Ibis gradually winging its way to Ireland

In 1996, Pat Smiddy and Oran O’Sullivan predicted that the little egret would soon breed in Ireland. A year later, a dozen pairs nested at a heronry in County Waterford.

The egrets never looked back; they are in every coastal county now and in some inland ones as well.

In the current edition of Wings, BirdWatch Ireland’s magazine, Dick Coombes makes a similar, if more tentative, prediction about another wetland bird.