Ireland's nature heroes: The birds that come here because it's winter |
IN IRELAND, WE’RE very familiar with the rhythm of the seasons. We learn it early in school and absorb it without question: winter is cold and wet, summer is warm (or at least less cold), autumn is when the leaves fall, and spring is when everything comes back to life. Nature can feel like it arrives in spring and disappears again in winter.
We’re also very familiar with one particular sign of spring — the return of birds like swallows, swifts and martins. Their arrival marks the change in the year as clearly as lambs in fields or longer evenings. They come from Africa, nest here, raise their young, and leave again before the cold sets in. All of that is true.
What most people don’t realise — and I don’t blame anyone for this, because it simply isn’t part of our shared “general knowledge” — is that just as many birds arrive in Ireland at the beginning of winter as arrive in spring.
In fact, for a few weeks every autumn, the skies over Ireland are extraordinarily busy. As our summer visitors head back south, winter visitors are arriving from the north and east. There is, quite literally, serious avian air traffic over the country.
After all, winter here is grey, cold, windy and wet. Not exactly inviting. But the simple answer is this: where many of these birds are coming from is even colder, even harsher, and far less forgiving.
For birds breeding in Iceland, Scandinavia, Greenland and the Arctic, Ireland’s winter is comparatively mild. Our coastal wetlands don’t freeze solid. Our estuaries stay productive. Food remains available. So they come here to survive.
This blind spot in our collective understanding matters more than people realise.
Birds that “summer” in Ireland are better known, more celebrated, and generally better protected in the public imagination. The birds that winter here are often overlooked — despite the fact that Ireland is internationally important for many of........