Weather change

“…a brigade of feral goats came out from the trees as if to greet us. Too long a time stuck behind a rock to keep out of the gale had given them an appetite…”

Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley

THE Germans say there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. While my mind and heart agree entirely with such optimism the rest of me begs to differ and protests abominably if I so much as glance out at the rain. Faced with a busy schedule and having been confined too much to the house, imprisoned by the weather (isobars are just as effective as prison bars). I was greatly gladdened at the prospect of a couple of bank holidays. And just in time, the clouds parted and the sky turned a wonderful blue.
If only it would stay that way, even for a short while. There is no place on earth like Ireland, and no place in Ireland like the west of County Mayo, when the weather is clear. Each turn of the road offers a different view, the crest of each hill brings a new vista.
Seen from one or other of the many peaks, the rivers and streams become blue threads twisting through the changing colours of the valley bottoms, and each day is more green than the last.  Given the time, I would sit atop the Reek or, better, Nephin, to watch the year unfold. But then I would miss the white petals of the wood anenomes under the trees and the mayflies, the robin’s nest with its clamouring load and the dipper fishing in the stickle. Far better then, to travel when we may and catch what little we can of the life around us.
This week, a visit to Loughs Furnace and Feeagh is pencilled into my programme. I was already there last week, but found the place inhospitable and drab, with the tail-end of that storm dragging its sheets over the hills, leaving them running with water. Yet, even drab, it was gloriously so. Sweeping clouds and an excess of cold, wind-driven rain kept us running for cover. Then there came a moment when the sky, towering and cliff-like, opened above to reveal a second layer of cloud – the fast-moving and broken strato-cumulus of fair weather in spring.
We drove as far as the bothy at the bottom of the Letterkeen Loop, intending to follow the river for at least a small part of its course. Rivers are natural highways, and it is along their banks that we meet with the most life. Almost immediately a brigade of feral goats came out from the trees as if to greet us. Too long a time stuck behind a rock to keep out of the gale had given them an appetite; having proved to their satisfaction that we posed them no threat they set about their lunch. Goats eat almost everything; brambles, fresh shoots of conifer, lichen (they leave the foxgloves alone). Two had found a small birch tree fallen victim to the high winds, and were stripping it of bark.
As we made our way upstream a grey wagtail skipped ahead of us, bouncing from rock to rock as if leading the way. I am a fan of the wagtail, and have been since I first wrongly identified the grey wagtail as its yellow cousin, an easy and common mistake. The grey wagtail in spring is brilliantly yellow on the breast and about the underparts, but has a grey rump. The yellow wagtail, which is almost unknown in this country, is almost identical in appearance, the only notable difference, to the amateur at least, being that the rump is yellow and not grey.
Having to look more closely at the birds led me to observe something of their habits. What jolly creatures they are! Forever flitting from one place to another and bobbing that elegantly designed tail wherever they go. ‘Look!’ they say, and away they go, halfway around the next bend in the stream, compelling us to follow.
Not this day. A fresh scatter of  softish hailstones sent us to the bothy, where somebody had put a stone through one of the windows, and left the door open. The floor was thick with goat droppings, and the air thick with the smell of them.
A bothy should be maintained, with simple furnishing and a stock of fuel for the fire. Anybody caught out in the hills could avail themselves of a potentially lifesaving refuge. Much has been made of Mayo as a destination for hill walkers. 
There is no finer place, it just needs to be kitted out properly.