Kilcoole with Eric

Kilcoole train station, carpark to the left, The Irish sea over the wall.

Kilcoole. Not somewhere I’d chose to go if I had a spare day for birding – in fact Kilcoole would be somewhere I’d avoid.

Bleak, open, characterless seascape, with nothing out at sea except what appears to be a tormented Mute Swan and a few ducks floating around in an attempt to bring a little excitement to the place. If I were ever feeling glum you would not find me in Kilcoole. When I heard Eric was taking us to Kilcoole for our class trip, my cup, it did overflow with joy.

I arrived just after 9am, to get a bit of time to myself before the rest of the class arrived at 10am. Had a walk down to the Buckthorn bushes and tried to see what I could see on my own. Met two other birders walking along, ‘Seen any migrators?’ they wanted to know, ‘Nope’ says I, not even sure if I’d know what was a migrator and what wasn’t. They told me they’d seen a Whetear, Swallow and Red Throated diver in Kilcoole last week. I knew a Swallow would be a migrator but wouldn’t know the time of year I should and shouldn’t see a Red Throated Diver or Wheatear.

The Irish sea at Kilcoole, 9.10am. Wicklow Head in the background. I saw a Wheatear before on these boulders, it wasn't there today though.

By 10am I had walked back to the carpark and everyone else had arrived. There was maybe 30 of us, some of the faces I didn’t recognise at all, but apparently those faces have been in the same class for the last 8 weeks, just sitting at the front. I was called one of the troublemakers at the back. Without Any of my backrow buddies I stayed quiet and took the flack.

So off we all traipsed, walking along the wall and then looking out to sea.

Cormorant out at sea. Double Click and you'll see the white patch around the mouth. If it were a Shag instead of a white patch there'd just be a showing of yellow at the mouth and a really noticeable crest.

Double click to see 3 grey splodges which are 3 Red Throated Divers. Their throats won't ever be a really vibrant red, it's a dark red - so may not be obvious as red. The red will be developing around now.

The tormented Mute Swan I think I've seen out at sea every time I've been down to Kilcoole.

We also saw Gannets, Kittiwakes, Guillemots and Razorbills. Didn’t get a decent photo of any of them. Would have loved a good pic of the Guillemots and Razorbills but I wanted  good look at them through the telescope so I could id them again on my own, then we were moving on, so no pics.

10 points if you can see the Ringed Plover! (sorry sarah) without double clicking on the photo. I like this image, it looks like the Ringed Plover is about to get drowned.

Ringed Plover survived.

We turned from the sea towards the lakes behind us.

The first lake had Teal in it.

Teal - Ireland's smallest duck, as they're trying to prove in this photo.

There were also several Wigeons.

Solitary Lapwing, although there were about 20 wondering around. There were also some Shelducks, Moorhens and a Pheasant in the ditch.

10 Whooper Swans jetted in.

Whooper Swans, Kilcoole, Wicklow.

I think everyone was hoping to see a Swallow, but we didn’t. We heard and saw several Skylarks though, it was a cool sound after months of not hearing them or seeing them do their rising song display.

Scopes. Bringing Kilcoole to life.

Skylark, rising and rising, showing the females how great he is that he can fly so high. Bound to impress some bird I'm sure.

We saw a ‘Eric is that a Swallow?’ ‘No, it’s a Kestrel’ (??) Kestrel in flight just after we’d seen 2 Buzzards. I didn’t get any pics because I was preoccupied watching them flying. I’m not great at Raptor id so wanted to get a good look. It was good to see how much smaller the Kestrel was in comparison to the Buzzards. If you see a bird flying in a V shape think Buzzard.

At the Buckthorn, Eric tried his pishing to try and get some warblers out. We did see a Reed Warbler, but not much else. Actually, nothing else.

Pishing in action at the Buckthorn.

Nothing responding.

Don't worry Eric, it never works for me either.

When everyone realised how hungry they were, we decided to head back to the carpark for some lunch.

Before we left though we saw that the Greylag Geese and Brent Geese were scared by something. Eric reckoned from the way they were behaving that it was something big and mentioned that a White-tailed Eagle had been seen in the area.

Greylag Geese, big flock, about 150 of them, were agitated by something we didn't see.

Then the flock of around 300 Brent Geese went up too.

Brent geese settled and rose back up a few times.

When they had completely settled down we finally moved on.

Where's my lunch.

After we’d had something to eat and I finally got my copy of Eric’s ‘Finding Birds in Ireland‘, we wondered down the lane at the far side of the carpark in the hope of some songbirds and maybe a Water Rail in the reeds. Maybe we might have had more luck first thing in the morning, or maybe it was just a quiet day for songbirds, either way – there weren’t much ‘appening.

Not much doing.

And with that, we were done. Along with the sun/windburn I also had a new respect for Kilcoole. Having the scope to look through makes the biggest difference. It just brings all the seabirds that much closer and I’d like to go back down there to see the Razorbills again.

Thanks to Eric for the class outing – I have never really liked Kilcoole but I did today, thanks also to John, Philip and Ger for coming along and answering our questions with patience.