ON Saint Brigid’s day, February 1, we passed the first threshold for spring. At this time our pagan ancestors celebrated the Celtic festival of Imbolc in honour of the powerful goddess Brid, who represented rebirth and new life.
She was highly regarded by the druids, as she brought fertility to the land and animals, while blessing the work of farmers at the start of the new agricultural year. Bonfires were lit in her honour and great festivities took place including the ritual of pouring milk onto the earth to facilitate a return to its spring abundance.
With the passage of time, and the advent of Christianity, the historical figure of Saint Brigid became associated with the season and the feast day, Lá Fhéile Bhride, some believing she converted Brid’s temple to a Christian monastery.
While February can still exert a cold, unpredictable grip on the natural world, the month is unable to prevent the urgings of spring amongst our birds, with the tit family, thrush, dunnock and others, all performing early versions of their songs in response to increasing light and a desire to claim prime breeding territories.
Grey herons will arrive at their heronries in February to begin repairing the previous year’s nest and the roguish magpie will also have begun building or restoring its nest.
I’ve watched a lot of magpies lately. Intelligent like all corvids, their black and white plumage often presenting a blue-green sheen in proper light. Their nests are impressive dome shaped structures with a side entrance and a mud cup inside, an intimate form, which legend says they shared with the wren.
Although maligned for their thieving, raucous behaviour around humankind, magpies perform an important ecological role, feeding on insects, small rodents and carrion, naturally controlling the build-up of pests and organic debris, in rural and urban environments.
Despite this symbiotic relationship, the magpie is still not totally trusted, as evidenced by the well of lore associated with the bird, much of which centres on the ill omen after seeing a single magpie.
Many, on meeting the bird, raise their cap to it or even salute it to avoid bad luck. Seeing a lone magpie before going out to fish was considered very unlucky by fishermen. These superstitions find refuge in the opening two lines of the well-known rhyme, “One for sorrow/Two for joy”, or the alternative version, “One for anger/Two for mirth”...
Although maligned for their thieving, raucous behaviour around humankind Magpies, perform an important ecological role, naturally controlling the build-up of pests and organic debris, in rural and urban environments
Now common and widespread, it is believed Pica pica first arrived in Ireland in 1676 when a single flock was blown across the Irish Sea by a strong easterly wind, landing in Co Wexford.
Various authors noted its absence here before that, with Robert Payne writing in A Briefe Description of Ireland: made in this year (1589) that in Ireland, “There is neither mol, pye, nor carren crow”.
‘Snag breac’, pied magpie, is a common Irish name for the bird, but alternatives include ‘Cabaire breac’, the pied babbler, referencing its constant chattering, used in the Aran Islands, and ‘Pocaire na mbánta’, hopper of the fields, favoured in other parts of the country.
A noisy and impish bird, the magpie retains a grudging respect from Irish people even, in the wake of words from one of Cromwell’s colonels, noted in George Griffith’s, Chronicles of the County Wexford (1877).
Solomon Richards, living in Wexford in 1682, commented that magpies: “Have bred and are so increased that they are in every wood and village in the county. My own garden is constantly frequented by them. The natural Irish much detest them.” He added they, “shall never be rid of the English while these magpies remain”.
