City wildlife

The end of spring and beginning of summer are the best part of the year in Dublin. The weather is as good as it can be here, everything is now green, there are still flowers everywhere and, the best of all, there is a “baby boom” in the city wildlife right now. After the long winter, there is new life everywhere.
The best place in the city to enjoy this is Phoenix Park. I have already shown you some photographs of its amazing fauna. Besides the animals in Dublin zoo, there is an impressive herd of around 450 fallow deer roaming freely in the park. In this old post I showed you how they looked in winter, with their brown winter coat. Right now, the deer are in their summer coat, chestnut brown with white motles. The bucks have lost their big antlers and are growing new ones for the next mating season in autumn. And some of the does are pregnant, so the little fawns will be born in a few days. It’s a pleasure to spend the sunny summer afternoons watching them in the big meadow or the forest areas of Phoenix Park.
The deers are beautiful and impressive but there is more wildlife in Dublin. New born ducklings and cygnets can be found in the lakes and ponds of the park. I even found one of my favourite animals! The mandarin duck! Although this time the pair was in their “eclipse plumage”. Now I’m looking forward to see them again in autumn, when they have their impressive colourful plumage again.