Back in mid-July we spent a few days in Waterford staying outside the town of Cappoquin. Our hotel was literally a few doors down the road from Mount Melleray Abbey which we strolled around to on our first evening. A wide avenue leads up to a very impressive building built on rising ground with a lovely view over hills and valley. To the left of the avenue was a playing field and behind one of the goal posts a large net, near enough to 20ft high, was stretched between poles, presumably to catch way ward balls that might be heading for the road. It was covered with perching birds, mostly House Martins with a few Swallows among them, some sat along the top of the net others actually perched on the threads of the mesh. For a moment I was afraid they might have been trapped in it then was relieved to see they were flying in and out of it at will.
    As we neared the Abbey which was now spectacularly back-lit by the sinking sun, more house martins, dozens, possibly even hundreds of them, swirled around the top of the square tower, many more perching on the inches wide ledges that bordered the tower just below the parapet. Zooming in on them with the camera we saw there were lots of juveniles among them and it looked like this was a flock gathering before beginning their flight south. Behind theAbbey, was a walk up the hillside to a large stone cross. When originally created there must have been a fantastic sweeping view of the surrounding countryside from the cross but a dense forestry plot had blocked out much of the view. Although the view when we got there was a disappointment the walk up to it provided a superb treat.
    We’d just reached a clearing where a track ran through the trees when a bird of prey took off from a perch on a spruce in front of us. Slim, pale, almost white, with a flat, owl-like face, it was a male bird of our scarcest breeding raptor, the Hen Harrier. Breeding on uplands and mountains, sometimes among low, recently established forestry plots, the Knockmealdown mountain range is still a stronghold for this beautiful bird though its survival is by no means certain.

A juvenile Dipper on the river.     Photo: Michael Ryan

A Silver Washed Fritillary at Glenshelane in Waterford     Photo: Michael Ryan

     


     Our warmest day in Waterford was the day we visited Lismore Castle where the spectacular flower beds were humming with insects while screeching swifts flew in and out of nests in one of the castle’s highest towers. Very elegant homes for these spec tacular birds and who knows how many generations of them have nested there over the years, but they’re equally at home and breed as happily under the eaves of two storey houses in St. Begnet’s Villas in Dalkey. One of our shortest stayed summer visitors, by the time this is published the swifts will be long gone, well on their way back to Africa where they’ll follow the rain and the abundant number of insects that breed and fly in the humid air.