Herring gull

Baby bird boom in Great Saltee, Part I

As I do every summer, I went to the Great Saltee once again, this time in July. You can find some of my previous posts here, and learn more about the history, geography and wildlife of the island.

Thanks to the kind Captain Bates we got an extra hour on the island – a treat! Here is his An Foracha – A Guillemot – waiting for us to board.

Overcast at the start of my trip, the sky cleared by the time I climbed to the highest point of the island.

To get there, I had to walk through the shoulder-high ferns, full of wildlife. Thankfully, I travel light, and I actually enjoy the steep climb. People often ask me how long it takes to walk to the Gannet colony, and I can honestly say – it depends on how fast you walk. The distance is less than a mile.

I quickly walked through the Black-backed gull territory leaving them for later. First, I would go to visit the gannets.

It was so exciting to see the Gannet colony get larger and nest on the former path. I also noticed that the Shag dynasty who used to nest under the rocks for years and didn’t mind the visitors walk over their heads, abandoned their nesting territory. Later I spotted a Shag family on the side of the cliff, far from the path. Fledgling time?

I climbed down and camped behind the rock in the right side of the picture. The birds didn’t mind.

Nothing like clumsy, fluffy, sweet and defenseless chicks! How many of them have been snatched and eaten by gulls… They have nowhere to hide on this bare rock.

This is what I love most – the facial expression of a chick looking up at his mother.

Looks like this chick is asking for food. It is what they do – only look, never flap their wings or move about the nest. Now and again some of the gannets take off, and some land. The colony is always in motion. Gannets never fly with fish in their bill. They swallow the fish under water and feed their young regurgitated fish opening their mouths wide for the chicks to fetch the food – I have a picture in one of my blog posts.

Gannets look beautiful in flight, but landing is not their forte.

This poor devil crash-landed on a wrong nest.

This one landed smoothly and displayed a dance.

This gannet landed right in front of me. I think it is a female. After displaying some moves I could not interpret, the bird walked away and finally found her nest.

These gannets are grown up but they are not breeding this year for some reason.

I spent an hour alone with the gannets. Sadly, it was time to leave. I quickly took some in-flight pictures and a video to send to my grandchildren. Till we meet again, beautiful birds.

Great black-backed gull chicks are cute, but their growing numbers are worrying. These gulls are opportunistic feeders and predators who attack and kill other seabirds and juveniles.

There are chicks on the top of every rock. Look at these skinny legs!

I took these pictures from the path. Mama gull wouldn’t let me come any closer.

This one is a Herring gull’s son.

Guillemots, elegant birds who remind me of a whippet, have a baby too. This baby is almost a fledgling.

A younger and fluffier chick.

This Razorbill daddy made my day.

There was a chick somewhere under the rock, and the daddy was feeding him with the sand eels, one at a time.

The last sand eel.

Done with the feeding. What a good daddy!

Thank you for reading! I will share more pictures in two weeks.

www.inesemjphotography Have a wonderful weekend!

St. John’s River: Confluence

This and the following four posts are dedicated to the Friends of St. John’s River.

Waterford is situated along the beautiful River Suir – the river one cannot miss. Many visitors, however, might never realise that there is another river sneaking behind the Waterford Crystal House – St. John’s River, which, according to her Friends, represents the heart of the city. About a mile from the Rice bridge River Suir curves to the SE direction. Right before the curve is where two rivers meet.

Until the 18th century, St. John’s River didn’t have banks – there was a marshland and a pool of water that filled up at high tide and almost emptied at low tide. The pool was drained, the city expanded, and St. John’s River was contained within the banks reinforced with stone all the way to the River Suir. Here is some more history.

We know where the mouth of St. John’s River is, but where is the source? I don’t know it, but we will walk as far as we can and try to find it out.

Meanwhile, lets stay at the mouth of the river a little longer and enjoy the wildlife.

This heron at Marina hotel is wise enough to understand that photographers cannot fly over the fencing.

This gull is probably an adult non-breeding Herring gull.

These two look like young Great black-backed gulls. My knowledge of the juvenile gull classification is almost nonexistent.

One ‘teenager’ annoying the other 🙂

The cutest group of Black-headed gulls in their winter plumage. I have no idea what is that ‘stranger’ they have adopted.

The last look at the River Suir from the Scotch Quay before we are off to follow St. John’s River through the city.

We walk to the Georges Quay. The unnamed metal pedestrian bridge connects to the Adelphi Quay.

Gigantic red buoy in the Georges Quay is a lovely bright detail among the grey surroundings.

Pigeons are heading to the William Street Bridge. So are we.

We cross to the other side of St. John’s River. William Street bridge was built between 1780-1820. It is a single arch humpback bridge.

Pigeons are foraging on the walls.

We pass the car park and enter City Courthouse grounds. Courthouse was built to the design of Terence O’Reilly on the site of the ruins of St Catherine’s Abbey in 1841. Many of the dead from the 1604 outbreak of plague were buried in these grounds. Courthouse was recently refurbished and extended. In 2016, after the epic All-Ireland hurling semi-final, Kilkenny flag was put out at the top of the Courthouse .You might remember my blog post where I mentioned the long lasting rivalry between our two counties divided by River Suir.

I am mostly interested in starlings residing in the grounds.

Charming lattice work iron bridge over St. John’s River connect Courthouse grounds with People’s Park. The bridge was opened in 1857 by then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland William Frederick Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle, and named Carlisle Bridge for him.

In the “waste and weary swamp covered with dank and fetid water“, People’s Park was laid out in 1857, after the marshland was drained and St. John’s River diverted and contained in the banks. The “Orb” in the picture is a sculpture incorporating water continuously flowing over it. The sculpture was created by Tina O’Connell, and installed in 2002 in the place of a beautiful Victorian fountain which was vandalized beyond repair.

Look back at the Courthouse ( I just love this bridge).

Blackheaded gulls on the Carlisle bridge.

One more look back.

This is the end of today’s walk. We leave People’s Park and walk into town again. Hardy’s Bridge below was built in 1841/1842, and commemorates the captain of Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (1769-1839).

We resume our walk along the St. John’s River in two weeks. Thank you for joining the tour.

www.inesemjphotography Have a wonderful weekend!

Saltee Island: lost in the ferns

This young European Shag was a juvenile when I saw him last year, almost in the same place, and here is his mama and his new brother or sister. I recognized him because of his distinctive shyness, in opposite to his mama who is bold and ill-tempered 🙂

I have never seen a puffin chick. Something to look forward to.

All sorts of seagulls in the island also have chicks around this time. The parents are standing on the top of the rocks watching their young, ready to swoop and attack an intruder.

Four species of seagulls breed on Saltees. Herring gull is on the Irish Red List of the most threatened bird species. In the 1980s there were about 500 pairs on Great Saltee, and now just over 50 pairs. Good that they can live up to 30 years.

This Herring gull clearly enjoyed posing for a portrait.

Two species of the Black-backed seagulls are nesting on the island. We didn’t want to upset the male perched on the rock and took pictures of the chicks from a distance. This is a Greater Black-backed gull, one of the largest gulls in the world. In one of my previous blogs, I have pictures of this gull in flight.

Two fluffy Black-backed gull chicks enjoying the sun.

After leaving the Gannet colony I suggested that we should explore the north side of the island. It looked like a green meadow sprinkled with some white flowers. Off we went, and on our way we came across some nests with the eggs and the chicks wandering around. The eggs belong to different species of the gulls. Later I googled ‘seagull eggs’, and was shocked as all the pages that came up were related to cooking and eating these eggs!

Most of the seagulls lay three eggs. One must be stolen from the nest.

These are the eggs of a Great Black-backed gull. The pair of them is nesting in exactly the same place as last year. You can enlarge the picture to see the chick use its egg tooth to break through the egg shell. It might take 24 hours or even longer.

This speckled blue eggshell is quite big which means that it belongs to a seagull.

A chick is hiding in the weeds and playing dead.

After that, our detour took a bad turn, literally. We turned to the East and gradually entered the area covered with the ferns. In the beginning we managed to keep to the frail path but it led us nowhere. The seagulls hated us. Then the thorns and brambles came into the picture, and the path completely disappeared. My companions suggested that we keep moving along the coast no matter what, but the green sea of ferns might hide dangerous holes and who knows what else – I didn’t want to dive in it again.

We were right in the middle of the green area in the picture below. If you zoom it, you will see a stone wall crossing the island, with the seagulls perched on top of it. I suggested we walk to the wall, climb on it, and walk on top of the wall until we reach a surface free of vegetation. So we did. The wall wasn’t flat on top, of course. The rocks were sharp and slippy, I fell, and my backside stuck between the rocks like a keystone. If I were alone I would cry. Thankfully, I was lifted up and put on the straight and narrow again. After a while we reached the main path and thus escaped being consumed by ferns. Lesson learned – keep to the main path because there is no other.

Beautiful weather had changed and the drizzle started to thicken. Suddenly the dark clouds opened in the middle revealing a perfect rectangle. Was it some sort of a message?