A SUMMERWEEK IN CONNEMARA
My stay in Cork ended in late June with a 2 weeks holidays in a rented car
through W. Ireland with Riet, who had flown in to Cork one week earlier. We
drove through W. Cork, Kerry (the Dingle peninsula) and Clare (the Burren
with its beautiful chalk flora) to Connemara in the extreme west, where we
enjoyed the hospitality of the stately Letterdyfe estate outside Roundstone
(Part translation, part corruption of the Irish name Cloch na Ron, the Seal
Rock).
Ireland is a magic country for traveling in so many ways: the people are
almost invariably warm and friendly, the scenery is virtually always
attractive and often great, and there are points of historic or prehistoric
interest scattered all over the country, although in many places mostly as
(usually very atmospheric) ruins. these are made doubly attractive for
visitors from overpopulated W. Europe by the fact that little has been done
to make them suitable for mass tourism: the fabulous Ross Ennery abbey
ruins near Headford for example are not sign-posted at all, and you have to
search diligently before discovering the minor road leading to the abbey
ruins lying in splendid isolation amidst cattle-studded pastureland. the
reward is that one is alone roaming through this impressive reminder of the
historic greatness of Ireland---no souvenir stands, no cafeteria, almost no
other visitors! It makes an enormous difference!
The flora, with its strong Lusitanian elements, was also most attractive to
me, and in rural Connemara as yet so little touched by modern developments
and their ensuing pollution (although heavily overgrazed many places) that
I found many plants that I had not seen in many years: ditches full of pale
yellow Utricularia flowers in the blanket bog, beautiful yellow Blackstonia
gentians along the coast, and a colourful flower carpet (white Bellis---I
never saw a country where this flower was so ubiquitous!--, yellow Birds
Foot trefoil Lotus, pale yellow Kidney Vetch Anthyllis, sky blue Milkwort
Polygala and violet patches of wild Thyme Thymus) on the coastal machair,
the short grassland cropped by rabbits, sheep and cattle. in ditches that
were somehow protected from the relentless grazing Yellow Flag Iris
pseudacorus is in glorious flower, together with various orchids and small
fields of the elegant ragged robin Lychnis flos-cuculi.
But this is a bird list, I know! And birds are not especially numerous or
diverse in summer Ireland; local birders therefore also seem mostly to
concentrate on migrating and wintering birds rather than the local
breeders. Compared to Cork maybe the most conspicuous feature of Connemara
was the virtual absence of the rooks, so numerous elsewhere in Ireland.
Instead, Jackdaws abounded in the coastal and forested areas and in the
villages, while Hooded Crows dominate the extensive boggy and hilly areas.
In the bogs otherwise Skylarks and Meadow pipits are virtually never out of
earshot, while from the stone-walls (so characteristic of this landscape,
although sadly barbed wire is in ascendance) hoarse-sounding Stonechats and
dapper Wheatears scold intruders and feed their often already fledged
young. Warblers are scarce also here:most common is the sweet cadence of
the Willow Warbler, while we heard very few Whitethroats or Blackcaps, and
no Chiffchaffs at all; Sedge Warblers still sang regularly from marshy
spots. Of course, the circumstance that this is already the last week of
June did not help either in spotting the warblers---we were in fact quite
surprised to still hear a Cuckoo call one day.
Another group of birds that is strangely uncommon in summer Ireland,
'between migrations', is the shore birds; unexpected because with its
heavily indented coast-line and almost half of the mostly boggy area
covered by innumerable small loughs the landscape seems so suitable for
them. There were Oystercatchers along the coast, but not all that many;
there were a few Curlews here and there in the more protected bays--and no
doubt on the bogs, where we had no too much occasion to roam extensively,
due to a hurt ankle--. But that was practically all: the only other
shorebirds were a few Common Sandpipers here and there, the odd Snipe in
coastal marshy areas, and a single somewhat incongruous Green Sandpiper,
zigzagging over the sea at Cleggan.
The common gull most places here is the Common (=Mew) Gull away from the
open coast; on the coast Herring Gulls take over, but neither species
occurs in really large numbers, and the other gulls (Black-headed, Great
and Lesser Black-backed) are scarce. Also terns were not numerous, but we
found three of the five species that occur commonly on these coasts.
The house at Letterdyfe is surrounded by an impressive ca 100 years old
forest of mixed trees, and here colonies of several different bats, Pine
Martens and a badger sett all occur, while Sparrow Hawks (and probably
Long-eared Owls, which we missed) nest here. Wood Pigeons are exceedingly
common, and otherwise there are many small passerines have found a haven
here: wrens galore, Willow Warblers, Blackcaps, Goldcrests, Great, Blue and
Coal Tits, Treecreepers, Spotted Flycatchers, Chaffinches, Goldfinches and
Greenfinches, and Blackbirds, Song and Mistle Thrushes and European Robins.
Our most enduring memory from Letterdyfe will nevertheless be the otters
which we could watch fishing and playing ( looks almost to be the same
thing for these always playful animals, that look so masterful and superior
to their fish pray) ' from our own shore' and at an amazingly short distance.
In conclusion: don't go to summer Ireland if you are one of those people
who only see birds and want long lists, but by all means do go there if you
want to experience Europe as it must have been before we spoilt so much of
it in the name of St Progress!
This is the last of my Irish Impressions, you will be happy to hear. From
today I am back at 70*N, from where I already have probably written too
much too long earlier.
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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