During my recent stay near Courtmacsherry, most days were spend dedicating at least some time to visiting the estuary. The estuary extends from Courtmacsherry to Timoleague, and on days when my energy wasn’t too high I’d just walk part of the way, but on more energetic days I’d walk all the way to Timoleague and back. Part of the reason I was enthusiastic about my Courtmacsherry trip this year was that, I’m in the process of identifying and photographing as many birds as I can, and for quite some time, I’d been stuck at about 30 birds. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these were my favourite birds to see, but I just wanted to see some new ones.
And Courtmacsherry did not disappoint. After spending one week there, my bird count jumped from thirty to forty. This is in large part thanks to the Courtmacsherry Estuary.
When the tide is in, this whole area is flooded with water. But when the tide is out, it consists of sand and mudflats stretching as far as the eye can see. And walking along this sandy or muddy surface will be more birds than you can count.
What I like about the estuary is you get what is probably a chance to see the birds, just living their lives, as if humans aren’t there. A lot of the time, as soon as you see a bird, they just fly off. And as much as I love The Lough, the birds there are very much aware that humans are there, and probably act accordingly. There can be something nice about that also, but it’s cool to look at the estuary and see birds, just doing their thing. They’re either not aware that humans are looking at them, or if they are, their fairly indifferent, because the humans are so far away it doesn’t really concern them.
So, let’s go and meet some of the birds!
I love these guys. Such colourful birds that really brighten up my day. I must say I missed these fellows when I returned to the city where I don’t see them around. I’m hoping to find a location relatively near my house that I can cycle to where I can see more oystercatchers.
Even if you’re lacking binoculars or a camera with a good zoom feature, these fellows tend to be easy enough to spot at a distance. The black white and orange colour combination is unmistakable, though sometimes the orange of the beak is obscured, because they’ve spent so much time digging through the mud, and their beak needs a good clean!
You may be wondering, what’s that bird that keeps doing the pose when Andy Dufrense escapes from the prison in the Shawshank Redemption? That’s a cormorant. And no, they don’t do this pose because they’ve just escaped the tyranny of a corrupt warden after 19 years, but rather their feathers are not waterproof, so they have to hold their wings out like this to dry them.
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/birds/seabirds/cormorant
These are very interesting birds to see in the water, their bodies are completely submerged, all that’s above the water is their head and neck, so they look for all the world like a submarine, with the periscope looking out above water.
Herons. I think a lot of people love these guys. They have such a gentle, polite, almost scholarly way of going about themselves. Of course, they just look that way to humans. If you’re a fish, they’re the frickin’ Terminator!
One of the things that fascinates me about birds is, they are dinosaurs. Not they evolved from dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs:
So before you ask, should we use technology to bring back the dinosaurs? Well firstly, according to a documentary I saw from 1993, they tried that and it was a bad idea. But secondly, we don’t need to bring back the dinosaurs, they’re still with us!
And knowing this, I love looking for the “dinosaur” in birds. Now, I might have an incorrect idea of what dinosaurs are like, because I may be misremembering that 1993 documentary a bit, but I witnessed a heron do something that was, if not very dinosaurish, at least very prehistoric beastish.
The heron, all of a sudden started shrieking his head off while flying off into the distance. A magnificent beast!
I’ve written before about the feeling of sadness I get from the fact that animals need to kill other animals to survive.
There’s nothing that can be done about it, herons gotta eat, but it does make me feel a bit sad for the animals they kill. So this picture, while I’m quite happy I caught it, I’m ambivalent about, it shows the way a heron goes about getting its dinner, which is really interesting, but at the same time I feel bad for the fish. This heron swallowed that fish whole. As I watched this from the path next to the estuary, I remember thinking, this was simultaneously the most gross and the most fascinating thing I have seen today!
I’ve given serious thought to weather or not anyone who doesn’t like black headed gulls should be taken seriously by society, and after much reflection, my conclusion is, no, they shouldn’t be taken seriously. We need to have some sort of standards. Now, I know there’s probably someone down the back saying, why doesn’t this one have a black head, it’s because it’s a juvenile! Have patience! The black feathers on the head will come in later!
To me this is one of the most beautiful birds that I encounter, and luckily, they’re not just in Courtmacsherry, but also in The Lough, Fitzgerald’s Park and the Glen River Park, so I still get to see them around these parts!
Much like the oystercatcher, this is another one I won’t get a chance to see while I’m in the city. I’m hoping there’s somewhere nearby that I can visit where they live.
For me the curlew was one of my absolute favourite birds I encountered along the estuary. They have an almost elephant like quality to them, very slow graceful movements along the sandbanks. There’s also something I find to be a bit alien about them. I could imagine birds like this, walking across an alien sandbank, on a planet in a very far away solar system. Because we’re so used to birds, we see them every day, we forget how distant they are from us in terms of evolution. The last common ancestor between humans and birds is from a very long time ago, they are quite different from us despite the fact that we take it for granted that we will see them everyday on our streets and in our gardens. The graceful, but also somewhat bizarre appearance of the curlew is a reminder that, birds may live among us, but in many ways they are different from us.
So, I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief tour of the wonderful birds of the Courtmacsherry estuary. I should however mention one unfortunate drawback to the location of the estuary, for people such as me with a sensitivity to loud noise. It is right next to a road. In terms of safety for pedestrians and cyclists, it’s fine, there’s a shared use lane for pedestrians and cyclists for the entire duration of the estuary walk. But what tends to happen is, when your senses are being absolutely bathed in the sounds of the estuary, the wonderful sounds of the seagulls, a car will pass, then, when you allow yourself to be taken away again by the beautiful sounds of nature again, another car will pass, and it will keep going on in that fashion, there’s no let up.
I’m not saying this to discourage people from visiting the estuary, it’s one of my absolute favourite places, but I just thought people who have issues with loud noises should be aware of this.
So, if you can tolerate the sound of car engines hitting your brain, why not head down to the Courtmacsherry estuary and see some amazing birds!
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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