to the car.
I stopped at the organic shop in Laragh for a coffee and a flapjack handing over €6.15!! for the privilege. I was going to say it seemed a lot, but in typical fashion, I just gave her my money and didn't say a thing. At least the coffee was really decent and how often can that be said for takeaway coffee?
I pulled up at Vartry Reservoir and saw Sarah also pulled up there, as we were chatting, another of Sarah's friends turned up - who needs pubs?

Great Crested Grebe - Vartry reservoir

Sarah also thought she saw (and I agreed) a female Merganser swimming with a GC Grebe, but it was too far out and silhouetted against the strong setting sun.
With not much else going on, we headed off, unaware we were about to witness a raptor making a kill. It took us by complete surprise, Sarah spotted it first from behind some trees and thought she saw a moustachial stripe, but it was so quick it was difficult to fix a decent look at it. We thought it was a Peregrine at first, but then switched to it being a Sparrowhawk. Luckily I had the camera to hand so was able to snap some shaky shots and looking back at them, it was indeed a Peregrine Falcon.

Peregrine Falcon, bendy wings

Peregrine Falcon - bluey, grey back

Peregrine Falcon - visible thin bars on tail

Peregrine Falcon - yellow legs and white chin and cheeks

Peregrine Falcon - yellow eyes, moustachial stripe, grey finely barred underwings and body.

I was pleased I managed at least a few dodgy shots, good as a record and to look at and learn from.It was time for me to head home, so I left Wicklow to it's ever changing sky and the beauty it constantly offers (except for Lough Tay, shudder).

Ever changing sky over Wicklow mountains