“What an office! My rock of a chair doesn’t swivel, and my knee must function as a desk, but in place of the telephone I have the easing hush of moving water”
Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelly
BRIGHT waves sprang from dark water to lap eagerly at the golden gravels of Brown’s Bay on the western shore of Lough Conn. I had come here to look for the osprey several people have told me about. Conn seems to be a regular stopping off point for one or two of these small fish-eating eagles most summers, as they follow a traditional migratory path from Scotland, which has a small breeding population, to mainland Europe and West Africa.
This was a day lifted from April and transplanted into late June, with sunshine and showers and long-tailed heaps of cumulus running in from the north, early morning clouds with steely peaks, pastel-shaded sides, giving birth to fragments of rainbows as they passed over the hills. Only on land has the freshness of spring been replaced with the weightier, more sombre colours of midsummer.
A trio of anglers arrived and clambered into one of the many boats that line the shore in a long, sweeping, multi-coloured arc. Their voices carried across the water; prospects for the day were good; all were in agreement. But who could bear to disagree on a day like this? The trout will be feeding high in the waves, the seasonal hatch of large caddis flies will be underway, and an anglers carefully chosen artificial will fall within the range of one of Conn’s golden flanked, speckle-backed beauties.
For such things these summer days are made. As we know well, there will be enough of the darker days ahead, when the leaves will be gone from the trees once more, when the nights will be longer than the days, when we shall be reduced to periods of near-inactivity and confined to our roost at the fireside.
The three fishermen took themselves away, across the sheltered seclusion of Brown’s Bay and into the wave-ridden expanse of the lake proper. There, the boat bucked and skipped on meeting more boisterous waters. An inexperienced boatman would do well to turn back when the waves begin to slap at the hull. To hold a boat with her nose to this brisk wind and in the face of a three-foot wave requires a steady nerve and no little skill. But away they went, bounding from crest to crest to explore that vast wilderness of water, and how I longed to be out there too.
Instead, I trudged to the car and fetched an armful of paperwork, settling myself down on the bare concrete of the small pier. What an office! So my rock of a chair doesn’t swivel or run on castors, and my knee must function as a desk, but in place of that demanding telephone I have the easing hush of moving water. For a carpet I have wild mint, white clover and orchid flowers, and at my back a forest wall of miniature willow and alder, trees condemned to dwarfism by the poor soil in which they grow. Beyond the trees lie alluring acres of bog myrtle, that rather plain looking shrub with its heady perfume. Any lull in the wind allows that warm oily scent to wash over me, so perfectly right.
So there I sat, struggling with my pen and doing my best to watch out for my osprey. Gulls flew by. A pair of herons stalked the shallows on the far side of the bay. The day was warm and cold at once, with the sun on my face and the wind at my back.
Then it appeared, flying directly to the north. At first I thought it to be just another gull, but as the bird swept past I saw the darkness of its back and the lightness of its belly, yet neither as dark nor as light as the markings of the greater gulls with which it is often confused.
Game anglers often resent the presence of an osprey, feeling that it kills trout and salmon relentlessly. True, the occasional game fish might fall victim, but those fish that bask at the surface are a much easier target. Small pike and other coarse fish species such as perch and roach are the main prey, along with mullet in estuarine waters.
