Our Member Pat Kehoe had visited the Irish Photography Hides which are located on the farm of Richard Duff which is near the village of Ballyfin, Co Laois. Pat was very impressed with the set up and he arranged for 15 of our Members to visit the site.
The site which comprises two hides, Limekiln located at Eircode R32K8H3 and Woodlands is at Eircode R32FFDO.
The hides are equipped with toilet facilities, heating and seating. Each Hide can accommodate four Photographers.
Their locations are about one hour and ten minutes from Dublin.
Tripods, Monopods, Gimbal heads and Beanbags are the recommended equipment. Having a camera might also be a good idea!!
Nothing is more than ten metres from the hide but short lenses are not of much use due to the small size of the Wildlife, so bring your big guns!!.
As there are no shops in the vicinity sufficient food and drink for the entire trip is essential.
According to Richard Duff the Limekiln Hide has Sparrow Hawk, Kestrel, Buzzard, Jay, Wood Pecker and small birds.
The Woodlands Hide has Pine Martens, Jays, Sparrow hawk, Kestrel, Woodpeckers and sometimes Red Squirrels.
More info at http://irishphotographyhides.com and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Irishhides
8 of our Members visited the Hides on Tuesday 21/03/23 and 7 on Saturday 25/03/23,
and some of their images from their visits can be seen below.
sThe pictures below (thanks Barbara) show some of the Members, new and old, who gathered in Aras Chronain to celebrate the start of our 35th year programme. It was a lovely night and Brian had a slideshow (that's an old term belying my age - PowerPoint sounds more modern!!) of some of the events in the Club since 1988.
It was a lovely trip down Memory Lane.
Tim later sent a link to his Smugmug pages where lots of CCC events are recorded of the club's outings and the holidays to France - here's the link - https://timsfotos.smugmug.com - just search for the galleries with CCC in the title.