Is it any wonder that popular opinion views birdwatchers as a little mad? Or are they a rare species who can spot 'superfluous beauty'?
Very like a whale. Or a camel. Or a weasel. Hamlet's mocking conversation with Polonius about the shape of a cloud has a wry relevance for most birdwatchers. The leap from the clarity of the field-guide illustration to the brief glimpse of a real bird in fading light is often unbridgeable. While we might see little reason for turning our geese into swans, we are certainly capable of wishfully turning our buzzards into eagles, or, to get nerdish about it, our white-fronted geese into the much more unusual lesser white-fronted ones.
Popular opinion is undoubtedly right to regard this obsession with rare species, this "twitching" across half a continent to tick a dark chanting goshawk on your "life list", as a minor form of insanity. Every birdwatcher suffers from it, at least a little. The truth is, though, as the American poet Leonard Nathan points out in his Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher, it's an insanity that often blinds us to the true pleasure of watching an individual bird in all its particular beauty.
That is not always an easy thing to do, especially with the shyer species. South Wexford, however, is a good place to start. And there is no better place, for the absolute beginner and the expert alike, than the wildfowl reserve on the north slobs, just outside Wexford town.
Walking into the enclosed section of the reserve, you are immediately in the presence of a variety of geese and duck. Here you can see, close-up, the difference between a barnacle goose and a brent, or between the white-fronted goose, for which the reserve is most famous, and the more widespread greylag. A guide from the centre will help you on request. Or you can just revel in the pleasure of such a variety of colour, shape and sound in one small space.
These birds are all captive, however, and the real joy lies on the other side of the centre, where a series of pools attract wild birds to within a few feet of one-way windows. You won't see wild geese here in August, but the pools are full of black-tailed godwits, elegant long-billed, long-legged birds a little smaller than a curlew.
The godwits return early from their breeding grounds in Iceland, and the young and many of the adults still sport the oranges, buffs and russets of summer plumage. At this range, even without binoculars, you can appreciate the tones, structure - almost the texture - of each exquisite feather. Writing about the strange fascination of plumage, Nathan claims for it an "eloquence which goes beyond biological purpose, a superfluous beauty".
Take it or leave it, but you may feel something like that after five minutes with the godwits. If you do, you've got the bug. There is a touching intimacy, too, in watching these birds probe the rich mud for food, utterly oblivious to human presence, or preen those feathers, or chivvy a newcomer away from a favoured spot.
The room you can watch them from also has rich interior views, with display cases clearly illustrating everything from the origin and ecology of the slobs to the origin of the birds. An inconspicuous door leads to a large stairwell, surrounded by wonderful murals based on birds of the area by locally based artist Dave Daly. You eventually find yourself in an observation chamber that gives excellent views of some more muddy pools, and overlooking a long series of meadows stretching to Raven Point. This where you could see thousands of geese feeding in winter, but for now most of the action is restricted to the pools where more godwits and some smaller wading birds are feeding.
Warden Chris Wilson told me that the pool was recently graced by the presence of no less than 17 little egrets. This is a kind of heron, and perhaps the only bird which looks more immaculately white than a swan. A decade ago, a single little egret would have brought twitchers flocking in from all over Ireland, if not beyond. Global warming, however, has drawn the egrets north from the Mediterranean, and as many as 60 pairs may now be breeding in Waterford alone.
The observation tower has an excellent telescope which will bring the birds almost as close to you as the downstairs windows. Watching the smaller waders there earlier this week, I had one of those Hamlet/Polonius-type conversations with myself. Most of them were undoubtedly dunlin, known locally, and very appropriately, as "sea-mice". One or two, however, seemed, in the late evening light, to be smaller. They also seemed to have some of the features of the similar but much less common little stint. I had to debate with myself, and my bird books, for 10 minutes before ruling out the rarity. Just then I was graced with the always heart-stopping sight of a peregrine falcon, zipping past the tower from the sea and, ignoring the banquet laid out beneath its wings, towering away towards the clouds.
To avoid disturbing the birds, most of the reserve is off limits to visitors, except by occasional arrangement. But if you want to plunge right in and do some hard-core birdwatching in the wild, south Wexford will spoil you for choice.
By-passing Our Lady's Island Lake, a place as rich for ornithology as it is in piety and pilgrims, I headed for Tacumshin, a lake, dune and reedbed system to the west. This is a Mecca for twitchers, as it often provides a last refuge for American migrants swept thousands of miles off-course. I found the Lingstown end of the lake very dry, despite our excuse for a summer. Among the reeds, however, I was drawn to a sort of restrained cacophony, not unlike the sound of a refined pig being slaughtered quietly.
Hours with a tape of birdcalls were being rewarded - this could only be the very secretive water rail, deep in conversation with its young. Why this knowledge, and this experience, gave me so much pleasure I can't explain. Perhaps popular opinion about birdwatchers is right, after all.
Mad or not, better was to come. In the middle distance, a buzzard flapped its way along a tree line, perching long enough for me to get the telescope on its eagle-like silhouette for a good long minute. Just after it took off, another bird of prey came into the same frame, a rare chance to compare the shape and flight of a harrier with the buzzard, though I couldn't be sure what type of harrier.
And better again. As the sun dropped, I decided to give the east end of the lake a quick visit. I was only halfway out of the car at Sigginstown when another harrier started to majestically quarter the little bay below. This time I could see all the detail of its beautifully barred brown plumage.
So it was an identification (hen harrier, if you need to know, the first I've seen in Ireland for 40 years), but also an encounter with Nathan's "superfluous beauty".
At the end of the day, who says serendipity doesn't exist?
Wexford Wildfowl Reserve. Clearly signposted on the R741, a right turn down a narrow road after leaving Wexford town via Wexford Bridge heading for Curracloe.
Warden: Chris Wilson. Information: (053) 23129. Admission free. Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (10 a.m. to 5 p.m. October-April)
Activities: Jacinta Murphy organises school and family activities, especially the Heritage Week programme: Sunday, September 1st: introduction/family day (11 a.m.); wildlife picnic and golden goose treasure hunt (3 p.m.)
Wednesday, September 4th: children's "Nature in Art" event (10.30 a.m.)
Saturday, September 7th: "hidewatch" (10 a.m.); launch of Irish children's wildlife competition (3 p.m.)
Other south Wexford sites: Carnsore Point, Rosslare back strand; Our Lady's Island Lake; Tacumshin; Saltee Island; Hook Head; Bannow Bay.
Guides: High Skies - Low Lands: An Anthology of Wexford Slobs and Harbour, edited by David Rowe and Christopher J. Wilson (Duffy Press); Where to Watch Birds in Ireland, by Clive Hutchinson, (Gill and McMillan) Bird Guide, by Killian Mullarney, Lars Svensson, Dan Zetterström, Peter J. Grant, (Collins).
