[Bsal]

I had a Sparrowhawk visit the garden 3 times today but it didn't catch anything. She must have babies to feed now.

[mgwhelan]

Saw my first ever newts today whist cleaning out a cattle trough, I take it that the first one is a male which is black in colour with orange on its belly, the second one is bigger and brown in colour. Are the females usually bigger than the males?

Sorry about the photos crap phone, thats a euro in the second one.





P.S I put them back under the trough when I was finished

[whyulittle]

Brilliant!

The males have a crest running down the back to the end of the tail in breeding season and are more spotted than the females.

If you have the time I know the IWT are eager to get sighting records in, you can submit the record here.

[mgwhelan]

Originally Posted by whyulittle

If you have the time I know the IWT are eager to get sighting records in, you can submit the record here.

Thanks for the link, have it done there now.

[Bsal]

I had another ringed bird in my garden today, this time a Redpoll

[tricky D]

Woot! Our house martins have just arrived back this afternoon. There's about 6 of them busy mudding up when the gulls aren't hanging around.

The robins have also been on the nest for almost 2 weeks so hatching is imminent.

[Half-cocked]

Here's a pic of our 2 Robin chicks. You can see an unhatched egg in the nest. Hard to believe that these two came out of eggs this size 9 days before the shot was taken!

[MeteoritesEire]

did everybody see the video of that bald eagle snatching the fish off fishermans line?

was gonna post to videos I took but I didn't take it

so funny his reaction--watch it 7 times in a row like I did

[Bsal]

I saw on the news earlier that they are cutting the grass at Dublin airport for fodder, what sort of effect will this have on ground nesting birds like the Skylark which are nesting there at the moment. I would imagine the nests will be destroyed. Also, after they cut the grass last summer there was a major problem with starlings and they ended up shooting most of them.

[Zoo4m8]

In the paper this morning a spokeswoman for the DAA said " the grass at Dublin Airport is managed in order to deter birds nesting or feeding on the airfield and grass cutting is managed in a specific way so that airport operations are not affected"