No set course for denizens of the deep
Usually upright, green and shining, they loll from the ditches like the tongues of patients in a fever ward.
Last week, I wrote about the extraordinary barnacles that make a buoy for themselves on which to sail the Seven Seas. I also mentioned gooseneck barnacles, a species which attach themselves to flotsam and jetsam.
Shortly afterwards, on RTÉ television news, I saw close-up pictures of a small boat called Little Murka, on which an adventurer had tried to cross the Atlantic. He had capsized and had been rescued, leaving his small craft to the mercy of the sea. It washed up 11 months later on the Donegal coast, festooned with thousands of gooseneck barnacles.
The 14-foot converted dinghy was to have been pulled across the Atlantic by a large kite affixed to the superstructure; a marvellous idea in these times when oil is running short.
Little Murka survived hurricanes Irene, Katrina, Maria and Ophelia, but finally succumbed to the tender mercies of Rita, which capsized her in 60-knot winds and massive waves hundreds of miles from land. The intrepid sailor, Dom Mee, spent five hours in the water and 24 hours in the semi-submerged craft before rescue came. He left aboard a container ship, and the boat, with its seed barnacles attached, sailed on to arrive offshore at Malin Head.
The barnacles, one may safely assume, didn’t mind where they went. Human designs can be frustrated but nature has no aspirations, apart from survival and reproduction.
Meanwhile, more denizens of the deep arrived on the Clare coast. My editor tells me that, recently, when he was fishing at Doughtmore, south of Lahinch, after some days of extraordinary ground swell, the sand was littered with creatures “like vegetable starfish”, with globular centres ranging in circumference from that of a grape to a tennis ball.
They had an outer skin arranged in layers, like a dried tulip or daffodil bulb. He had never seen the likes before, nor had his companion, who had fished the beaches of the west for decades. What were they? If you know, please drop me a line.
We are hoping a few may still be lying about, and a photograph can be obtained. I only hope they weren’t onions, washed in from Brittany. Have you noticed how often you ind old onions on the beach?
I am, however, assured that the creatures were living things, or things that had once lived.
My editor is well versed in flora and fauna, and could not have made such a mistake.
From Dublin, I receive news that conkers, which normally mature in October, littered the footpaths of Wilton Park in July; drought may be the cause, or their exposure to daylight or street-light all 24 hours a day.
Blackberries at Ringsend peaked at the end of July, a month early; great crested grebes — not normally so visible until October — were swimming off the South Wall last week.
Dublin elderberries are already turning black.
As one of my correspondents notes, perhaps this winter is going to be different: “In recent years, there have been no seasonal distinctions — no such thing as putting away summer clothes in autumn or winter clothes in spring. Is nature indicating things will change?”
Meanwhile, in our sunlit garden, we watch the courtship dance of the fritillary butterflies. As the female flies on a direct course, its suitor flies around it, in circles.
Love is in the air, and thoughts of the coming winter are unlikely to be troubling their butterfly brains.
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