A recent family holiday to Ireland gave me the opportunity to see some new birds, and to also reflect on the differences between the two countries and landscapes.
Winter of course is a pretty rugged time to go – the temperatures moved between minus 3 and 6 degrees Celsius, and there was only around 8 hours daylight each day. Most days were overcast and the ambient light level was very low by Australian standards. Still none of this dimmed our spirits, and with my wife (an Irish ex-pat) and four children we set about seeing as much as we could.
The focus was on catching up with family and friends, and seeing the odd tourist site (Blarney Castle, Killarney National Park and Fota Wildlife Park). But wherever you go there was always green fields and birds to see. The thing that strikes you first in the rural landscape is the hedgerows and stonewalls – some hundreds of years old – which go right up to the edge of the narrow winding roadways. It’s an environment that’s been under agriculture for thousands of years. As attractive as it was with the rolling green hills and stone buildings, there’s very little of what we’d call bush. In fact just under 1% of Ireland is National Park. There are of course rivers, inlets and some other forests – but nearly everything you see is either rural farmland or urban centres – be they villages or cities.
It’s an extremely modified environment and in stark contrast to what we enjoy in our local area. The bird life there reflects this highly modified environment as well. Corvids (various crow species) are in over-abundance and are far and away the most common type of bird we saw. They have adapted very well to both urban and agricultural areas – principally due to their high intelligence. There are four species of crows that we saw – sometimes in their hundreds. Ravens are perhaps most similar to our crows, Rooks are notable for their massive heavy bill, Jackdaws on the other hand have tiny short bills and are often found amongst the rock work of old buildings, and Hooded crows are a mixture of grey and black, unlike any of our corvids.
In a great display of their intelligence we witnessed Hooded crows fetching mussels from kelp at low tide, then flying some twenty feet in the air and dropping them on to a hard surface to crack the shells open.
In the seaside areas everyone I spoke to seemed to be very proud of their Great black-backed gulls – these are literally the biggest sea gull in the world, and being double the size of our Silver gulls would probably eat them for breakfast!
The one bird everyone loved over there was the Robin. These are very endearing little birds that will happily come within a few feet of you as they forage around for insects. Our robins are named after them but are in no way closely related to them.
Being winter the bird life was fairly subdued but a walk at dawn still revealed a host of beautiful melodic high-pitched voices. I can totally understand why the European colonists introduced some songbirds into Australia, even though it was a terrible thing to do. But despite the beauty of the calls of the European songbirds there’s still something heartwarming about the raucous cockatoos and honeyeaters that we have in Australia, that’s totally absent in the Irish avifauna.
Despite many birding highlights, reflecting back now, the thing that strikes me most is how modified and unnatural the environment is there – and how we are slowly but steadily heading down that path ourselves here. The Irish government has recognised this and, as there is no land available to purchase for national parks, it has several schemes to encourage farmers to preserve what habitat and biodiversity remains on their land. This is a much needed, but last gasp action – and I sincerely hope we never get to that stage ourselves.
All up we had a wonderful time in Ireland and will certainly be heading back – the friendliness and generosity of the Irish people was a standout, and though the suite of birds is reflective of a highly modified environment, there was still so much to enjoy and marvel over. To see a video of my birding highlights go to www.youtube.com/@birdbites