Early spring breakthrough

The otter that rose from the waters of the River Suir at Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, made my wife jump.

She was walking on the edge of the riverside path, part of the East Munster Way, when it surfaced all but under her feet. She called out and I rushed to join her.

If there had been an otter, it was gone. But what appeared to be a flat, black strap was protruding from the trailing water-weed and drifting with it in the current. It looked like the tail of an enormous eel — the fact that I’d caught eels in the Suir as a child, with a cork as a float and a worm as bait, might have brought this to mind.

Then, a sudden flurry of mud and an otter rose with a mud-caked face a couple of feet away from us. It was gone in a second but five yards out, its head poked above the water and it regarded us for half a minute before heading upriver in a series of graceful glides, surfacing and disappearing like a porpoise or a dolphin in the sea.

Further along the path, we came upon a notice board about otter conservation, and information about the local otters which have, apparently, a holt on the opposite bank. They are, likely, used to passersby on the lovely East Munster Way.

Despite the sometimes unpleasant weather, spring is making every effort to arrive early, it seems. On Jan 10, I was surprised to see, in the headlights of the car, a sweep of wild garlic in flower (triquetrous garlic: the stems are three-cornered) on the roadside near Ballinspittle, Co Cork. I saw more tentative blossoms last week on a byroad on west Cork’s Seven Heads.

‘Our’ heron, always wild and never handled since it was a fledgling, comes less often to the yard for food. I think love is in the air — herons mate very early — and on January 17, another heron accompanied it but stayed high in the trees above.

My friend, Mr Hanly, who, with his wife, supplies it with a fish when it knocks at his door in our absence, has noticed herons building on the trees beneath which our “Ron” (as my son’s partner dubbed it) was found, fallen from the nest, on March 15 2011. He saw a heron carrying a large twig, almost a branch, in its beak, but couldn’t determine if it was ‘our’ bird or not.

Another pal of mine was standing on Courtmacsherry pier enjoying the view when the silence was interrupted by the distant baying of foxhounds. He paid no attention; there are various hunts in the area although the hunters assure me that to catch a fox is by far the exception rather than the rule.

In any case, as he turned for home, a fine fox, in full russet trim and sporting a fine bush, came running down the pier towards him. It passed him, unafraid, and nimbly nipped down the slipway onto the foreshore mud; the tide was well out. He watched as it took to the water, swimming and wading the narrow channel to a sandbank some fifty yards from the shore, the bank on which the summer Courtmacsherry Sand Races (for horses) are held.

There, it nonchalantly cantered off up the sand into the distance. It would, of course, have drowned its scent as it crossed the channel, leaving the hounds flummoxed. Clever fox. It’s no wonder we see so many hounds wandering the road, seemingly without a scent to follow.

* Killian Mullarney, an Irish illustrator known for the superb quality of his work, is to give a talk entitled The Art of Bird Identification — A 40-year perspective on birding and field guides at the Cork International Airport Hotel on Friday at 7pm. The illustrated talk begins at 8pm., followed by Q&A and the book signing. Entry for BirdWatch Ireland members is €5, for non-members €7. Children are free, and Mr Mullarney is generously waiving his fee and the funds raised from tickets and raffle sales will go to wild bird education and conservation projects in Co Cork.