Outlook is bleak for the comeback kid

THE area of North County Dublin where I live used to be farmed.

In recent years, however, fertile coastal land has been disappearing under concrete. The last of the local farmers have sold out and, while the lands await ‘development’, large fields are lying fallow.

In the brief interregnum, grasses and wild flowers have free rein; the hawthorn and elder bushes in the hedgerows are blossoming, the skylarks and meadow pipits are back in force, reed buntings are nesting and hares, not seen in a decade, are staging a cautious comeback. Now, whitethroats have arrived and a pair are nesting.