Birding Around Dundalk, Ireland

This post is about a day trip I had with the Northern Ireland Ornithologists' Club on 7 December when we travelled down south  to Dundalk, Ireland.  There were 11 members of the club travelled by car with misty weather on the journey however it improved when we arrived.  Throughout the day, we found 70 different species of birds and below are the birds that I did photograph.  

The bird below is a Teal Duck

 

 

 Our first top was at this harbour and surrounding area where we set up our telescopes and below are some of the group.  From here we saw 5 Red throated divers, Black headed, Herring, Great and Lesser Black backed Gulls, Black Guillemots, Pale bellied Brent geese, Pied Wagtail, most of the common crows, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and these beautiful Teal above and below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved on to another harbour where we saw Mallard, Curlew, Ringed Plover, Heron, Tufted duck, Coot, Dunlin, Cormorant, Pintail, Goldeneye, Shelduck, Merganers, Wigeon and this Black tailed Godwit below.

 

 

As we travelled from one area to another, we saw House Sparrow, Peregrine, Wren, Fieldfare, Blackbird, Starling, Wood Pigeon and Collared dove.

 

 

Black Guillemot (winter plumage)

 

 

 These are Pale bellied Brent on the shoreline.  We also saw Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Grey Wagtail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overlooking this bay is where the Brent were feeding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This are where we saw Mute Swans, Commom Gulls and a Little Egret.

 

 

 

 

Grey Plover

 

 

 Grey Plover, Redshank and Black tailed Godwit.  We also saw 2 Snipe adn Lapwing.

 

 

 As we were walking along a field at a bank bordering the sea at Lurgen Green, we spotted small birds in trees.  There was about 14 Yellow Hammers, Linnet, Reed Bunting, Dunnock, Robin, Stonechat, Blue Tit, Meadow Pipit, Skylark and  Song Thrush.  A Kestrel flew overhead.

 

As we reached the sea, there were about 1000 Knot and nearly the same amount of Golden Plover.(see short video)  We also saw Guillemot, Northern Diver, Razorbill, Great Crested and Little Grebe and Scoter.

 

 

As we travelled on we saw Mistle Thrush, Goldfinch and Buzzard.  We stopped at this field to see the Greylag geese as well as the White fronted geese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed hearing and seeing about the birds the group spotted over the day.  We all certainly were delighted with the whole day's birding.

The short video can be accessed at

http://youtu.be/6C8xvhHlwH8

If there is a black space below, click it and the video will appear.

I hope you enjoyed hearing and seeing about the birds we saw on this day trip to around Dundalk.

 

Thank you for visiting and also for leaving comments on any of my blogs.