I read something the other day that left my deeply upset. The slender billed curlew is extinct.
An amazing animal, a sentient, intelligent creature, will never fly through our skies again, simply because it had the misfortune to encounter humanity. And yes, while plenty of animals went extinct before humans were on Earth, habitat loss, caused by our society, was a massive factor in the loss of this bird.
But, there’s an island I’ve started going to recently, that has increased my hope a bit, that the horrific rate of bird extinction can be brought to an end. About six miles from my house, is a nature reserve called Harper’s Island.
Last year, I spent close to a month in Courtmacsherry during the Christmas period, and saw an absolutely amazing amount of birds. Curlews, lapwings, redshanks, wigeons, teals, it would be too long to list them all, but I wrote about it here:
But it probably won’t be feasible to spent Christmas in Courtmacsherry this year. And that made me sad. For curlews and oystercatchers, there’s the Cork Harbour Greenway, I wrote about several visits there during the Summer here:
So for those two birds, the Cork Harbour Greenway has me covered. But I don’t think there’s wigeons and lapwings there. I really miss seeing those birds. Was there a place I could see them that was within cycling distance, so I could go to see them all Winter?
It turned out there was. A number of bird watching enthusiasts have been recommending Harper’s Island to me for quite some time. Why I didn’t start going there until recently was that it’s a bit further away than a lot of my usual birdwatching locations. But I was told something about it recently that meant I really wanted to start going there. That is, it’s a great place to see lapwings.
I was under the impression that cycling to Harper’s Island would be a bit of an ordeal. It’s kind of hard to make out some details on google maps, so I was under the impression that part of the journey would have to be made via a busy main road. But nothing could be further from the truth. Very little of the journey had to be made on road at all, most of the route is via a raised shared use lane, so you don’t have to worry about cars parking on it.
So at the end of September, I successfully arrived at Harper’s Island, and saw this.
A rabbit and curlews eating together. Two completely different species living together peacefully!
Here’s one of the recordings I got that day, a robin.
https://xeno-canto.org/1040387
In addition to the wetland area, Harper’s Island has a more green area with trees and vegetation, and this area can be good for encountering birds such as robins and stonechats.
And now let’s discuss the background noise that is on that recording. Have you heard of Horatio’s Law? I’d be deeply surprised if you did, especially given that I just made it up right this second. So what is Horatio’s Law?
“Any area that is a good place for encountering birds is invariably in close proximity to a main road that carries a very high volume of traffic.”
So that’s Horatio’s Law. And it makes the process of listening to and recording birds extremely difficult. How many hours have been wasted, getting a recording of a curlew, or a buzzard, or a stonechat, and then realizing it was all for nothing, because the roar of nearby car engines drowned it all out!
But Harper’s Island, despite being near a main road, is actually somewhat better off than a lot of my favourite birding locations in terms of road noise. The part of it where I typically encounter robins and stonechats, that’s very near the main road, so it can be difficult, but not impossible, to do recordings there, but the wetland area, there’s a bit of distance from the road there, not as much as I’d like, but a bit. So I find it easier to get recordings there than, for example, the Courtmacsherry Estuary.
That first day on the island, it was actually raining, but all is not lost even on such a day. Harper’s Island has two hides, where you can sit inside and watch and listen to the birds. This means I don’t have to worry about my camera, Tascam, or binoculars getting wet. The other more important function of the hide though, is that, they allow you to be quite near the birds without them knowing you’re there. Which allows for photos like this.
While the stonechats are mainly in the greener part of the island, sometimes they come over by the wetland area, and from the hide I was able to get a closeup of this bird that had just caught dinner.
I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about photos of an animal feeding on another animal. I understand that it’s an animal simply doing what they must to survive, but I still find it horrible! But I’m glad I took this photo, because I think it tells us something important about how the perspective of a giant animal like a human differs from that of a tiny insect. To us humans, stonechats are such cute birds, such a joy to see! To a wasp, or to a lot of other insects, they are monsters! To a wasp a stonechat approaching is a lot like how we would feel if a tyrannosaurus was approaching! A vicious beast that can only bring despair! Granted, we don’t know if wasps feel fear, or even if they are sentient. But they know instinctively it’s time to leave if a stonechat’s in the area, despite the fact that to humans, they are such beautiful birds.
It wasn’t long before Harper’s Island became my main area for going birding. Sure it’s a small bit further away, but the sheer amount of birds I get to see there more than makes up for that. While it lacks the ocean birds I get to see around Courtmacsherry, it has all of the estuary birds that can be encountered there. Like the already mentioned bird that drew me to Harper’s Island in the first place, the lapwing!
It filled me with such joy that I would now be able to see lapwings on a regular basis. But, when I was in Courtmacsherry last Christmas, despite getting an abundance of recordings of various birds, I was only able to get one of a lapwing. Would I get more recordings on Harper’s Island? Absolutely, here’s the best recording of a lapwing I managed to get:
https://xeno-canto.org/1046830
Such a wonderful sound! Like little joyful robots!
I view all of these bird sounds as the music of other minds, I’ve talked about that before:
With human music, there is such amazing variety, whether it is the Chineze erhu, the uilleann pipes or the double bass. I view bird music in a similar way, such amazing variety, there’s the bass heavy tones of the wood pigeon, the dinosaur like screech of the heron, or in this case, the malfunctioning robot sound of a lapwing! It’s all so wonderful!
Another Courtmacsherry Winter favourite I was hoping to encounter on the island was the wigeon. And it did not disappoint!
Such adorable little birds. I love seeing the chestnut red plumage on their heads, with that lovely yellow patch on their foreheads. Such joy!
Here’s a recording of a wigeon, though from Courtmacsherry because I haven’t managed to get one from Harper’s Island yet:
https://xeno-canto.org/contributor/FIMCRHLLRP?query=wigeon
It’s my only wigeon recording, but I hope to have more very soon!
At this point, I’d like to remind everyone that I am in no way affiliated with the International Curlew Appreciation Society. Though you wouldn’t know it, because I’m about to talk about one of my absolute favourite birds!
I currently have at least 90 curlew recordings. But anyone who thinks I’ll be happy with that many curlew recordings is naive. Hopelessly naive dare I say it. Here’s one I took on Harper’s, where some curlews briefly sing in unison, isn’t that nice!
https://xeno-canto.org/1046827
This bird has a lot of fans around the world. But, they’re in danger. The type of curlew that has brought me such joy on my birding trips is the Eurasian curlew, or numenius arquata. But the one that went extinct recently, as mentioned at the start of this post, is the slender billed curlew, or numenius tenuirostris. The slender billed curlew will never fly through our skies ever again, but its relative the Eurasian curlew is also in danger. In fact, it’s red listed.
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/curlew/
And that’s something I have a great deal of difficulty processing. The lapwing’s also red listed, as is the kestrel. I feel the human race should feel a great privilege to share this planet with these wonderful birds. But not only is it the case that many are indifferent to these birds, they don’t even care if they go extinct. To me it’s a sick joke.
But a place like Harper’s Island gives me hope. Because, a significant portion of land has been allowed to just be a place where birds can thrive. The more pessimistic part of me is aware of the fact that it’s a drop in the ocean in comparison to what is needed to save these birds. And the more cynical part of me is entertaining the possibility that Harper’s Island was considered as a possible candidate to build a Concrete Monstrosity Of Pointlessness, but it was deemed an unsuitable location for this purpose.
But still I hope. People like Seán Ronayne are teaching people to treasure the wonderful birdlife in this country, hopefully this will cause there to be enough passionate and dedicated people to save these birds.
A few days ago when I was on the island, a school trip from a primary school arrived to see the birds. The kids made such noise that even when I moved further away from them, I could still hear them, and I wanted to hear the birds! At the risk of sounding like an old man, I was initially very disappointed that I had to share the island with a group of loud children!
But soon enough I was chiding myself for being so short sighted. How did it make sense to complain about people not appreciating birdlife on the one hand, and to get old manish about a school trip to a nature reserve on the other? The next generation will be thought to love and cherish the bird life of this country because of school trips like that. So a little perspective is important!
And hopefully, if more and more people grow to realize that the curlew, the lapwing, the wigeon, and many others, are the treasures of our planet that they are, then they will fight to save them from the cruel fate of extinction.
Ponderings Of An Autist 
One thought on “Harper’s Island, a Place Where Birds Are Allowed To Thrive”