I HAVE a fondness for W. B. Yeats's poem The Ballad of Father Gilligan, the rhythmic story of an exhausted priest, Peter Gilligan, tending to his sick or dying "flock" who were either "in their beds/Or under green sods lay".
One evening, worn out by his continuous journeys on horseback across, "rocky lane and fen" to give the last rites to his dying parishioners, he finally succumbs to the tiredness and "leaning on the chair/He prayed and fell asleep".
When he woke hours later "at the time of sparrow chirp", he jumped up, realising he had forgotten to visit an ailing man the evening before and so, hurried to the house.
On arrival the sick man's wife expressed surprise saying, "Father! you come again!", before telling him that her husband had died shortly after he had visited earlier.
The priest suddenly realised, a merciful God had, "Sent one of His great angels down" to take his place and help him in his need, ensuring the sick man had been attended.
I thought of the poem recently, when rising at that early hour, Yeats calls "sparrow chirp", to accompany my sick dog into the garden.
Dawn was just breaking around 4am, encouraged by the opening notes of birdsong, welcoming the new day.
This in-between time is also a moment when, Yeats declares, "the moths came once more", something I would soon witness.
Robbie's sickness occurs more frequently now, perhaps because of advancing years. He treats his upset tummy, with the familiar method of self-cure, grass eating to stimulate the process of emptying his stomach of irritants and toxins.
This may happen several times before his system rebalances. While he grazed and gorged, my eye caught sight of a feisty robin thrusting himself towards thick low growth before retreating with a struggling moth in his beak.
As he flew back to his perch, the moth muscled its way from the grip of the bird, momentarily escaping before being snatched again in flight.
This time the robin made it to the rowan branch, but the moth, still flapping vigorously, broke free again, tempting me to intervene to save the insect from further distress.
Alas, the robin, with typical brashness, made one more swoop, this time pinning the moth to the ground and finally stilling its grey rounded wings.
Nature's mini battle over, the adult robin fed its fresh kill to a fledged bird nearby.
Knowing there were three young robins in the garden from the previous day, I realised any attempt by me to interrupt this natural parenting exercise would have been ill judged.
Experts have recorded around 1,500 different species of moths in Ireland. Many of these sacred and powerful creatures of folklore are day fliers and, contrary to popular belief, are often brightly coloured like our butterflies.
Also like the latter they are important indicator species for the health of our environment and essential pollinators. Although secretive and well camouflaged, moths are an important food source for birds and bats, as was evident with my robin. The victim's relatively large wingspan suggests it was one of our macro-moths.
After Robbie had disgorged the grassy mixture from his stomach, and before returning inside, I was treated to another delight of nature - the unmistakable sound of a song thrush hammering its captured snail over a stone, his 'anvil', smashing the shell to feed on the snail itself or share with another hungry mouth nearby.
With Robbie's discomfort now eased, I quietly said to myself, yes, much better where possible, to let nature run its course.
