Sunset over Lough Ennel in the Irish Midlands & My attempt to Capture a Murmuration
Lough Ennel in Co. Westmeath is a pretty unassuming lake in the Irish Midlands. It’s not particularly large by international standards, and if you were to ask the average person on the street here in Ireland, they’d probably tell you they’ve never heard of it. But recently it’s become somewhat famous because of a natural phenomenon that occurs there every evening during winter. A spectacular starling murmuration.
Obviously this isn’t new and it’s probably been going on for centuries. It was thrust into the public imagination when an award winning Irish photographer, James Crombie, captured a spectacular image of the formation and won Irish photographer of the year for it. He also recently published a book on the murmurations which is an amazing read.
My wife really wanted to see this happen in real life so, one Saturday a couple of weeks ago we set off on a quest to find them. There’s a couple of viewing spots around the lake, and we arrived early to try and scope them out first. Actually we arrived at one for lunch as it was by a nice hotel in the region which also happened to do a very nice carvery! We checked out the lake side there but figured it was too far away from where the action was. Here’s a few shots I took with my film camera (These are just low res lab scans)
There was another spot relatively nearby, so we ended up driving to that. It was a proper viewing area by the lake with plenty of parking spots. So we set up there and watched the sun going down as we waited. The murmuration normally takes place after sunset and as the sun got lower on the horizon more and more people started to arrive as well as a couple of wandering swans.
The sky turned purple, then bright orange and then a rich blue after the sun set. We secured our place by the shore and waited. Clearly Mr. Crombie’s book has put the place not the map because soon there were hundreds of people gathering here. It reminded me of the moving statues phenomenon from when I was a child. We were all standing there, staring at the sky, waiting for something to happen.
And then it started. What looked like a strange cloud on the horizon was moving and swirling. The 3d artist in me immediately thought: “ooo Fluid dynamics”. It was quite something to behold. Unfortunately it was pretty far away on the other side of the lake. I climbed back up the bank a bit to get a better look. I tried to get some video of the spectacle, but I didn’t really have the right lens to get a good shot with my camera (I don’t have a good telephoto lens for my Canon R6II yet). In fact I ended up mostly shooting video with my iPhone
I did get some photos but they’re nothing spectacular. It turns out a better spot is on the other side of the lake, although I’m not sure it’s as accessible.
Overall, it was an enjoyable trip and the sunset was fantastic. While I was disappointed we didn’t get any great photos of the murmuration itself, we really just wanted to see it. There was a real sense of community there too from all the people who turned up to watch.
Technical details:
- Camera: Canon R6II
- Lens: 24-105
- Processing: Lightroom