COUNTRY SIGHTS AND SOUNDS: Murder most fowl

My wildflower walk took me to the Carra’s northern shore, where orchids still grow in abundance. Last month we found fly orchid and bee orchid, as well as the rare and red-listed O’Kelly’s orchid, which appears just occasionally on this distant outcrop of Burren rock.
Now, in the heavy, sultry air of July, fragrant orchids splash rare pink and marsh helleborine show pale-petaled, dark-centred blooms that cascade as flakes of snow frozen in time. Wild thyme, bird’s-foot trefoil and more combine to make a wild carpet, an explosion of colour and form.
When a surreptitious dusk crept from the east I stopped a while to watch waterbirds emerge from the reeds while eager swallows swept overhead to feed before roost.
A pair of great crested grebes appeared. You know how they are – one moment there is nothing to see, the very next they sit low in the water before you, as if they had really been there all along. Nor is it just the eyes that are deceived. They communicate with a series of low growls that cannot be missed, yet it is only when we see them that we hear them too. Ghost birds, they are, coming and going at will.
Although they were too distant for proper observation I could see the adults taking turns to dive while two or perhaps three little ones waited to be fed. Small perch make the bulk of their diet on Carra. The perch abound, filling the niche left by a declining population of trout.
A large and dark silhouette lifted over Connor’s Island to make a brief circuit of the bay. The grebe family left off feeding and sat motionless as the greater black-backed gull soared and swooped to flash a black-and-white warning.
At the gull’s appearance a family of ducklings retreated into the dense cover of reeds. A pair of dabchick, or little grebes, gave a series of shrill calls and scurried to the far corner of the bay, running across the water in their haste.
Only the great created grebes remained in the open, and it was these that caught the attention of the supreme predator that the greater black-back unquestionably is.
I could hardly believe the adult grebes would leave their little ones as exposed and vulnerable as that. The gull spied them – he could hardly fail to see – and swooped to circle the family, with the tip of one wing almost touching the wavelets.
The adult grebes took panic and made short dives, perhaps encouraging the young ones to do the same. They thrashed the water. They cried aloud in evident alarm. The gull circled, rose briefly to tower above, and suddenly fell with an audible splash.
I could no longer see what was happening, for the adult grebes were thrashing the water and milling around. Then all was quiet. Clever Mr Black-Back sat to celebrate a successful hunt with a few sips of water while the bereft adult grebes paddled slowly away. Their mournful cries hung long in the air. What words could near describe the sound? One uttered a long, anguished moan that was repeated by its mate. Then another. And then, when we thought the pain might be over and done, a repeat from the lonely dark descending in the lee of the island.
With a wingspan of five-and-a-half feet, the greater black-back is the world’s largest gull. Both scavenger and predator together, this is an opportunistic and aggressive feeder. The eggs and young of other gull species are favorite prey, as is any young bird or small mammal that catches its piratical, yellow eye, glowing cold within a red and fleshy rim.
While perhaps the most coastal of all Irish gulls, this aggressive species can often be found on inland waters such as Mask and Carra. As with so many of our birds, its numbers are in decline. While this may be good news for the ducklings and grebelets, it is just another symptom of an ailing environment.
The greater black back is amber-listed as a bird of conservation concern. The great crested grebe is too.
According to Birdwatch Ireland, of 211 regularly occurring wild-bird species on the island of Ireland, 54 are red-listed as seriously threatened and at the highest risk of extinction, while 79 are amber-listed as significantly threatened, showing a declining population. A mere 78 are on the green list as species of least concern.
The walk home was through a miniature forest of helleborine, this clouded with the carnation scent of my favourite fragrant orchids. Where would we be without these things, without these birds and flowers? On the red list, no doubt.

The full ‘Birds of Conservation Concern in Ireland 4: 2020–2026’ report, by Birdwatch Ireland and RSPB Northern Ireland, is available for download on birdwatchireland.ie.