For the Fifth Carlingford Birding Weekend we decided to try something a bit different, focusing on the birds of the mountains rather than the shore. In the summer months the Irish shores are largely bereft of birds who spend our summer breeding further north in Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Scandinavia and further east. However we have several breeding species in the mountains that are of interest and these were our targets. The weekend started Friday evening with an illustrated talk by Eric Dempsey of Mooney Goes Wild at the Four Seasons Hotel. Then we were up at 7am on Saturday morning to look for grasshopper warbler and cuckoo but were beaten back to the coast by unseasonable driving rain, and so spent the morning observing the black guillemots, dunlin, sanderling and others at giles quay, then other seabirds at balaggan point (shearwaters, gannets, terns). That night we returned to the Cooley mountains for woodcock and grasshopper warbler which duly performed. On the Sunday morning we went up to the mast on Annaverna and carefully made out way down where we found breeding wheatears and a jay, as well as all the other usual mountain birds (buzzard, kestrel, ravens etc).
Waiting for the roding woodcock to show in the Cooley mountains - they did show at 10:13pm, and the grasshopper warbler chimed in just after they left.
Over 60 species were seen over the weekend included the following:
- Sand Martin
- Whitethroat
- Swallow
- Blackbird
- Song Thrush
- Dunnock
- House martin
- Shelduck
- Ringed Plover
- Little Egret
- Oystercatcher
- Redshank
- Curlew
- Wren
- Chiffchaff (Singing)
- Woodpigeon
- Feral Pigeon
- Black Guillemot
- Rock Pipit
- Sanderling
- Dunlin
- Hooded Crow
- Gannet
- Common Gull
- Sandwich Tern
- Cormorant
- Manx Shearwater
- Meadow Pipit
- Fulmar
- Greenfinch
- House Sparrow
- Mallard
- Great Black Backed Gull
- Herring Gull
- Black-headed Gull
- Swift
- Blue tit
- Goldfinch
- Jackdaw
- Rook
- Magpie
- Robin
- Starling
- Bullfinch
- Pheasant
- Great Tit
- Kestrel
- Chaffinch
- Long-tail tit (Calling)
- Woodcock
- Grasshopper Warbler
- Linnet
- Willow warbler
- Skylark
- Wheatear
- Raven
- Grey Herron
- Jay
- Pied Wagtail
- Buzzard
