A walk on Cape Clear with Chuck Kruger followed by Goats Milk Ice Cream

We joined a party of Friends for a trip to Cape Clear. The ferry left from Baltimore and took about 45 minutes, passing Sherkin Island on the way.  It came into Cape Clear Island at the North Pier.

On the Island we saw a beetle crossing the road. Here is a video of it moving along towards some dung.

We saw a strange bird which had starred plumage but a grey-brown head.  The Island's bird expert, from the bird sanctuary, agreed with me that from the description it could be a young starling.  I checked and the RSPB website says "first winter Starlings look most peculiar and give rise to many queries about strange birds in people's gardens - they are typically grey-brown on the head and back but blackish with white spots below".

We went on a walking tour of the island with Chuck Kruger. Chuck has written books about Cape Clear and you can read about some of them here. We walked to the end of the island to see the marriage stones.   The stones are over 5 thousand years old, and Chuck showed how they were probably part of a circle when they were first put up.

They are called the marriage stones because people join hands through the hole in the female stone when they want to get married.  We set off back across the island, calling at the museum on the way and finishing off with a visit to the goat farm where we had goat's milk ice-cream.  I had strawberry flavour and my dad had chocolate.  Here is the mother goat looking after her kid.

As we walked back across the island we saw the Schull Ferry coming towards it.

The boat took us back out of the harbour and we were able to see cormorants and gulls sitting on the rocks and diving for fish in the sea.

The kittens go outside for the first time

We kept the kittens in the house for the first two months to protect them.  A friend said her kittens had died because they caught an infection, and someone else said a large cat came in through their cat-flap and fought with their kittens.  We were also worried they might wander over to the road.  So to be careful we waited until they were three months old before we let them out to play in the garden.  Here they are in a short film going out for the first time.

                                     

The kitten's first day out 

First steps out

Before they went out they had been vaccinated. The vet told us that they can get infections very easily so we needed to get them vaccinated twice before they could go out.  One of the kittens squeaked when vaccinated, and they were both very sleepy afterwards, but ten days later they were ready to go out.

Kittens take a first look at the garden

They were very surprised to see the garden, and went out very carefully and didn't wander far. They stayed together, and Scout only really got going when he saw Felix setting off.  They sniffed everything carefully before approaching it.  But after a few days they got used to it, and started practicing their hunting in the hedges, and then climbing the trees.  Here is Felix in the willow tree.

They were both better at going up than down!