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

Stumbled Upon

Chance can be a fine thing. At the end of July, I drove down to Limerick to meet Dervala for a few pints in Nancy Blake's pub and a very nice evening it was, too. I had booked the next day as a holiday, and the only thing had on the agenda was to make home to Galway that evening. Naturally, I didn't take the most direct route, and despite the fact that huge showers fell all over Munster that day (it was July, after all), I managed to avoid every one of them.

By late afternoon, I had managed to cross into Clare and, driving along a narrow country road, I glimpsed a splash of colour through a narrow gate as I drove past. Hoping for a picture of summer colour, I found a safe place to park the car about 100 metres from the gate. Even as I got out of the car, the scent of clover and other flowers was almost overpowering.

Strolling into the field was like entering Eden. Almost every sort of Irish wildflower was growing in a huge meadow that swayed in the breeze and stretched across several hills. Butterflies and damselflies fluttered and buzzed from blossom to blossom. I wandered around for about an hour with camera and tripod, before deciding to take a picture of two ash trees growing side by side in the middle of the meadow. As I lined up the shot, I noticed something moving in the background on the hill behind the trees. It was a herd of deer, that somehow had not spotted my movement. Thanks to the strong breeze, they didn't sniff me out either. They had almost perfect camouflage, their spots mimicking the white blossoms in the meadow and their fawn hides blending perfectly with the dull brown vegetation. It should be noted that, since the deer are Fallow deer, they didn't evolve that camouflage for Irish vegetation, since they were only introduced onto the island by the Normans about a thousand years ago.

Alas, there was a problem. To save weight, I had just brought my camera and short zoom lens (24-105), along with a tripod. The lens is great for landscapes but not for wildlife. I have a perfectly good lens for wildlife pictures but it was sitting in the car (and it was too far to go back for it)I managed to take cover and sneak in quite close to the deer once they went behind a hill. Because I was so close to them, once I began taking pictures, they heard the shutter on the camera (despite being downwind) and took off. The shot above was the first one I took - subsequent shots just show the deer literally high-tailing it over the hill.

I trudged back to the car, rueing the missed opportunity of getting a better shot. As luck would have it, a hawk skimmed past as I made my way back - again, out of range of the small lens. I wasn't too downhearted - any day spent in carefree wandering around the Irish countryside has to count as a good one.

On Saturday evening, I went down to Rusheen Bay near Salthill in Galway. The light was fading, it was quite overcast, and there wasn't a bird to be seen anywhere (I had gone down there to scout locations for photographing birds at a later date). Even so, I carried a camera with the 100-400 zoom attached - just in case. Looking around, I thought to myself that the woodland near the shore would probably have more wildlife than the shore itself. And even as I was having that thought, I glimpsed a young fox in the middle of a clump of grass and bushes. It was so focussed on eating berries off a sloe bush, its ears pinned back to avoid the thorns, that it didn't notice me. Until I started clicking off a few shots, that is. After giving me a hard look, it scarpered. I've stumbled across foxes plenty of times in my wanderings but never while I was carrying the right lens. Even I get lucky sometimes.

salthill, rusheen, quin, clare, fox, fallow, deer, ireland, galway, irishblogs, photoblogs, photography, galwayblogs, monasette, north atlantic skyline, autumn,john smyth, Canon, 5D, september, 2007

Posted by Monasette at September 24, 2007 10:18 PM