The mask of the merganser

I was invited to spend a weekend fishing on Lough Mask, based in the charming Co Galway village of Clonbur. I jumped at it because, despite a lifetime spent fishing all over the country, I had never fished for the famous wild brown trout of Mask.

On the first morning I clambered eagerly into the bow of a lake boat in Burke’s Harbour with a fly rod in my hand. I drank in the spectacular scenery as the boat motored out of the harbour and I spotted a large bird swimming low in the water in front of us. In the morning light it was just a dark silhouette, you couldn’t make out colours, and I assumed it was a cormorant. But as the boat got nearer it took to the air, flying very rapidly and showing flashes of white on the wings. It was no cormorant, it was a merganser.

It was an auspicious start to the day, to spot a beautiful bird that is rather rare and declining in numbers. It’s full name is the red-breasted merganser, one of the more stupid bird names as neither the male nor the female has a red breast.