Blackcap, Ballyorgan, Co. Limerick

The walk from our front door

This weekend a few of us hired a log cabin down in Ballyorgan, Co. Limerick for my OH’s birthday. The cabins were advertised as being in Ballyhoura and described all sorts of nearby activities, fishing, canoeing, mountain biking, walking, kayaking etc etc.

Printing out directions the day before, and looking into hiring a boat, it soon became pretty clear there was no actual village called Ballyhoura, instead Ballyhoura was an ‘area’ known as Ballyhoura Country – covering Limerick, Cork and Tipperary …. hmmm. A pretty large area then and an area I think being given huge spin by the Irish Tourist board – something we should have copped onto since no-one we knew had ever heard of Ballyhoura Country.

Anyway our ‘Ballyhoura’ logcabins which were actually in Ballyorgan were a cool alternative to town based b&b’s, the cabins were in the middle of countryside and were really, really quiet. Without all the choices (and arguments) about how to spend the weekend, the 5 of us who had brought our bikes down ended up cycling a 40k roundtrip from Ballyorgan to Glenroe to Mitchelstown and back again. It was a lovely way to spend the day.

If anyone’s ever in Mitchelstown wondering where to go for lunch – go to Callaghans Deli on the main street (healthy, lots of options and well priced) and for dinner there’s an excellent Indian restaurant down an alley opposite the Spar on the main street that did takeaways. What? We were on holiday!

Not much focused birding went on over the weekend. Saturday night and most of Sunday poured rain, but on Sunday morning I went for a little walk through the trees pictured above and saw Wrens, Chaffinches, Blue tits, Great Tits, Starlings, Robins and this impressive bird.

Mystery bird, Ballyorgan, Co. Limerick.

What made me pay big attention to this bird was its song, it was amazing and would stop anyone in their tracks to listen to it.

Blackcap?

When I saw it clearer I was pretty certain that it was a Blackcap but I’d only ever seen smaller Blackcaps and this one looked much bigger than the ones I’d seen before.

It looked too big to be a Black cap

Plus the head seemed crested with feathers all stuck up and I'd only ever seen smooth headed, neat Blackcaps which looked much smaller than this bird.

But now I’ve looked it up, I see there’s no other possible bird this could be.

The difference in its appearance might be down to the fact its frazzled from all the nest building, or the fact that I’ve only seen the species which winter in Ireland and this bird might be from the species which still winter in the Med or North Africa.

Anyhow – it was a lovely closeup of the Blackcap.

Blackcap, 'Ballyhoura Country' Co. Tipperary, Co.Limerick, Co. Cork!