John Smyth

Every time I visit Mám Éan in summer, I call to a nearby pond that is a great environment for damselflies and dragonflies. On my most recent visit last month, dragonflies were in short supply but there were plenty of damselflies. This Emerald damselfly looks like a work of art up close.

Back in May, I could hear a male blackcap calling in the meadow. Last week, the fruits of his endeavour were clear: a female blackcap feeding a juvenile female - I'm not sure what sort of berry she has. #blackcap #rahugh #westmeath #ireland #birds @birdwatchireland.bsky.social

Motherfucking wind farms…

Podcast episode cover art featuring two men in a split-screen video call format. On the left is an older gentleman with white hair and a white beard, wearing a light grey collared shirt and black headphones, smiling warmly against a plain background. On the right is a younger man with dark hair and a goatee, wearing a green jumper and black headphones, positioned in front of a professional podcast microphone with wooden blinds visible in the background. The cover has a green and yellow colour scheme with "TOMMY'S OUTDOORS" at the top, "CONSERVATION AND SCIENCE" as the main title with decorative yellow lines, and "PODCAST" at the bottom.

Why are no trespassing signs appearing on Irish mountains that hikers have accessed for decades? Can walkers really sue farmers when they injure themselves on private land? Listen to my conversation with @johnsmyth.bsky.social about land access in Ireland.

➡️ pod.fo/e/304bbb

Common Emerald damselfly (female, I think) at the side of a bog pond near Mám Éan in the Maumturk mountains in west Galway. #EmeraldDamselfly #CommonSpreadwing #LestesSponsa #Galway #MámÉan #Connemara #Ireland

Instagram ad for a Cork-based vasectomy clinic advertising €100 off for any Kerryman this week, followed by "We have to stop them somehow" #SpéirGhorm #SpéirGorm

Meanwhile, in Cork

To be a Rock and not to Roll... We were working on our own Stairway to Heaven at the weekend, adding some steps to a stretch of the mass path at Mam Ean in Connemara. The steps will help prevent the 'drift' of stone and scree down the hill, and make the path a bit easier to ascend. #mountainmeitheal

First new potatoes this year, and very tasty they were, too. #newpotatoes #Westmeath #Rahugh #Ireland

I made a perch overlooking my meadow in the hope that it would attract predators, and so it did. Look at the talons on the long-eared owl . Next time, I'll try to adjust the trail cam so it doesn't over-expose the birds at night. @birdwatchireland.bsky.social #LongEared #Owl #Rahugh #Westmeath

I see buzzards every week in the midlands - either one the side of the Galway-Dublin motorway or over the fields. Long may it last. #CommonBuzzard #Rahugh #Westmeath #Ireland #biodiversity #nature #birds

Note how the tail in angled to manouevre as the bird makes a series of slow turns over the meadow #CommonBuzzard #Rahugh #Westmeath #Ireland #biodiversity #nature #birds

At one point, a pair of swallows tried to 'intercept' them, but the buzzards didn't pay too much attention to them. Likewise, they pay little attention to the regular attention from the neighbouring crows which improbably why they have flourished #CommonBuzzard #Rahugh #Westmeath #Ireland

I grew up here and, as a child of the 70s, I never remember seeing a Buzzard. They do seem to have adapted to modern farming practices (they do like 'mopping up' after a field has been cut for silage) #CommonBuzzard #Rahugh #Westmeath #Ireland #biodiversity #nature #birds

One of a pair of Common Buzzards soaring over the fields in Rahugh, Co. Westmeath last Friday, on one of the hottest days of the year so far. @birdwatchireland.bsky.social #CommonBuzzard #Rahugh #Westmeath #Ireland #biodiversity #nature #birds

A gathering of Mountain Meitheal volunteers for a training weekend in Leitrim a couple of weeks ago #mountainmeitheal #mountainmeithealwest #leitrim #trailmaintenance #sheepwoolpath #ireland

Not every early bird prefers worms...
Spotted at the Claddagh on Sunday morning...

First task of the day- collecting apples from my 2 Beauty of Bath trees which have been producing fruit for the last week or so.
#apples #harvest #Galway #Ireland

One of 2 silver-washed fritillary butterflies feeding on bramble blossoms beside a lake near Carrick on Shannon yesterday evening. #butterfly #SilverWashedFritillary #Leitrim #Ireland #biodiversity

this is the mostly wildly optimistic romantic view of marriage since the invention of til death do us part

I can confirm that it looks great framed

This pair of Collared Doves are regular visitors to my back garden

However, the highlight of the day was seeing a pod of dolphins swimming along the coast below us. There was limited visibility across Galway Bay yesterday, but the dolphins were only 100m from the shore #mountainmeithealwest #dolphins #burren #galwaybay

Yes - there was plenty of mud, but we got the job done. We finished off making a raised path through a muddy section of the Black Head Loop int he Burren yesterday, as part of a Mountain Meitheal West volunteer day.

Ready for take-off!
#yellowhammer

Mountain Meitheal West is having another outdoor volunteer day next Saturday in the Burren. We’ll be returning to the Black Head Loop to finish the drainage work along the trail that we started in February. We’ll be assembling in Ballyvaughan for 10.30. There may be mud!
#mountainmeithealwest

Early morning song thrush @birdwatchireland.bsky.social #songthrush #rahugh #westmeath #ireland

A Large Red Damselfly eating a fly that it had just caught while hunting over the surface of my back garden pond. This one would regulalry nab a fly in mid-air and then perch on a pond flower to consume @britishdragonflies.bsky.social
#LargeRedDamselfy #PyrrhosomaNymphula #Galway #Ireland

Confit chips!

Wait til she finds out that hordes of people are wandering around Dublin today, flamboyantly dressed, to celebrate your works. #BloomersDay

A male bullfinch feeding in the wilderness that is the bottom of my garden #bullfinch