I DO LIKE TO BE beside the seaside – or, more specifically, I like to be in Dunmore East, Co Waterford, which is the quintessential seaside resort – a golden crescent of a beach surrounded by high cliffs, thatched cottages and ice creams. At the end of the village is a harbour with a pier that ends in an elegant lighthouse. But the most delightful show in town is the cliff-face on the far side of the harbour, where the kittiwakes have a housing estate, writes
Melosina Lenox-Conyngham
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A kittiwake is a smart little gull with a yellow beak, black legs and grey wings with a black trim. In the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, it was fashionable for ladies to have their hats decorated with the wing of this sea bird. My mother told us that her Nanny had a whole bird incorporated in her Sunday best. Since hats have gone out of fashion, there has been an increase in the population of this gull.
Kittiwaking is onomatopoeiac due to the crooning, chat and flattery of their courtship, which includes bowing, beak-scissoring and popping little titbits into the beaks of loved ones. It sounds romantic, but the path of true love does not run smooth, and how they squabble, steal from each other and generally behave like fishwives.
The cup-shaped nests are built of plant material and debris, which in Dunmore East consists of plastic and blue twine that does not make for tidy exteriors. There is competition for sites, which are erected on the slightest of ledges and projections. Last time I was there, an enterprising gull had made a nest that could be advertised as having running water, having been constructed where a trickle came down the cliff, but it must have suffered from rising damp – and if it rained, could be swept away.
This colony of kittiwakes is unique because it is so close to humans. Here one can look up at the fluffy chicks peering over the top of the nests. Though the colony is deserted in autumn, the adult birds are now returning to their nests. Last year’s chicks have gone off on their gap year and can be found anywhere in the North Atlantic – one was caught on the shores of Greenland – before coming home to all the difficulties of a first-time buyer on an overcrowded site. House prices may have collapsed in the human community, but they are still rising on the cliff in Dunmore East.