Ringed Plovers at Gyles Quay

We love spending time photographing the ringed plovers at Gyles Quay in Dundalk Bay along the Cooley Peninsula. I must have crawled over 20 metres along a cobbled beach […ouch] in a camouflage ghillie suit to photograph these wading birds. I wanted to photograph the birds from as low a level as possible … but it's never an easy thing to do. It was high tide, the light was just glorious and this one ringed plover was perched on a cobble above hundreds of resting dunlins. It's as if the bird was on sentry duty! 

In glorious golden light a ringed plover is looking out to sea while perched on a cobble. It stands far taller than the surrounding wading dunlins (maybe about 100) who have their heads tucked into their feathers while they rest at high tide.

Me in my ghillie suit crawling along the beach