Bay birds get the cold shoulder

WHEN I saw it, I found it hard to believe my eyes, an area the size of two football pitches covered in ice on Courtmacsherry Bay in west Cork.

That was last week. I’m told it’s happened only four times in 40 years. In the big freeze of 1979, ice stretched from one side of the bay to the other, covering many square miles.

Last week, wader birds stood in groups of 10 or 20, like lags in a prison yard, featheres ruffled against the cold, wings wrapped around themselves so far as that is possible. They looked frozen, these godwits, greenshanks and redshanks. They nest in Iceland in spring and summer: after breeding they head back to mild Ireland, the Gulf Stream coasts, the soft mists and temperate rains.