Irish wildlife observations 2011

[quote="cathalger"]Was up the mountain yesterday, rummaging about photographing insects mainly but had the good fortune to catch a common lizard for the 4th time in my life with the aid of a sweetie box. Encountered 2 but only got good pics of the 1 I caught.


Was back up there today, had a look in the place I saw the 2nd lizard yesterday, it was there, happened to have a plastic sandwich packet on me and was able to catch it in that, got more pics and videos, this one was a pregnant female, very fat. Yesterdays one was 5 1/4", this one was 5 5/8".

EDIT: Sorry, it was Fri and Sunday, not Sat and Sunday. Was up the hills everyday since last Sunday, 26 June, got mixed up. Anyhow here are some pics of the lizard that I caught on Sunday evening after looking in the spot where I'd seen the 2nd one I saw on Friday, the one I failed to catch on Friday. Confused? Me too.

Also pics from Sunday of wee frogs with tail still on. They are late in those hill loughs, not particularly high up, 1300 feet or so. This lizard is fat with young.

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brilliant stuff cathal, yet again. class photos
that wee lizard is something you'd be tempted to bring home. but of course, he's much happier up them hills...
great stuff

brilliant stuff cathal, yet again. class photos
that wee lizard is something you'd be tempted to bring home. but of course, he's much happier up them hills...
great stuff

Charlie, was talkin to Smiler about lizards some years ago. He says he knows someone from Ballymena who took one home from the Mournes. Stuck it in a fish tank and within a short space of time it gave birth to a stack of young ones. He says the mother then proceeded to eat its own young. Put him over it again the next time youre talking to him.

Cheers.

Drove past a cock and hen pheasant on a country lane on the way to a mark on broad meadows/malahide estuary mark they where just walking down beside the ditch.... lovely colours on the birds

Nothing nicer than a pair of pheasant on the roadside like that.

brilliant pics of the wee lizard!

i saw one in connemara about 15 years ago - basking on a rock. beautifull wee creature.

seen a pinemarten last week running acrosss the N5 near frenchpark , co roscommon.

also a herd of about 12 wild goats are always wandering around the shores of lought Beltra in mayo - the horns on the Billy are massive.

seen a Barnowl fly accrosss the road on the way home from beltra a fortnight ago as well - it has been about 25 years since i seen one - stunning creatures.

and the wee electric blue Zip of Kingfisher on the river at Athleague - was looking over the bridge to see if i could spot any trout and he zipped past directly underneath me - they really are one of the most beautiful native birds and such an exhilerating sight!

also had a pair of ravens fly by the house this week - the deep croaking call is so distinctive, they firsta ppeared round here a few years ago, and we usually see them once of twice a year - on their first visit they were seriously mobbed by jackdaws - they forcced one of the ravens onto the ground in the field behind the house - got to have look through the bino's - you really get an idea of the size when you you have a jackdaw closeby for comparison.

its great to be out and about and noticing all these things

oh aye, and seen a few salmon and seatrout in the bottom of the boat as well -

Dont know if this unusual or not .... there's a little open ditch/drain running along the edge of our place (an old farm) into a nearby stream that feeds the local river. I was looking into it the other week with a vague idea of cleaning out the weeds when I spotted a swarm of tadpoles with a six inch long elver cruising around among them. Do eels really come this far up the land to breed? I heard they've gotten pretty rare.

seen a pinemarten last week running acrosss the N5 near frenchpark , co roscommon.

Last winter a young one from the nearby forest took up residence under a pile of old cardboard in our bin shed. It shot out between my legs when I went in to dump a bag one morning. And people pay money to observe them at a distance in Scotland...

Dont know if this unusual or not .... there's a little open ditch/drain running along the edge of our place (an old farm) into a nearby stream that feeds the local river. I was looking into it the other week with a vague idea of cleaning out the weeds when I spotted a swarm of tadpoles with a six inch long elver cruising around among them. Do eels really come this far up the land to breed? I heard they've gotten pretty rare.

seen a pinemarten last week running acrosss the N5 near frenchpark , co roscommon.

Last winter a young one from the nearby forest took up residence under a pile of old cardboard in our bin shed. It shot out between my legs when I went in to dump a bag one morning. And people pay money to observe them at a distance in Scotland...

Hi Hugo, I dont know just how far from the sea you are there or how high up, but if the water is, as you say, connected to a river at all it probably isnt too strange to have eels there. They can go over ground too (I think they are supposed to do this on wet nights) to get to landlocked bodies of water, ponds and the like. As far as I know eels can access just about anywhere in Ireland but there are probably remote upland waters where it would be very unusual if not impossible for an eel to find?

Its the other way around with their breeding lifecycle, they come up into freshwater to feed and live and then they go back to the ocean to do their breeding, but apart from this I know very little else about them, Im sure there are others on the forum that have a lot more knowledge about the eel than I do. You are definitely right about their decline at present, all I know is they were very common in my local rivers up until probably 15 years ago and now they are extremely rare. I caught my first one in quite a few years in 2009, used to catch them regularly when fishing worm in the river for sea trout or salmon. I ve never actually seen them do the over land thing but I did see a lot of eels coming out of the water and going up the wet rocks at Cloghan on the river Finn in Donegal in order to by pass the waterfall the salmon had to jump over. They seemed to do it all day long.

Great pictures This maybe a stupid questions but is the lizard native to ireland .If it is you learn something new every day again great pictures

[cathalger]

Great pictures This maybe a stupid questions but is the lizard native to ireland .If it is you learn something new every day again great pictures

Yes razor2, the common lizard is Irelands only native reptile, as far as I can gather. I read just these past few days when looking up 'Lizard Ireland' online, that there are 'slow worms' in the Burren but that they are not native and have been introduced, it didnt say when it was introduced or by who?


Thanks.

EDIT: not a stupid question at all razor2, a lizard in Ireland is a big surprise to almost everyone at first. I was very lucky to catch one by grabbing moving vegetation up in the hills when I was about 10, my father had us out for a drive. He said thats a wee Moss Trout. He said when they were working at turf youd see the moss trout in the water at the bottom of the turf bank and then later in the day he'd be up on top of the bank watching you. Ive since come to realize that they were calling newts and lizards both 'moss trout'. The newt in the water shoots off as a small trout does in the river and they are very similar in shape and proportion to the lizard that they saw out of the water on dry land. He said he tried to catch a moss trout many times but never managed it. I'm pretty sure this is what was going on, having seen newts in upland ponds and drains.

Last edited by cathalger on Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

never knew it great post btw

Dont know if this unusual or not .... there's a little open ditch/drain running along the edge of our place (an old farm) into a nearby stream that feeds the local river. I was looking into it the other week with a vague idea of cleaning out the weeds when I spotted a swarm of tadpoles with a six inch long elver cruising around among them. Do eels really come this far up the land to breed? I heard they've gotten pretty rare.

When I was a kid, the row of houses we lived on had were all serviced by a septic tank instead of being connected to the town sewer system. Anyway, one day we were playing in the back garden when the neighbour called us in. He was cleaning out his septic tank, and found an eel the size of your arm in there. Given that it was a completely closed system, I have no idea how it got in. Made a big impression on me as a kid, though.

Dont know if this unusual or not .... there's a little open ditch/drain running along the edge of our place (an old farm) into a nearby stream that feeds the local river. I was looking into it the other week with a vague idea of cleaning out the weeds when I spotted a swarm of tadpoles with a six inch long elver cruising around among them. Do eels really come this far up the land to breed? I heard they've gotten pretty rare.

When I was a kid, the row of houses we lived on had were all serviced by a septic tank instead of being connected to the town sewer system. Anyway, one day we were playing in the back garden when the neighbour called us in. He was cleaning out his septic tank, and found an eel the size of your arm in there. Given that it was a completely closed system, I have no idea how it got in. Made a big impression on me as a kid, though.

Yeah they are a very resourceful fish. Given that an eel the size of your arm could be 40+ yrs old, its had plenty of time to work our how to get into some odd places! Thats a pretty cool story though Iodore and yeah its a shame about their decline, very sad indeed.

I've seen all sorts out and about. Seen three Otters in the marine so far - Ballygalley, Drain's bay and Skettrick. Very cool but all at 4am - they like the quiet hours! I also bumped into a common lizard upland on Connemara a couple of years ago, got itself stuck in a Hennessey bottle - recon it went in there for the heat

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Dont know if this unusual or not .... there's a little open ditch/drain running along the edge of our place (an old farm) into a nearby stream that feeds the local river. I was looking into it the other week with a vague idea of cleaning out the weeds when I spotted a swarm of tadpoles with a six inch long elver cruising around among them. Do eels really come this far up the land to breed? I heard they've gotten pretty rare.

When I was a kid, the row of houses we lived on had were all serviced by a septic tank instead of being connected to the town sewer system. Anyway, one day we were playing in the back garden when the neighbour called us in. He was cleaning out his septic tank, and found an eel the size of your arm in there. Given that it was a completely closed system, I have no idea how it got in. Made a big impression on me as a kid, though.

lodore, thats a bloody good one, must have been a dodgy enough pool it lived in all the same, they seem to be able to get almost anywhere. I was fly fishing for trout on a lake in Co Antrim on Friday night, with a mate. Just as it was almost fully dark he gave me a shout. I thought he had just landed a good brownie. He had a ball of weed and this eel, approx 26" long? We thought he'd foul hooked a night line someone had set baited with worm. Peter had been snagged on the bottom just before he hauled this from the water. I looked in the eels mouth, no line, no worming hook. Peters black pennell size 12 was stuck in the eels back. He isnt fully sure how he managed it but it seems he has foul hooked an eel on a trout fly, completely by accident at some stage between getting snagged and freeing it. We werent fishing bait, he had a team of 3 wets on on an intermediate line when he became attached to this fish, fair in the middle of the back, I took the fly from it, well openned out, coated in dense black slime. It was returned to the water straight after this photo was taken.

Last night worming on Cushendall river an otter surfaced right below me in the brown flood and headed off downstream and out of sight, on the surface.

Nice lizard pic Slackliner, thanks for putting that up, great orange belly. I got some good newt pics lately, ones at 7cm and tiny 3.5cm juveniles, stick them up soon.

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I never saw newts sitting up in vegetation like this before, until the 23rd Aug, approaching midnight on a dead still mild, damp night, light rain earlier.On my way home from a hill lough, I was looking at insects when I started to see juvenile newts up on the rushes, found 4 in total with very little looking. The 2 I measured were 3.5 and 3.8cm long. In a different spot on the way home I found 2 adult newts up doing the same thing, they were all very dosile and totally unconcerned. The adult one pictured here was 7cm long, its the first pic. I think they maybe get a wee bit bigger than this?

Strange, has anyone else seen them up high on the rushes like this? It was a new one to me. They seemed to be just enjoying the mild damp conditions but maybe they were after flies? They didnt seem to be to worried about feeding or doing anything but just sit there in the nice still wet night?

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wow, very interesting cathal, great photos.
they are juvenile newts then? cool. maybe they are just keeping out of the way of predators during this vulnerable stage of their lives.. ? predators like rodents or someting like that, or trout..! or you could be right, they could be feeding on something. maybe waiting to feed on something that comes down to settle on the grass in the evening/night - like midge or other insects.
and then again, maybe something completely different! but im sure that there must be a reason for it... maybe..
anyway, just my thoughts
cheers

Aye Charlie, found 4 young newts and then 2 adults a bit further on. First pic is a larger one, it was 7cm, the others pictured here were all under 4cm, inc the tail.

I found a very small lizard back at the start of August, met 3 adult lizards that day and Stephen saw a lizard the same day, this wee young black lizard was the only one that day I was able to catch and get a picture of. I meant to post the pic of the wee lizard at the time but didnt get round to it.

Not 100% sure what the newts were at up in the rushes, adults and juveniles were up doing the same thing, 2 others have suggested to me they were maybe after a handy meal of insects but they were so totally dosile- barely flinched even when I touched them, they almost gave me the impression that they were asleep. Dunno, they werent very active looking, just seemed to be enjoying the nice conditions, it was really still, mild and damp.

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wow, very interesting cathal, great photos.
they are juvenile newts then? cool. maybe they are just keeping out of the way of predators during this vulnerable stage of their lives.. ? predators like rodents or someting like that, or trout..! or you could be right, they could be feeding on something. maybe waiting to feed on something that comes down to settle on the grass in the evening/night - like midge or other insects.
and then again, maybe something completely different! but im sure that there must be a reason for it... maybe..
anyway, just my thoughts
cheers

Funny you should mention trout Charlie, 3 friends have reported taking newts from trout stomachs in recent years, 2 were in brownies, one was in a rainbow, all in the spring when you also find frogs inside the fish. I have a pic of one of the ones that came from a 3lb brown trout.

Just been lookin for that pic, cant find it yet but I found another from 25.3.10 of a partially digested newt from a brownie that was just over the pound, it also had a big black leech in it, a stickleback and a couple of shrimp......

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very intersting stuff again Cathal.. hope we dont start goin on about freshwater fishing here tho..
that big fat leech and the other things you have found in their stomachs says a lot. interesting. would you ever consider fishing for those trout with something else other than the fly... maybe small soft plastics..?
cheers for the photos.
and another nice photo of another class wee lizard! cool

Aye Charlie, had similar thoughts myself re talkin about freshwater stuff here but I think the mods might tolerate it a bit if its wildlife related on this thread, or should I say I'm hoping they will?!

To get back to the sea again, I forgot to report a dolphin sighting in Rathlin sound recently, Sat week ago, 3rd Sept. I was talking to you Charlie just after this happenned but the fishing had dominated the conversation and I must have forgot about it, I'm sure I didnt mention it.

It was on the ferry back from Rathlin in a lumpy sea, Peter saw 6 dolphins break the surface, well 6 was his best estimate, by the time I started looking I only saw 1 and it wasnt a great view, just a splash in the turbulent sea. We said to other passengers on the ferry nd they rushed to the window to have a look but it was too late.

Shortly after that I saw a large dark brown bird flying over the waves heading for Ballycastle direction, said to Peter I thought it had to be a skua, he agreed, I'm almost certain it was a skua but I dont know which type. Wasnt a juvenile gannet or GBB gull or anything like that, totally different.

Cant find the unresized version of my mates pic of 3lb brownie with newt on the gill plate, the newt was taken from the trouts stomach with a marrow spoon, it was March or April 10. Just putting this up as it relates to previous recent posts on the thread re newts. Peter sent me this resized pic initially, I cant find the original he sent me at a later date, its in here somewhere.

Getting back to the marine env. once again, does anyone in Donegal or in the west know of porbeagle shark being referred to as 'salmon shark'? A local charter boat skipper who was fishing for porbeagle off Malin Hd and Lough Swilly this summer reported seeing shark hunting salmon and making them jump out of the water, he told me they were called salmon shark in Donegal for this very reason. He caught some big porbeagles but he has quit going up because the fishing has tailed off and it takes a lot of fuel going to Malin Hd from Red bay.

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