Via Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1: Surveying the birds of Sandymount Strand... listen to Eternity Along the Strand by Fionn Ó Marcaigh above...
I've seen a lot of overcast early mornings on Sandymount Strand, as well as cold bright ones and gusty faltering ones and every other kind of morning Dublin Bay has to offer. It’s all in service of the Irish Wetland Bird Survey, or I-WeBS for short, which takes place one Saturday a month between September and March. Volunteer birdwatchers such as myself flock to the strands and beaches and other assorted wet places of Ireland to count the waterbirds seeking the shelter of our mild winters... Every autumn, tens of millions of birds fly south from their summer breeding sites in places like Iceland, Greenland, and Canada, along what ornithologists call the East Atlantic Flyway. Ireland is an important stop along this flyway, visited by hundreds of thousands of birds annually...
Sunday Miscellany, RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday mornings at 9.10 am - listen back here.
