For wintering waterbirds it’s ‘death by a thousand cuts’

A Welsh word “hiraeth” sums up a distinct feeling of missing something lost. Like the Brazilian Portuguese “saudade” or the German “sehnsucht” it conveys an unattainable longing that hurts – something you need and yearn for but cannot have; the profound loss of a friend who has died or a lover who is no longer part of your world.

“Hiraeth” captures the more minor things in life too. Near where I live a large public field serves the needs of football and rugby players, dogs, walkers, runners and kids. It’s a shared, free resource highly valued as a recreational space that can bring people together.

I can’t remember exactly when oystercatcher birds disappeared from this field, but about a decade ago I noticed their familiar staccato “pic-pics” were no longer part of my local soundscape. Oystercatchers are a striking species, about the same size as rooks but adorned with pristine, glossy black and white plumage. Their eyes are bright yellow, and their beaks are characteristically long, strong and orange. Dozens of them would arrive in the field and spread out across the grass, searching for earthworms and insect larvae to eat.

They’re long gone from the field (drainage and a constant regime of mowing to facilitate sport may be part of the reason why they disappeared), but it was with much relief that I read the latest data on their numbers across Ireland, published last month in Birdwatch Ireland’s journal Irish Birds, which shows that their numbers are stable and in places increasing. This trend is also true for other species such as little egrets, sanderlings, grey herons, cormorants, teal, light-bellied Brent geese and mute swans.

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The data is part of Birdwatch Ireland’s long-running research on 35 migrant waterbird species who visit Ireland every winter from their northerly breeding grounds of Canada, Iceland and Siberia to feed and shelter. Since 1996 about 400 volunteers around the country have spent a few hours a month at specific sites from September to March and they’ve logged the overwintering bird species they see.

While oystercatchers might be doing well, Brian Burke from Birdwatch, who coordinates the project, says the overall trends are downhill. In the 1990s 1.5 million migratory wintering waterbirds were observed; today it has slumped to just 750,000. Diving ducks like scaup, pochard and goldeneye are in free fall.

Seán Ó Mainín, who lives on a suckler and sheep farm in Ballyferriter in Co Kerry, is in his third year as a volunteer. His site is Ferriter’s Cove, Cuan an Chaoil, a small bay at the western point of the Dingle Peninsula, where he counts visiting migrants like curlews, knots, dunlins, turnstones and redshank.

In his time recording Seán has seen lapwing all but disappear. In 2021 he recorded 35 of them; the following winter just 10 appeared. This year, he hasn’t seen any. His figures reflect the broader story across Ireland: in 23 years lapwing numbers have plummeted by 64 per cent.

Burke says that for wintering waterbirds it’s a “death by a thousand cuts”. The warming climate, causing rapidly melting snow and ice, means they no longer need to leave their breeding grounds in northern latitudes. For the birds who it to Ireland there are problems that we could immediately address: water pollution, the disappearance of wetlands, disturbance from human activities, predation, and a chronic lack of management.

Ecologist Tom Gittings has coordinated the count since the mid-1990s in Cork Harbour. There were 49,000 birds; today that number is just under 20,000. Gittings points to increased development and recreation in the harbour – kayaking, boating and people walking the shores – as activities that need management. A zoning system with both no-go and permitted areas for activity during specified times is a solution used in other countries to counteract the negative impacts of recreation on nature. It might be time to implement it here.

Gittings is also concerned about the lack of oversight over licences granted by the State to hunters who want to shoot birds on public lands. In August scaup, pochard, pintail and goldeneye were taken off the permitted list, but other species, such as golden plover and shoveler, whose numbers have crashed in the last few decades, remain. For hunters given permission there appears to be no legal limit on the number of birds that can be killed in the open season of September to January.

Irish authorities grant permission on State-owned lands such as the foreshore. It excludes nature reserves but, bafflingly, includes special areas of conservation and special protection areas for birds. Shooting near nature reserves can cause disturbance to wintering birds, who are already under pressure to find enough food to eat. With too much disturbance the stress can mean that their survival rates decline. For Gittings it’s not necessarily about banning hunting outright; rather, it’s an issue that needs the authorities’ oversight, management and assessment.

When I realised that the oystercatchers had disappeared from the field next door I was surprised by longing and loss; I didn’t appreciate that their calls meant so much to me. In Irish the word “cumha”, for sorrow, captures it. When we notice their presence the sights and sounds of hundreds of visiting waterbirds on our shores and wetlands – their plumage winking in the morning sun, their calls imperceptibly imbibing their way into our lives – can make the dark days of winter just that little bit easier. Their disappearance is our loss.

I’ll leave the last thoughts to volunteer Seán Ó Mainín, who is just 12 years of age and whose work this winter will give us a deeper understanding of what is happening to the winter migrants in his part of Kerry. “When I see these birds, I feel happy they are there. Every month I go back and hope there are more of them. If they disappear that would be a loss. They are beautiful.”