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Bill Oddie Goes Wild
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When to visit and what to see |
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Where to go |
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Get more information on some of the animals featured
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Read Bill Oddie's top tips for finding wildlife
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Kerry has beautiful scenery, well-preserved monuments and, for most of the year, few people. It is a great location for birdwatchers, who come to see the coastal seabird colonies - vast colonies of gannets, storm petrels, Manx shearwaters, puffins, razorbills and guillemots. The best time to visit is June to August, when everything breeds and blooms. Kerry is Ireland's premier tourist county, particularly popular with US visitors so the 'Ring of Kerry' can become very congested. Towns like Dingle and Killarney get busy but when Bill visited in July, wildlife was easy to find and crowds easy to avoid.
During autumn or spring, Kerry's headlands and islands offer unexpected thrills. They are first landfall for exotic migrants from the Americas, and other visitors blown off course.
Offshore, whales and dolphins are easier to see than almost anywhere around the British Isles and otters, grey and common seals are widespread.
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Killarney National Park
An area of outstanding natural beauty covering 10,000 hectares of mountain, woods, moorland and lakes, overshadowed by MacGillicuddy's Reeks - the highest mountain range in Ireland. 141 species of bird have been recorded in the park, it has the last wild herd of red deer in Ireland and the flora is outstanding.
Skellig Rocks
The combination of staggering location, fascinating history and unsurpassed wildlife makes a trip to the Skellig Rocks unmissable. Stark and beautiful, these two isolated crags of 350 million year old sandstone, rising like volcanoes, are eight miles out into the Atlantic and home to 23,000 pairs of gannets.
Dingle Peninsula
The most northerly of the Kerry peninsulas pointing into the Atlantic, and most westerly land in Europe, Dingle Peninsula has some of the most picturesque coastal scenery and is great for wildlife. It is famous for its resident dolphin, Fungie, who accompanies boats and swimmers in the bay.
Bray Head
Visit the area around Bray Head to see the greatest population densities of choughs in Western Europe.
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