Living on the harvest of the bay

A GREY adolescent seal and two pure white adult spoonbills in front of Timoleague Abbey in the falling light of a mid-January Sunday were only two of the delights of west Cork this winter.

I’m glad I wasn’t premature in fleeing to the sun.

Earlier that day, I walked the strand at Courtmacsherry and saw thousands of sea potatoes washed up: their delicate, near-spherical, air-light shells drifting on the sea’s surf or lying in drifts where they had been blown across the sand.