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INTRODUCTION

A Nation and its Birds

By retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, rivers, butterflies … one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable

— George Orwell

Above, the pale March sky is flecked with clouds. Beneath the bridge I stand on, the aqua green water of the Leitrim River glistens. Gorse bushes coming into bloom spring from its banks. They add a rich yellow to the scene. The scent of the gorse, like coconut, lingers on the breeze. I expect a jogger to come pounding across the rusty iron bridge at any second. But if only for a moment, there’s not a soul to be seen.

During blissful vignettes like this, I like to close my eyes, and sink into the other senses. As I do so, the colourful palette before me wipes to crimson, and I let my mind drift to the sounds of the scene. I unplug my headphones, and flick my phone to silent. A faint rustle of the breeze resonates. From the nearby coast, the cry of a herring gull echoes. Much closer, a stonechat – they’re never far from gorse – gives off its distinctive weet-chat, like a whistle followed by two stones being smacked together. Were it not for the distant purr of a helicopter, there’d be no man-made noise whatsoever. I could be in an Ireland before (or after) man, instead of just ten minutes from my front door. Total immersion in nature.

It’s one of my favourite things to do with my spare time. In an age of constant beeps, by-the-minute updates, and a never-ending cavalcade of scandals and developments we have to stay abreast of, remaining attuned with nature, with organic sights and sounds, is a vital tonic for the soul. Many a stressful day or week, stuck in front of a computer or in a stuffy meeting room, has been salvaged or soothed by scenes like this. What makes it all the better is the company of creatures, great and small, adding dashes of movement to the portrait around me.

Of particular interest to me are the birds. I’ve been fascinated by birds since I was a child, when I crafted all manner of feeding contraptions from cardboard to tempt them to our back garden. Over time, my kit has grown more sophisticated, and my horizons have broadened beyond backyard visitors (not that they should ever be overlooked). When I’m at my desk, I often find myself yearning to be at an estuary or up a hill somewhere, looking for birds. They give you an excuse to get outdoors. I find myself poring through reports of the latest sightings, turning over logistics in my mind: where I’m going, how to get there, and what I hope to see when I arrive.

And yet, through all my excursions to wetlands, woods and cliffs near and far, there are still Irish species that have eluded me. Among them are the birds I will be covering in these pages; twelve species, each special in their own way. They include top predators of day and night; migrants who cross continents to be here; sea-going pirates; underhanded nest parasites; songsters of the high mountains; and ingenious forest dwellers – all of them beautifully adapted to vastly different lifestyles. In so doing, some of them have earned their way into Irish lore, a note in a rich ballad whose music I’ll strive to unwind.

I like to think it’s no surprise they’ve eluded me for so long. The twelve birds I will focus my search on for this book are not the easiest to see. Most of them are shy and wary. Some are highly localised; some need very specific conditions in which to flourish, conditions now found in only a few protected pockets across Ireland. Some are endangered – and still declining. And with some, it’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

Places. This will be a book about birds. But it will also be a book about places. Now, when we can travel the world with ease, the treasures on our own backdoor can so often be taken for granted.

I’m proof of this. I’ve been to more than a dozen countries across three continents. And yet I’ve never wound my way through the scree-covered mountains of Kerry, seen the Connemara countryside in all its summer glory or hiked the barren islands of Donegal. This book is my attempt to rectify that, to get to know my country, its landscapes, its history and its birds that little bit better. With luck I can inspire you to explore and savour the wild spaces around you as well.

It’s not just new places I’ll be striving to see. Of equal import will be seeing old locations, scenes from a childhood long gone, and what creatures my eyes and ears (that bit more attuned to nature) can now discern there. For the beauty of birding is that you don’t always have to go far to find wonders. Species you’ve never seen before can suddenly turn up in your own county, your own town, your own patch. Or maybe they were there all along, evading your detection.

Modernity suits some birds, but not others. Many of the birds that will be covered in this book have made their homes in areas people have barely touched – remote islands, rugged valleys and slopes. Others still find their shelter amid the desolation left by humans in retreat (abandoned farm buildings and weather-beaten outhouses so often make ideal nest sites) or in the few places where traditional lifestyles still hold sway. It’s also, therefore, no surprise that some of the locations I’ll have to travel to (with a few notable exceptions, such as Dublin’s Phoenix Park) are about as far from the major population centres as it’s possible to be in Ireland. It’s a journey that will take me to all four provinces, across barriers of language, culture and history, and through virtually every habitat type this island has to offer.

Places are a reflection of their history, much as you are the person your experiences have moulded you into. This is something I’ve always loved about Ireland, and about being Irish. With few exceptions, it’s hard not to get a feel for history everywhere you go. In some places, it seems to hang in the air around you. So it’s instructive to me to see how these birds fit in amongst all this, their thread weaving through the rich tapestry that makes up our changing landscapes. Their fate is so often reflected in the human history of the regions they call home.

I’m not naïve enough to think that showing up in the right spot at the right time entitles me to tick every bird off this list. Birdwatching is rarely an exact science. You can traverse the country to show up at the right spot in the right season, only for your quarry to manifest back where you started from. Nature rarely conforms to the vanities of man. That’s one of its great allures. Plenty of times I’ve found myself wondering why I left a warm bed on a cold winter’s morning to go exploring a windswept wetland or forest pelted with rain. But, if you’re treated to a glimpse of a new or elusive species, however brief, you forget any hardship that led you to it.

One thing I’ve learned from my birdwatching sojourns near and far is that birds are vessels for a kind of lasting happiness that can be hard to find in other avenues of life. Nights out are great fun in the moment, but the memories soon fade with sobriety. The joy of immersing yourself in nature, of finding a new or rare bird, never leaves you. You can still recall every sensation months or years later.

Birdwatching harkens back to the primal state of man: stalking prey, zeroing in on a distant target, trying to get close without inciting alarm. It is perhaps this ancestral desire to track and discover that makes it so compelling. Only now, the hunt doesn’t end in blood. An appreciation of the bird in its environs is reward enough, a photo perhaps the only trophy.

In searching for birds rarer now than they once were, perhaps there is some way to arrest the ancestral disconnect that so plagues us in a world obsessed with the here and now. In the croak of the corncrake or the shriek of the barn owl, I’ll be hearing sounds much more common generations ago; an aural window into a time now gone, like a song never committed to paper.

There will be frustrations. There will be failures. But it’s not all about finding a target at the expense of everything else. It’s a journey to be enjoyed for its own sake.

Birds have seen better days in Ireland. While awareness of their plight is at an all-time high, and sympathy strong, many species are now in retreat. Of the twelve I cover in this book, all but one (the jay) are in some degree of trouble in Ireland (though the great skua is a nascent breeder here). Five of them (the barn owl, the grey partridge, the red grouse, the corncrake and the ring ouzel) are red listed by Birdwatch Ireland, the highest category of conservation concern.

The plight of the birds I will cover in this book is compounded by a few themes they share in common. Among them are their nesting habits. Of the twelve, only the jack snipe doesn’t breed in Ireland. Of the eleven that do, most nest on the ground. In a country where more and more of our wilderness is chewed up by farming, urbanisation or just under foot, this leaves them acutely vulnerable.

The erosion of montane habits and onset of mechanised farming in particular have taken a heavy toll. This is not to denigrate farmers, living or dead. As someone with strong rural roots, it’s likely my own forebears contributed, in their ignorance, to some of the changes that have afflicted Ireland’s birds. They were only doing what they knew to be right, trying their best to eke prosperity from the land. Now, with the knowledge we have, it’s our duty to help balance the needs of farmer and bird to ensure both have a home in twenty-first-century Ireland.

We relish our image as a green island replete with the wonders of nature. In truth, the pockets of wilderness we have left are still receding, and many of them are deeply degraded. Our seas and rivers are far from the wellsprings of purity they once were. Even the enclaves of forest that still cling to hillsides across the country are so often comprised of ecological aliens: trees that belong half the world away, which would not be here if not for the profit of man. You can feel this as you walk among them; they’re dead zones, draining the soil of its fecundity as their canopies strangle the sunlight needed to sustain an undergrowth.

Our landscapes have also largely been shorn of the large mammals that once called them home. Wild boar, wolves and bears have all gone. Even the cherished red deer we have left have largely been sullied by the genes of the invasive sika.

This should make us cherish the avifauna, the birds we have left, all the more. The abundance of birds we have makes them an ideal conduit to the natural world, the space beyond beeps, car engines and keyboard strokes. For every species of mammal in Ireland (on both land and sea) at least five species of bird have been recorded here. This diversity is what guarantees a unique experience almost every time you set off birding. Even at my most well-explored spots I still encounter rarities; birds blown off course, or perhaps stopping over on a deliberate detour, stocking up on food before resuming a long migration north or south.

Ireland is beautifully positioned in this regard – at all times of year. Like an island trading post growing rich on the flow of silks and gold from one continent to another, we’re perfectly situated for a host of seasonal birds on their biannual journeys from Eurasia to Africa. Our avifauna changes complexion throughout the year, from the vast hosts of ducks and waders we welcome each winter to the magnificent seabird colonies that fill our cliffs in summer. Among these seasonal stopovers are some of the birds I will search for in this book. Even some resident birds, like the merlin and hen harrier, change their habits with the seasons, descending to the lowlands where they can be more easily seen.

Because of this, a journey in search of birds lets you relish Ireland throughout the year. My travels will see me looking for birds in all shades of weather. Easy are the pleasures of a sun-drenched summer day. But there is a more esoteric beauty to be had in a landscape dripping from winter rain, darkened by brooding clouds above.

As a boy I would go on adventures looking for a particular bird, sometimes with success, very often without. Like many people, I fell more out of love with the natural world as a teenager, when other passions (music, football, females) bloomed, only to return to it with a new vigour as an adult.

Now, my desire to uncover new, unseen inhabitants of wild spaces is stronger than ever. This book is, in a way, the fulfilment of boyhood vision. But with the onset of adulthood, you can indulge childhood enthusiasms to a degree never before possible. My previous expeditions were limited to the forest behind my house and grandparents’ gardens. Now I have the whole of Ireland laid out in front of me, ready to explore one valley, forest or country road at a time.