July
/ 2018 - Michael Ryan
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Three
times we’ve been to Kilmacurragh National Botanic Gardens and
each time we’ve gone on the guided walk with three different
guides each equally knowledgeable and entertaining. This time, visiting
in early June we were too late for the spectacular early spring colour
display of the rhododendrons although apparently this year it had
been dampened by the horribly cold wet weather of early spring and
buds of some of the plants had dropped off the bushes without even
opening. Still it was lovely when we did get there, the heatwave still
in place and the wildflower meadows full of rattle, buttercups, oxeye
daisies and early flowering orchids. |
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We
continued on the walk and were once again pleased we’d opted for
accompanying a guide who brought so much of the plants and their history
to life. After the walk concluded we wandered up by the meadows adjoining
the avenue. On one raised mound there was evidence of recent digging
and initially I thought the amount of soil disturbed and the sheer size
of the two holes made into it must have been done by someone using a
small digger or some sort of machinery. But Lucy spotted a number of bees crawling through the soil, some distressed and some almost lifeless and we knew it wasn’t a machine that had dug down into their nest but a badger. We’ve seen it quite a few times, an underground bees’ nest in disarray looking like it had been hit by an air strike with dead and confused bees around the excavated entrance. The badgers aren’t looking for honey but are after the grubs the colony will be attending to. Much as I love badgers you’d feel very sorry for the bees although in the UK people who support badger culling in order to prevent TB in cattle cite badgers as being a threat to declining bee populations as another reason to destroy them. We meandered around the grounds spying a Red Kite and a Buzzard gliding across the warm air until we found ourselves back where we’d earlier heard what we thought was a Great Spotted Woodpecker and almost instantly heard the call again, much louder and closer and then one flew out of a tree overhead. Winding its way up the trunk of a tree we soon saw why it was making so much noise, there was at least one juvenile Woodpecker motionless in the fork of a tree waiting to be fed. |
The gardens’ many old trees with their gnarled and fissured bark and lots of small apertures provide lots of good secure nest sites for smaller birds and we saw two Blue Tit nests in century old conifers but passing close to a old stone wall we got our most endearing sight when Lucy heard chicks calling and just inside one tiny space a newly born chick was stretching up and gaping its bill alarmingly wide demanding to be fed. A few days before walking down a farm lane we’d heard another noisy clamour of baby birds while a concerned Blue Tit fussed from the hedge then realised the nest was down an old rusty iron gate post. The chicks had hatched during a prolonged warm dry spell and I hope they’ll still be ok when the rains come. Later I told Birdwatch’s Dick Coombes, who has been monitoring GS Woodpeckers since they recently began breeding in Ireland, about our sighting and he said he’d had a male Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming in Kilmacurragh a couple of years ago and was glad to get confirmed breeding for there. So far this year he has already got a record number of 43 Woodpeckers nesting in Ireland. |
The ant gives an indication how small the Common Lizard actually is. This one was on Dalkey Hill Photo: Michael Ryan |
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