I will take this column out on a cold day next January and recall the last day of August in Donegal. The sky is blue, the lanes are flanked by branches drooping under the weight of blackberries; stop and sample, and they are sweet and the juice stains your fingers blood red. Although it’s a sunny day here’s a nip in the air, the bay is calm but the Atlantic beyond is choppy with white horses racing towards the shore line.
Only weeks ago the hills were covered with purple rhododendron mixed with the butter yellow whins, now montbretia brightens the landscape, warm orange with some white cow parsley, leaves on the trees drifting down in the breeze all making a pretty picture.
The sun has warmed the grass and there’s a fresh smell in the air and in a delightful cameo a couple of days ago a young couple were married on the beach with six cows watching from the sidelines and there were dolphins in the bay on Saturday.
Was this the calm after the storm?
Last night the wind was whining round the house and the rain rattling on the windows, there was thunder and lightening and the flashes lit up the mountains and the sea like a huge spot light switching on and off and the peels of thunder were biblical. All gone by sunrise so I can sit here on this rock and listen to nature.
But There’s A Lot Missing
I haven’t heard one skylark although there are still a couple of swallows dipping and diving. Nor have I seen any gannets, so spectacular as they climb up into the sky then rocket down, streamlined body piercing the sea like diver Tom Daley in the Olympics.
The fish aren’t as plentiful according to local fishermen and lobsters don’t want to know. It ties in with the distressing news that five more sea birds are on the red list of failing numbers due to pollution, climate change and huge fishing trawlers meaning there aren’t the same food sources as before.
Sadly puffins are already in decline. I’ve only seen a colony of puffins once, when my friend John Lavery took me across to the bottom of the Slieve League cliffs and these little clowns of God were ducking and diving, not one bit scared of the boat bobbing amongst them. It was a memorable morning and a sobering thought that today the numbers are down by 50%.
It was in Donegal late one evening when we found a tiny bird sheltering under the car. The children gently brought it into the house, it was exhausted and we kept it safe overnight. It was small and black with webbed feet and there was excitement in the village when it turned out to be a storm petrel; not known to come inland, they even feed on the wing. However, there’s not much chance of finding one these days.
It was an experience to sail to the Bass Rock off the coast of North Berwick in western Scotland some years ago and see the world’s largest colony of northern gannets; since then avian bird flu decimated the numbers, down by 25%. The rock is volcanic, therefore black to the eye but in this case white with the birds, their chicks and their droppings. I hear the numbers are climbing again but it will be a long time before the figure reaches previous levels of over 150,000.
British Trust for Ornithology survey
Apparently we might well be waving goodbye to the common gull and the elegant Arctic tern; the findings of the 2023 census, the biggest for 20 years, shows that 62% of sea birds are in decline. On land, of the 245 farmland, woodland and garden birds, 75 are now on the red list.
I hope I’m spared to sit on this rock and cogitate in 12 months’ time. Please let it be positive.
Shopping For Love
What’s this all about? Upside down pineapples! People are talking about this secret code to find love, I thought it was a lovely idea because, thanks to Covid and working from home, young people have not been meeting one another to form relationships and apparently dating sites are less popular. So some bright spark thought up a plan that supermarkets would be a great venue for forming friendships.
This is now catching on. Go shopping for your pineapple, put it in your trolley upside down and if there is another pineapple person they’ll bash into you and the rest is a mystery. In my innocence I thought this was a great idea until someone pointed out this wasn’t a friendship plan but a much more personal and physical arrangement. Pineapples are now off my list, upside down or not.
