Birding trip to Southern Ireland - Final Update

In mid July I went on an organised birding/wildlife trip to southern Ireland. Now that the Forum has settled down a bit I thought it was time to produce a report. So here goes.

It was a two centre holiday with three days based near Wicklow and then the remainder of the time based at Wexford. This area is known as the sunny south-east and on this occasion it lived up to it's billing with glorious weather for the whole week.

This was the lovely country hotel we stayed at Rathnew just north of Wicklow. It is reputedly the oldest coaching inn in Ireland and has been in the same family for over 200 years.

As the local letterbox showed it seems that all traces of British colonialism have not been entirely eliminated. At least it had been painted green. LOL

House Martins nesting in the courtyard of the hotel.

We explored various locations in the Wicklow mountains in search of birds like Dippers without much success so had to be content with some flowers. This Bog Cotton (Cotton Grass) looked a bit like a snowfield. Apparently, it was the most prolific seen for some years.

Quite pretty close up

Also came across a Sundew growing in the boggy acid soil.

About the most exiting thing we came across was this re-enactment of a Viking invasion on Glendalough which was being filmed ror a TV series. LOL

In truth I found the birding in and around Wicklow a bit disappointing. I think it was just too hot and most of the smaller birds were hiding. We heard quite a lot of birds like warblers and buntings singing but they were difficult to see.  We did come across this Spotted Flycatcher though which I was pleased about as I haven't seen one for years.

It appeared to have taken over a House Martins nest.

Before leaving the Wicklow area we visited a guy who had created series of small lakes specifically to attract dragonflies along with flower meadows for butterflies, moths and other insect life. There were large Emperor Dragonflies whizzing around - fairly new to Ireland I understand - but the only dragonfly I managed to photograph was this one, which I think is a Four-spotted Chaser.

The night before he'd set out moth traps and he showed us some of the moths he'd trapped. Here's just a few that I managed to photograph.

Large Emerald

Elephant Hawk Moth

Garden Tiger

And two whose names I've forgotten. This one which looks like a twig but believe it or not is a moth.

And this one which was almost invisibible against the granite wall.

If anyone can give me the names of these last two please feel free.

I'm going to leave it there before you get too bored. I'll add to the thread later with the stuff we found around Wexford where the birding got a bit more interesting.