And so it begins..

Hello
 My name is Sean O'Callaghan and I have created this blog to achieve a very simple goal, to reveal Kerry's wilder side (hint in the title!). The county of Kerry is famous for it's sporting triumphs and stunning landscape's which has made this rugged area of the west coast world famous with it's varied vistas ranging from rolling mountains to jagged coastal cliffs with golden miles of beaches in between, but amongst all of this natural splender a major component has been overlooked almost entirely... the species that live on and off the landscapes we are so familiar with.
 I am currently in the build up to my leaving cert and throughout my school years I have only once been exposed to this counties multitude of species other than the stereotypical "nature table" which would consist of various leaves and the odd feather that most teachers wouldn't have a clue whats on display other than Oak leaves, Horse Chestnuts etc. But coming back to the time I was directly taught about the wild animals of Kerry, it was second class in primary and we had our own nature copy, our lessen consisted of us taking down a brief overview of the animal we were looking at which would include it's diet, where it lived, what it looked like and so on, we always finished with my favourite part.. drawing the animal and although both our attempts and the teachers were crude at best, the fact that I had an image to go with the information we had meticulously taken down and for me this made the lessen come to life and feel "real". Now even though this direct approach did introduce us to a somewhat unknown subject matter our teacher never strayed from the woodland critters that most of us would think of when the word 'Wildlife' is mentioned these included Badgers, Hedgehogs, Foxes, Bats and the animal synonymous with Killarney, the Red Deer.Now bear in mind my primary school was literally across the road from the countries oldest and most varied wild areas Killarney National Park we never once were brought on a "world famous" 'nature walk' we had become familiar with as a means to have an easy day while we were brought around a convents grounds when we were younger!. The teacher's tendency to select these animals limited our understanding of the species that share this county with us, but to be fair perhaps the most interesting species that frequent the county have only been noted in the past number of years, these are of course our marine-mega fauna be it the second largest fish in the world the Basking Shark or the largest of all animal's the Cetaceans (Whales,Dolphins and Porpoises) we have only begun to scratch the surface and so we live in very interesting times, since the eighties the only Cetacean associated with the county was Fungi, an adult Bottlenose dolphin now world famous with his own bustling tourist industry, but now the county is beginning to become known as a Whale hotspot with a year on year increase in large Whale activity around our inshore waters as our Whale population increases n the wake of the worldwide ban of commercial whaling, Humpback Whale numbers have increased greatly off of Kerry with Fin Whale's (the second largest living animal) following in toe.
 So to improve the general public's knowledge of  our wild neighbours and to boost the counties reputation on these wild matters in the wake of the deplorable actions of certain individuals in respect to the spate of White Tailed Sea Eagle poisonings in recent years and the callous case involving the Grey and Common Seal beheadings the county and it's people as a whole are and have been unfairly tainted with indiscriminate criticism which is mostly undeserving.
 This initiative will be a long term project of mine to both uncover a wild side all too often overlooked in the county and as a basis to show those outspoken and undisclosed critics of the county that we are not all mindless killers like they think, when in fact we value our natural heritage more than most we just don't express it as others would. I will achieve my aims through the use of my own knowledge of Cetaceans, White Tailed Sea Eagles, Killarney National Park and other areas I know well, I will also feature videos of the counties wild landscapes and inhabitants via youtube and in time I hope to build up a circle of experts to explore their own specific fields to add a varied depth on my future website which I hope will encompass all aspects of Kerry's truly Wilder Side.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, more will follow
Sean