The River Dodder

As part of biodiversity week this walk took place this evening.

See how beautiful everything looks when we get sunshine? This was taken at the Dropping Well pub. Yes that's a bronze statue of a rhino in the river.

River Dodder = Dippers. There were 2 to be seen within minutes of arriving. One on the rock, one flying in from the left.

One of the people who came along for the walk was Susan, she was telling me how she’s been examining the nesting sites of the Dippers along the River Dodder from Tallaght to Landsdowne for the last few weeks. Apparently if you see someone sitting for hours on end looking at a spot next to a river, it will be Susan doing her research. Apparently Dippers average 40 visits in 2 hours (which isn’t all that many visits compared to the smaller songbirds).

Dipper on a stone, taking a break from feeding.

There were plenty who turned up for the talk by Mary Tubridy, she's there in the middle somewhere.

We did our best to block all the walkways.

in the river we saw lots of Grey Wagtail activity - that's the most yellow I've ever seen a Grey Wagtail.

We saw about 6 Grey Wagtails, seemed it was 2 adults and 4 chicks/fledglings/jeuv's, I don't know what you call them.

Close up of the male Grey Wagtail and its very gorgeous baba.

We saw some housemartins or sandmartins, we couldn't tell. We thought we saw a white rump = housemartin

Definitely not a swallow, no red face or long streamer tails

The closeup shows the marking on the chest - if it was a Housemartin, there'd be no marking, it would be completely white underneath and a little blue on the back - so we were looking at Sandmartins. There were about 20 flying around.

Hooded Crow. No my lens wasn't filthy - there were loads of midges (top right).

Songthrush.

For all those who think we just see Robins in winter- here he is singing away in summer. Sandmartins in the background, not dirt or midges or volcanic ash.

Mary told us lots about plants and trees and shrubs, she also told us about the way the River Dodder used to heavily power water mills, the current of the Dodder is very strong.

Apparently the Dodder springs out of Wicklow very close to where the Liffey raises (near Kippure) but the Liffey is 5 times longer and so the Dodder is a much quicker, faster flowing river which is why lots of mills were set up along the Dodder.

It was a lovely evening and it was a good nudge to myself to stop off and walk along the Dodder more often seeing as I cycle/drive past it twice a day on my way to and from work.

International Biodiversity day is Saturday 22nd May 2010, check your local Birdwatch Ireland or National Parks website for events.