Irish Jesuit Province

Wild Life in the MidlandsAuthor(s): Donal LinehanSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 909 (Mar., 1949), pp. 133-134Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515956 .

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WILD LIFE IN THE MIDLANDS

By DONAL LINEHAN, S.J.

THERE is a district in the Midlands of Ireland not in many ways remarkable. It is good land and bogland in stretches and

patches, with here and there a pine wood or a beech wood.

Three rivers converge into a low plain nearby, and along parts of the

rivers there are flat sedgy meadows which turn into swamps in winter, and then they are a wide feeding ground for duck and geese. Stretched along the country from east to west is a long ridge, a gravel esker marking the edge of a glacier bed. These are the normal enough features of a district such as you will find all over Ireland, only

perhaps that it is flatter than most districts and wilder than many.

I?The Winter World

There was not much colour around on that January day when we walked down to the bridge and swung over onto the river

bank: dull brown on the marshy land, grey in the sky, and grey reflected on the flood water. A burst of sun would have brought out

a hundred tints of brown, and the water would have turned blue with

the sky, but to-day under a steady cold wind the whole landscape was

dull. The wind gave us hope. Birds would be on the move; they would be blown nearer to us than usual. Every winter the

flooding of the Brosna and its tributaries brings in thousands

of duck and gccse9 and the farmers get some compensation in what

they shoot for the flooding of their lands. It was along the bank of

one of these tributaries that we trudged in our waders. The winter

world of duck and geese and plover, and the swamped moors by the

river were ahead of us.

It was not long before we were into this world. A snipe rose

suddenly with a " phut

" and went twisting and turning onward and

on into the sky. Several others followed him explosively one after

the other. While we were watching them a small-bunched group of

six duck flew up against the wind high overhead, with dark pointed

wings and heads stretched forward. Two larger groups, one of

widgeon, the other teal?a smaller and less purposeful duck?came

upwind, swept in a wide circle and were blown down towards the

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IRISH MONTHLY

more flooded areas again. The amount of bird-life around those

bleak and flooded fields was amazing. As we went on, ducks by ones and twos sprang from behind clumps of sedge, while now and

then a flock of golden plover passed near with a rustle of wings. We walked on through ripples of water where the river overflowed

its banks, on through hedges and wire fences by fishermen's

gaps. All the time the country got more sedgy and the floods

spread more and more widely. We were now hoping to see wild

gees?. Before we did, however, a great flock of duck rose

in the air and then settled again 'about two hundred yards from us.

This was a situation demanding skill. For most of the way there was only a low hump of ground by the river bank, and behind it

we had to creep cautiously to approach them. We were not cautious

enough, though: they took fright when we were hardly half-way towards them; they rose sharply, spread thickly, then the wind took

them and they were gone. A little later a high-pitched gaggle sounded in the distance and at

last we saw the big dark bodies of a skein of geese, flying slowly and

steadily far away in the sky. I was especially interested in

wild geese, because it was not long since I had had my first

close look at them. Four of them had flown quite low, one of them

calling in high clear notes, and the morning sun had shone on

their bright orange beaks and on the patterned browns and greys of

their wings. When I saw then their power and colour, some of the

significance of the poetry which named our exiles "

the wild geese "

came home to me. Now, as they flew with steady beat of wings over

the marshes, another shade of meaning came from that poetry? wildness and loneliness.

Soon we had a better view. Hearing more geese coming, we took

shelter behind an alder tree on the river bank. A flock of about

fifteen geese flew towards us, glided on great curved wings, rose higher in the air and flew around in a circle, then, satisfied that all was safe, came down with a long, hovering glide. They landed in a field on

the other side of the river from us, and then they disappeared ! The

dark wings had closed, and only by looking carefully could we detect

the outline of a pale brown head raised in anxious inquiry. So we

looked until an incautious gesture of mine, hidden as we were, sent

them wheeling up into the sky, a wide steady dark line getting fainter and fainter as it moved into the distance.

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