Wildlife areas in Ireland

311

Wondering has anyone done any wildlife photography around ireland.

mikeanywhere

I will be on Sunday up in Northern Ireland at a Bird Sanctuary.

Yipeee, get to wear my nice new wellies (joke)!!!

Roen

Depends on what you're looking for, wildlife is everything from worms to eagles and back again. I know what you'll find around the south east, but not past the mid-lands and on up north.

311

An eagle on a rock would be brilliant ,I can't think of anywhere myself that would have anything more than sheep .
I was thinking of some area that has a lake with foxes and different sorts of animals walking around .

kuroino

Quite a few deers walk around Loch Tay, but it is private property, not sure if you can get there by any kind of road or trail. But it must be a nice setting. They have a patch of original forest down there, the lake itself is beatiful and the Luggala (if I remember the name correctly) above it is all rocky and nice looking.

Of course there are deers in the Phoenix Park. I say it must be interesting to hunt them jumping from under your feet in these patches of forest out there, rather than sitting on the open space, but may require some serious skills. A bit more than sheep anyway

magicbastarder

you can walk down to lough dan from the entrance you'd take to get to luggala lodge anyway, and the path passes a field which i've seen deer in.

Roen

You're up in Donegal or down in Kerry for an eagle shot. Going to need a nice long, fast and expensive lens too. Unless of course you're blessed with some St. Francis of Assisi skilzz.

I think fish eagles are also being introduced as well as the golden variety. That doubles your chances of spotting one!

I've had more luck with deer tracks than deer in Waterford. I'm also lucky enough to live near Wexford (for the slobs) and our own coast has no end of little egret, heron, brent geese, swans etc.
I'm not far from red squirrel, otters, hedgehogs, badgers and foxes either.
So far, bar a few wonky enough heron and egret shots I've been unlucky.

311

lens wise i only have a 70-200 for wildlife ,I was thinking of getting the tokina 80-400 lens for wildlife.
I can't buy any more glass though ,next item i will be buying will be a 30/40D

I thought if I stayed quite enough a 70-200 (120-320) would do for a while.

Roen

You'd want to be lucky, the 300 ƒ4 L I have on the 20D (480mm Equiv.fov) is nowhere near long enough for any kind of small to medium sized bird. I got within about 8 feet of this finch because I was hiding in amongst the clothes hanging on the clothes line
That's only two big steps away. If you can regularly get within that distance to animals and birds in the wild you'll pull it off.
This is uncropped




You'll get close to things in the wild if you're prepared to stick yourself in a bush for a bit, but other than that your luck has to be there!
Basically what I'm trying to say is that, you gotta be lucky, or carry a hell of a long lens. Or cheat and go to the zoo

311

nice one for the tips roen ,I can't even think about buying a long lens at the moment though.
Would be reward enough to get down to a good spot anyway and see if I actually have any sort of chance with what I have.

I've taken note of lough tay
Any other places off the beaten track ,maybe with a chance of some landscape.

Thanks.

kuroino

magicbastarder wrote:

you can walk down to lough dan from the entrance you'd take to get to luggala lodge anyway, and the path passes a field which i've seen deer in.

That's right! How could I forget. When I was talking about Lough Tay I actually thought of our failed walk to Lough Tay with B0rg, that turned to be a walk to Lough Dan (nothing too impressive, just some shots on the way).

What I forgot is that we really spotted some deers. Having no intention to change the lens to a tele one in that wind and drizzle, I failed to make any reasonable pictures of the animals, but that's what they look like from the distance:





and here is the overall setting:

magicbastarder

looks like i had a nicer day than you did...

Fionn

yeah you'd need to be very good to get close enough for the small birds and that (great capture of the finch there roen)
I've been after a pheasent that i can see from my front door gliding into some trees every so often, he'd be about 30/40 yards away but my 70-200mm F4 just wont reach him and i havent been able to sneak up on him yet either. I'm after a couple of foxes too but so far they've fled before i could get within anywhere near them heres one of a rabbit i managed to get near (but not near enough) last summer

nilhg

It's a good job that hare can't surf the internet , he would be disgusted to be called a rabbit:D

JMcL

_Brian_ wrote:

An eagle on a rock would be brilliant ,I can't think of anywhere myself that would have anything more than sheep .
I was thinking of some area that has a lake with foxes and different sorts of animals walking around .

As Roen says, if you're looking for eagles, it has to be Glenveagh in Donegal for the reintroduced golden eagles, though apparently they've been spotted as far afield as Mayo - a pretty successful program. Even if you don't spot an eagle, it's pretty spectacular up there, and there are loads of red deer which you don't have to get that close to (not that you'd necessarily want to!)

Has the sea eagle reintroduction in Kerry actually started yet?

311

Donegal would suit me fine,I love the landscape up there.Mostly basins as far as I can remember.

Thanks.

Xios

This is the best Wildlife shot i have, quite a rare sight

311

Xios wrote:

This is the best Wildlife shot i have, quite a rare sight

Wow! a bigfoot ,how did you get that shot ? .
You must have been up a tree with a 400 lens

peckerhead

_Brian_ wrote:

An eagle on a rock would be brilliant ,I can't think of anywhere myself that would have anything more than sheep .
I was thinking of some area that has a lake with foxes and different sorts of animals walking around .

You could always 'cheat' and spend a few hours in Fota Island. Saves all the patiently-lying-in-wait/sneaking-up-on-them bit...!

That's where I snapped this big boy...



...and these.



Feeding is also a Good Thing because it makes (most) birds and animals stay still for a while.

Fionn

nilhg wrote:

It's a good job that hare can't surf the internet , he would be disgusted to be called a rabbit:D

Ooppsss my bad I meant this one which was taken a few mins later in the same area!!! this is deffo a rabbit - sincere apologies to the kangaroo

311

nice colours in them shots peckerhead .
Like the eagle shot the most

I wreckon donegal is worth a visit ,it's not far from Dublin and the air is cleaner up there aswell

Fionn ,great shots of the kangaroo

Covey

These both taken with a 70-200, with only a small crop. Can be done, but I use the car and patience as a hide!

T.

Rock Pippet


Stonechat


T.

TelePaul

wicklow is a great place for wildlife. Glendalough has deer, though it kinda depends on the season..they get shy in winter but you still see the odd one. Theres also goats and rabbits. Rhe deer are cool though, and numerous.

mikeanywhere

Covey wrote:

These both taken with a 70-200, with only a small crop

Cant see any pics!

georgey

Any of the Estuarys around Dublin or anywhere for that matter are great for Birds and gettin practise in tracking fast moving erratic subjects

georgey

Need a bit of help here, I tried to Attach a picture to my post and its not working, I looked up the instructions but thereis no trouble shooting section, it just keeps failing, wot is the max file size I can attach?

311

georgey wrote:

Any of the Estuarys around Dublin or anywhere for that matter are great for Birds and gettin practise in tracking fast moving erratic subjects

Funny you should mention that ,theres a road joining chapelizod with lucan that goes under the M50 toll bridge. Theres a river along side the road ,but I can never find a place to stop.

As for wicklow ,I've been in wicklow tonnes of times and I've never seen reindeer or foxes or anything like them.

Alun

_Brian_ wrote:

As for wicklow ,I've been in wicklow tonnes of times and I've never seen reindeer or foxes or anything like them.

You won't find reindeer in Wicklow The deer that roam the Wicklow Mountains are hybrids of Sika deer, originally from Japan, that escaped from the Powerscourt Estate many years ago, and the local red deer. There are an estimated 10-15,000 of them in Wicklow, so I'm surprised you haven't seen any. I'm out in those hills practically every weekend, and it's a rare occasion that I don't see any.

Go up the track on the right hand side of the upper lake in Glendalough, up the zig-zag miners track to the wooden bridge over the river, and there's usually plenty of them hanging around there on the slopes either side of the valley. Also the back of Djouce is usually a good place to look. Also as someone else pointed out, the area between Lough Tay and Lough Dan in that big field that always seems to be flooded is nearly always a winner too, although it's not as nice as seeing them on the open hillsides.

sineadw

My other half just moved out by Irishtown and I was walking along the docks there today. Fitzwilliam Quay I think? Bizarre place to look for wildlife I know, but there were some wading birds in the water (along with 20,000 seagulls) as well as some awesome views of Landsdowne Rd, Shelbourne park and all the new buildings going up around there. I took a roll and cursed myself for not having spares in the bag.

Not exactly herds of wildebeast I know, but handy to town.

Covey

mikeanywhere wrote:

Cant see any pics!

Nope , neither do I !!:eek:

Followed the instructions to the letter. Anyone help??

T.

peckerhead

Thanks, Brian!

georgey wrote:

Any of the Estuarys around Dublin or anywhere for that matter are great for Birds and gettin practise in tracking fast moving erratic subjects

You could try minding my young fella for the afternoon if you like..?

magicbastarder

_Brian_ wrote:

Funny you should mention that ,theres a road joining chapelizod with lucan that goes under the M50 toll bridge. Theres a river along side the road ,but I can never find a place to stop.

you can stop in the car park of the strawberry hall (about one third of a mile past the bridge), or in the wren's nest (about another mile further on).
there's a weir beside the wren's nest too, which can look picturesque, but it seems to be damaged at the mo - got this pic there: