Heron watch

IT’S all happening in the heronry, and birds are already sitting on eggs.

I’ve found three nests in the woodland below my house, and six in a wood near Timoleague in West Cork. The nests, 80 feet up in the still-leafless trees, sway precariously when the wind blows, although sited in the more sheltered corners of the wood.

Some are alarmingly flimsy, especially those built by birds breeding for the first time, and it is easy to see how a chick could topple over the edge. This was the fate of ‘our’ heron, the fledgling we found, flightless and abandoned, under a tree two years ago. We reared it as a wild bird, never handling it beyond the first few weeks, but it still comes to visit us regularly.