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!