Eric Dempsey - author of The Complete Field Guide to Ireland's Birds
I’M FROM FINGLAS in Dublin and both my parents were very interested in nature, but my real inspiration was a wonderful teacher I had in junior infants in the Sacred Heart primary school, Mrs McCarthy.
She had such a love of birds and nature that, amazingly, many of the top birders and botanists in the country had her as a teacher.
I’m always conscious of her influence because I do a lot of work with schoolchildren now and I always feel I’m carrying the baton for her.
I used to work with Eircom but nine years ago, when I hit 40, I decided life was too short to sit in an office doing something you don’t like and I left. It was a big risk but I’ve never looked back.
Most of my work comes from overseas visitors who book birdwatching sessions with me as part of their holiday itinerary.
I’ll pick them up in my workhorse 4WD and take them to Bull Island, up to the Swords Estuary or down to Wicklow and Wexford, depending on what time of year it is and how much time we’ve got.
I’m very lucky in that I get a lot of work from visiting wildlife documentary crews too because I know where to go to get them the bird footage they need.
At the moment I’m also still acting as a Christmas present. A lot of people buy a field trip with me as a gift and so that is keeping me busy this month.
All my days are different though. I teach an adult education course in bird watching on Wednesday nights in the People’s College, and I’m preparing for a weekend workshop I’m running in Carlingford in February, so I’m getting ready for both of those today.
Birdwatchers are all kinds of people, professionals, housewives, students and kids. What I love more than anything is that when you are birdwatching you are completely in the moment. It’s very therapeutic.
I think it’s growing in interest too because people have more time than they did during the boom to slow down, observe and appreciate what’s around them.
The other thing about birdwatching is you can do it at any level, from watching the activity in your own garden to driving down to Wexford, as I did recently, to see a hen harrier that had migrated from North America.
I particularly love migrations, and with birdwatching you get such an acute sense of the changing of seasons. Who doesn’t get a very primal thrill when they see their first swallow of the season? Can you imagine what it must have meant to ancient hunters who had survived a harsh winter to see one, and the prospect of warmth ahead that it promised.
On my days off I’ll still head out birdwatching for the love of it. I just think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to do what I do.
* birdsireland.com
In conversation with
SANDRA O'CONNELL