North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Choughs of Inis Mór

I was on a walkers' weekend on Inis Mór a few weeks ago, and on the Sunday, we went on a coast walk. At one point, after staring at a map, the leader declared that we were going to look at the puffins' holes. Wow, I thought, I didn't think we could get that close. As it turned out, I had misheard (I was at the back, as usual). We were going to see the 'puffing holes' or blowholes - holes formed by waves undercutting the cliff-face and eventually eroding all the way to the clifftop, tens of metres from the edge.(Phew!)

We had stopped to look at the biggest one (below) when I saw of pair of birds alight on the rocks about 70 metres away. They looked like crows but with one difference - their brightly coloured feet and beaks. They were two choughs (pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, apparently), members of the crow family that often nest along the coast (and sometimes in sea-caves of which there are many on the island). They kept a beady eye on me as I approached to take the photograph above - they need not have bothered since I nearly blundered into another blowhole not once but twice while gawping through the viewfinder instead of watching where I was walking.

galway,ireland, irishblogs,monasette

Posted by Monasette at September 28, 2005 08:56 PM