Migrant birds give climate change clues

ON mornings after the storms, when the sun is bright and warm and the tide is far out, the floor of the bay stretches away in miles of mud and sand, dissected by narrow channels reflecting the blue of the sky.

Out on the flats, birds in their thousands forage. In the channels, widgeon, teal and mallard cruise sedately, shelduck and black and white Brent geese bustle in busy coveys along the edges.

This year has seen visits to Courtmacsherry Bay of species that are rarely seen here. Whether their presence augers a new climate regime, or that this is simply an exceptional year, is hard to say.

But the come-and-go of migrant birds in our own small patch gives us a clue of climate changes in the wider world, and continents away.

The wet bay gleams; waders stalk the edges as the tide comes in.

Black-tailed godwit make stately high-stepping progress, their pink beaks dipping and lifting, sometimes seemingly in synchronised dance; little dunlin skitter about the sand like wound-up toys; solitary redshank patrol, and shriek as if they’ve been goosed when one gets anywhere near them, alarming all around and sending every feathered thing winging away in panic, although there is no threat at all.

Greenshank, their cousins, are less nervy, and prefer to forage where water half immerses their green legs, rather than in the bare mud.

Where wrack-covered rocks are scattered, turnstones busily upend the weed and small stones, chasing sandhoppers, small crabs, and shrimp. Grey plover are few and feed alone, their soft plumage and large eyes making them strangely endearing.

Curlew and whimbrel, often with a shifty air about them, walk, then pause, then probe the mud, then walk again — the tips of their long, curved beaks are hinged to enable them to capture and scoff invertebrates three inches down in the mud. Theirs are the most haunting cries of the estuary. Redshanks screech, oystercatchers cheep and bicker with their bright red beaks, geese honk, but it is the lonely call of the curlew that stirs the soul.

Lapwings, sometimes known as “pee-wits”, are named for their call; in Irish they are “philibíns, also onomatopoeic. They feed in flocks; when the tide is full-in, they frequent the bayside fields. In the sunlight, the black-and-white markings on their faces and their sleek black topknots give them a Chinese look.

There are herons ranged along the shallows; they now have pigtails, called aigrettes, lengthening as the mating season nears; when alarmed, they raise them in crests.

As they come into breeding colours, they are stunningly lovely.

We are privileged with close-up views — our ‘adopted’ heron still arrives on the deck outside our kitchen window, almost daily.

Egrets, snipe, knot, ringed plover are all present here now, in midwinter, but others are notable by their absence. On this bay, we have had no golden plover for some winters past, where once we would have flocks of 6,000. This year, a January count of all species, undertaken by Peter and Fran Wolstenholme on behalf of BirdWatch Ireland, came to 5,000 birds. A count of 11 snipe was considered notable; in the late 1990s, I would see two dozen at a single roost.

But we have had unusual birds. Shoveller ducks, like big mallard, two surf scoters from North America, and a few scaup, a species not normally seen here, two great crested grebe, a Slavonian grebe, an Iceland gull, and 25 Great Northern divers fishing just off the pier.

On the land, redwing thrushes and fieldfares are notably scarce.

A holly bush in the village is laden with berries; in a hard winter all would have been long since gobbled by these winter visitors arriving ravenous after their 1,000 mile flight from Scandinavia and Russia.

There, the weather has been so mild that they have had no reason to leave. In Sweden, bluebells and daffodils are already blooming.

Especially good news was the barn owl spotted between Clonakilty and Courtmacsherry by Adrian Gannon, a reliable witness.

I remember as a child, sitting in the back of the Ford Prefect as we drove home from the seaside on summer nights, my father pointing out the big, white birds as they flew across country roads almost free of traffic. There were many.

Now, the sighting of a single owl is an event.