Birding 2025
Ireland spring 2025
Washington winter 24-25
Birding 2024
Italy Spring
USA Summer '24
Italy Photos
USA Summer '24
USA Summer '24
There were very few official birding stops this summer, however we got a surprising visitor at my Grandpa's house, with an even more surprising neighbor discovered soon after! As I was heading down to get some more wood for the fire with my grandpa, we saw three or four large birds fly up out of the grass... My first thought was crows, but then I realized they weren't cawing so then I thought hawks. Since I'm basically blind without my glasses, I couldn't see anything clear about the birds once two of them landed in a tree. I ran to get my binoculars, and I was delighted to see that they were two fledgling Great Horned Owls! The next day, I went to the barn at about the same time, this time with my camera, and I was able to get many good pictures of them. about a week later, my Grandpas neighbor sent him a picture of a Barred owl in almost the exact same area as the Great Horned owls. this is very surprising because normally if those two species are near each other the Barred Owl would kill the Great Horned Owl, but apparently this time they were doing fine!
USA Summer Photos
Washington Winter 24-25
Ireland spring 2025
Ireland 2025
Our first birding trip was about 20 minutes outside of Dublin, at North Bull Island. We saw several new species, including the Eurasian Wren. There were also numerous skylarks constantly around us in the dunes before we got to the beach, where there were mainly gulls.
Our next stop after Bull Island was a couple days later at Harper's Island Wetland Reserve in Cork. It consisted of a trail that split into a loop towards the end. It is about 2.5-kilometers round trip. There was a diverse variety of habitat which allowed for two new species of birds and several other uncommon species. The different habitats consisted of wetlands with two different viewing blinds, a small river bank, and a field-type area with 6 or 7 dunlins flying around. Next to the first blind, there were two different Sand Martin, or Bank Swallow, "nesting blocks." These were two large concrete slabs with 24 holes evenly spaced throughout the slab. This is a PDF of how the nests were built at Harper's Island. We collected data on the Sand Martins for the "Spring Alive bird survey." The sand martins were one of seven species on the target list, but the only one we observed.
After Harper's Island was Ross castle, in Killarney National Forest, where we first observed the Tufted Duck.There was a great view of Muckross Lake and a shore-type habitat as well as a wooded area where we observed the Eurasian Jay for the first time.
