Cormorants are large seabirds well adapted to swimming and diving. You'll often see them floating, almost submerged on the sea, a river or a lake or standing on rocks with wings outstretched drying.

Broigheall is the Irish name and Phalacrocorax carbo is the latin name for these birds which are found extensively throughout Ireland.

Easy to confuse with shags, usually cormorants will have a white patch, as seen in the image above, around the thigh and also cormorants are more likely to be found inland even at lake and river sites.

Shags have a steeper forehead rising from the bill which is marked by a crest of feathers and almost always in Ireland remain coastal.

If you are wondering how seabirds get airborne, here's an interesting sequence from the west of Ireland.

Here, a lone cormorant taking off from the calm surface of a lake in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland shows that it is basically running on water, you can see the splashes of water kicked up by those webbed feet as its wings begin to generate lift.

Quite a sight, a fine sunny summer's day and the sounds of wildlife all around.

Finally airborne.

Join me, Panoramic Ireland, to photograph in the Irish countryside with guidance on locations and how to photograph in different scenes and scenarios. Now taking bookings for 2025.

The much-maligned herring gull, Larus argentatus which is known in Irish as Faoileán scadán, seen here soaring and gliding above stormy waves on the Atlantic off the north coast of Ireland.

Seagulls in general may be associated with loud, aggressive food stealing behaviour but herring gulls are currently on the UK's Red List for endangered species.

In Northern Ireland, herring gulls experienced a population increase during the 1950s-1970s, in the Seabird Colony Register census from 1985-1988 there were 17,561 pairs of herring gulls in NI while in a follow-up survey, the Seabird 2000 census, only 722 pairs were recorded.

Ireland has lost large numbers of herring gulls in recent decades and it would seem that the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland have seen the largest declines in herring gull numbers in recent decades.

The razorbill is a native seabird to Ireland and to Scotland which is where this image is from, over on Mull just up the coast from my home county of Antrim right in the north east corner of Ireland.

Related to the puffin, the razorbill can often be seen nesting and breeding in colonies that include puffins, as well as fulmars along the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Scotland.

Unlike the puffin, the razorbill is usually only seen as a plain black and white bird, with its distinctive line running from the bill back to its brown-iris eyes as seen in the image above.

But, when it opens its bill there is a flash of bright, almost golden yellow on the bird's palate.

This pair are engaging in mating behaviour but the bright yellow can also be useful for chicks being fed and razorbills often quarrel with each other with bills wide open in what is known as bill-gaping.

Each pair will only have one egg and both male and female feed the chick for approximately three weeks.

At around twenty days old the chicks follow the male into the ocean, leaping from the cliff and are fed by him until old enough to become self-sufficient.

Like fulmars, razorbills can live to forty years or more.

A recent visit to the coast brought me to a seabird sanctuary where I photographed many types of wild birds including puffins, razorbills, fulmars and guillemots.

This image, and the others below, made me think of the famous Black Sabbath song War Pigs with its lyrics changed to "Guillemots gathered in their masses, just like witches at black masses..."

Guillemots breed on land between May and September in Ireland, laying eggs directly on to rock - no grassy ledge or built nest.

Recent weeks have seen me photographing nightlife rather than wildlife at many concerts in Dublin and Belfast, including Whitesnake, Queen and Bryan Adams.

Don't forget that Panoramic Ireland's photo tours are running every day, in Dublin and around the coast. Join me to photograph seabirds, landscapes and streetscapes.

The fulmar Fulmarus glacialis is not a native bird to Ireland, although it is now resident here all year round having first been recorded on the island in 1911.

It is similar in size to a seagull but is a member of the tubenose family or procellariids, more commonly known as petrels.

It spends much time gliding, as it was when I photographed it here, using little energy to ascend and descend then flying low over the surface of the ocean - a common trait of petrels. Indeed the fulmar is related to albatrosses.

Each year the fulmar will return to the same ledge on the same cliff and will often mate for life. It lives for over 40 years and is a pelagic feeder of any type of fish.

The upper feathers are grey with brown feathers often visible, though most guides fail to mention these they are very evident in the image above. Undersides are white and the fulmar has a distinctive blue portion of the nose.

The fulmar is one of Ireland's fascinating seabirds, fantastic when seen in flight.

The Irish honeybee Apis mellifera mellifera is Ireland's only native honeybee, it's a bee with a dark abdomen and is also known as the European dark bee.

Seen here in late February, just before the end of winter meteorologically-speaking or at the start of Irish spring, this honeybee has been extraordinarily busy collecting nectar and pollen on a bright afternoon just before stormy weather hits.

This week saw an amazing amount of precipitation, particularly over the southwest of Ireland, Munster, where Cork and Clonmel saw extensive flooding. This part of Ireland has already seen above average rainfall for February and recent days have only added to the totals.

One of the few yellow ladybirds to be found in Ireland is the 14-spot ladybird Propylea quattuordecimpunctata which, like most ladybirds, feasts on the gardener's enemy - aphids.

Here, seen walking around looking for dinner this charming ladybird is sure to make anyone growing fruit and vegetables happy.

Also known as ladybugs in North America, the Irish name for ladybirds is Bóín Dé which translates as 'God's little cow' - quite a pleasant name for this little beetle.

We might be restricted right now from moving too far from home but if you have a garden, balcony or window box then and some flowers then the chances are you have bees visiting.

Here the white-tailed bumblebee Bombus lucorum sits on rosemary flowers on a sunny day. I wrote about bumblebees back in February in regards to the traditional start of Irish Spring, Saint Brigid's Day.

Keep an eye out for more bee images to come here on Panoramic Ireland.

An interesting sight that you often won't see in Ireland, the elusive Eurasian otter has been on the IUCN Red List for some time, classified as Near Threatened and a species in decline, Lutra lutra is one of the finest animals to see in nature.

Here as I was travelling along Ireland's River Suir in County Tipperary, I saw this busy otter swimming, diving and fishing on the fast flowing river.

It was an impressive hour, the otter would work its way upstream, then dive under water to re-emerge usually with a fish.

Here it is seen with what looks like a decent sized trout. This is a big creature, male otters can reach 1.3m nose to tail and they look impressive when you see them cutting through the water's surface.

This is undoubtedly one of the finest animals to see, along with Ireland's other elusive mammal the pine marten.

Dublin Bay is a UNESCO Biosphere - a protected area designated important for wildlife.

Since 1981 the beach and dunes, pictured here, at Bull Island in Dublin Bay have been a Biosphere, in 2015 the whole bay was brought into that designation including the Baily Lighthouse on Howth Head.