Choosing our avian mascots

IN 1961 Nelle Harper Lee, ‘the Jane Austen of Southern Alabama’, won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

The book’s spectacular success brought the name of this American songbird to the attention of the world. The hero gives his children air rifles for Christmas. They can shoot ‘all the blue jays they want’, he tells them, but ‘it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird’. Harper Lee named him Atticus Finch; birds symbolise innocence and decency in this tale of racially-motivated injustice. The mocking bird sings loudly, repeating phrases, (just as song thrushes do in Ireland) and it mimics other birds, mammals and man-made sounds. Much loved, it’s the official mascot of Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Texas.

In America, every state has its representative bird. What if each Irish county were to choose one? Dublin, despite its multitude of people, wouldn’t have a problem; brent geese, rather scarce a few decades ago, fly daily over the city. Once confined to estuaries, they frequent parks and sports grounds up to several kilometres inland; their little beaks can deal only with closely-cropped swards.

Another goose, the Greenland whitefront, could carry the flag for Wexford, one of Ireland’s leading ‘bird counties’. Half the world’s population of this subspecies spend the winter on the slob-lands north and south of Wexford Harbour.

Geese, however, won’t do for Cork: they boycott our largest county, although the reason why they do so is difficult to fathom. Cape Clear is Mecca to Irish bird-watchers; more exotic avian visitors are seen there than anywhere else in the country. However, we can’t have a foreign vagrant, however glamorous, representing Cork. Visiting the estuaries of the Douglas and the Lee over Christmas, I was impressed by the flocks of waders and ducks. Up to 26,000 birds have been counted in mid-winter and for one species, the black-tailed godwit, the area is classified as ‘internationally important’. This has to be Cork’s iconic bird.

If the salmon is the perfect fish, in form and function, the godwit is the archetypal shore-bird. Long-billed and long legged, in summer, the breast face and neck are orange, although the garb worn here in winter is a sober brownish-grey. A very rare breeder in Ireland, our black-tails nest in Iceland. According to Wetlands International, there were about 47,000 there in 2006. At least a third of Iceland’s godwits visit Ireland each winter. You find them, not only on estuaries where they roost in large flocks, but also on wet grassland and callows. That the bird is not well known may be due to its awkward name. ‘Wit’, in old English, meant ‘creature’ and ‘god’ meant ‘good’; good to eat, that is.

The county’s neighbour, Kerry, is spoiled for choice when it comes to electing an avian TD. Little Skellig has one of the world’s largest Atlantic gannet colonies; 30,000 pairs nest there. Nobody knows how many storm petrels breed on the Blaskets; these islands may be the world stronghold of the species. The county acquired another celebrity when the white-tailed eagle was reintroduced.

Donegal had a golden eagle reintroduction. It also supports two of our rarest breeding birds, the red-throated diver and the Whooper swan. Mayo too has its celebrity; Leach’s petrel nests deep in holes on the dramatic Stags of Broadhaven, which protrude like giant teeth from tempestuous seas off Benwee Head. Wicklow might opt for the red kite, although it also has wood-warblers and woodpeckers.

Coastal counties generally have no shortage of mascot candidates. The choice is more limited inland. A few pairs of quail visit Kildare, where they breed occasionally. Offaly’s Boora Bog supports the last of our partridges. Fermanagh and Cavan could share the garden warbler; this little visitor from Africa is a scarce breeder in both counties.

Poor old Monaghan, however, may have to settle for the domestic chicken; it has several million of them. It’s not a wild bird but there’s a precedent; the Rhode Island red represents America’s smallest state. We shouldn’t despise the chicken; it’s the world’s most successful species but, if a mocking bird were here, it would surely lampoon Monaghan’s favourite!