Over the Saturday and Sunday of the 18th and 19th April two groups visited the River Birch Hides near Mulligar. On Saturday, five people went, and on Sunday, two people went. The weather on both days was very good, dry and sunny.
The visit on both days was spread over a forest hide and a river hide. In the forest, the main wildlife was pine martins, woodpeckers, various small birds and jays, which were abundant. After a period in the forest, the group then moved to the river hide in the anticipation of seeing the elusive kingfisher, however this only happened on Sunday for a very short time.
On the Sunday, Aidan the hide owner, informed us he had constructed a new hide further down the road in the forest and invited us to view it before he included it in his offerings. We asked to stay a short while in which time we were lucky enough to have a red squirrel visit.
On Saturday, when the group finished at the hides they went to the Bloomfield house hotel for refreshments before returning to Dublin. The two of us on Sunday made do with refreshments we brought with us.
Although the wildlife that turned up was not quite what everyone had hoped for, the consensus was that it was a very worthwhile experience and enjoyable. It is worth going to but the only advice would be to check what time of year would be best and check what you could reasonably expect to see at that time of year.
Some images (click on an image to open in full-screen mode) from the outing can be seen below:
