Tim Bray Presents: Birding Ireland

Ireland has long been popular for tourists interested in its history and culture, the beauty of its landscape, and the legendary welcome offered by its people. All of those features also make it a wonderful place to go birding, and interest in birds and birding in Ireland has grown significantly in recent years. It was long disregarded by serious British twitchers because it lacks endemic species and most of its rarities could also be found elsewhere in the British Isles - and truth be told, because the British prejudice against the Irish persisted for generations. But as we found when we toured the country in 2024, Ireland has much to offer the visiting birder, and in many ways birding in Ireland is both easier and more pleasant than the experience elsewhere in Britain or Europe. Most of the country is still rural, and the human population has only recently surpassed what it was in the early 1840s before the Famine. Many excellent bird-rich areas are easily accessed and the birds can often be approached quite closely, a great advantage for photographers. This program will feature photos of some of the 113 species of birds we tallied in our three-week trip, from the ubiquitous to the rarely-seen, highlighting the diversity and beauty of the birds that can be seen around the country.

Tim Bray started birdwatching as a teenager, but only got serious about it after moving to the Mendocino coast. Inspired and challenged by the expertise of people like Art Morley, Toby Tobkin, and David Jensen, he has been working on his game for 25 years and hopes eventually to correctly identify at least half the Gulls he sees. He joined the Board of Directors of MCAS in 2012 and has been its President since 2019. He also co-hosts two radio programs on KZYX: Oak & Thorn, a program featuring the traditional and contemporary music of Ireland and Scotland; and The Ecology Hour, a program featuring interviews with scientists exploring how the natural world works.