Well, Stone-chat the Crows!

Always a pleasure to have the camera to hand when something interesting lines your path and last week it was this wee chap, a stonechat (and his other half), who provided the entertainment as I went walking down through Irishtown Nature Park and onwards towards the Pigeon House and the South Wall.

There among the scrub and the rushes and the marmon grasses that precede the sand and the water, they put on their magical display, dancing from blade to reed to thorn, balancing on each with astonishing grace and aplomb before hovering in the air - in delight, maybe, at their own dexterity - and without them giving tuppence whether I was there or not.

Doubtless,too, they saw me, and had their due diligence on me done, before I saw them and so I'm sure they reckoned my reflexes wouldn't hold a candle to theirs if it came to a challenge.

But, thankfully, at least my eye-to-shutter release synapse is still up to scratch.

I sent a couple of pix on to Birdwatch Ireland's South Dublin Birds site and am delighted to see them published there.

Chat soon ...!

Oiseau du jour - le Stonechat!

'Round Robin!

I've taken to the nature reserve nearby in recent days for a spot of birding and photography given that each and every species, except for the magpie and the crow, has abandoned my little patch of ground since the middle of summer.

To my surprise, however, it's hardly been all aflutter or action packed down there either.

I have heard the chattering of a wren and a blue tit or two but my expeditions have been no cigar when it comes to catching glimpse of any of the species listed on the notices as being resident there - the linnet, stone chat, skylark, goldfinch and green finch - the ones I really want to catch with my camera.

While their general evasiveness is natural enough and heightens the thrill when they do eventually show up, I worry about declining populations in these parts especially given the proliferation (beyond control) in recent years of herring gulls, magpies, rooks and, more recently, of grey crows - none of whom, from observation, are exactly tolerant of their smaller, dulcet and more charming brethren.

One exception though is the old reliable robin. Aggressive by its nature and fairly unseemly when giving vent to same on a bad day, this little titan takes no nonsense from anyone or anything if you cross it, so I was pleasantly surprised when he posed like a supermodel for me over the weekend.

Doffin' the hat, uccellino!

More soon ...

 

You talkin' a me!?