I have been slowly returning to the Glen these days of Mí na Marbh. The river water has been consistently brown
It is strange and beautiful and I know its bad for the river to carry such a load. I know it must be coming from the housing developments upstream. This is my fourth evening in the Glen since the beginning of the month and every time I’m here the water has been the colour of earth.
One of those dusk walks I am greeted by a bat flittering in the deep blue sky space between the silhouettes of the trees.
In the same patch and on another deepening dark I disturb a blackbird underfoot, who also startles me, flurrying up from the ground in my direction and then up and around, crown hopping, calling out and criss crossing overhead, chasing me Westerways with wild song, past the yellow bench to the yellow bridges. I turn away South bound for my gate and whisper an apology and a wish to sleep well.
Another day on the other side, as I am just among the deep red heads of the swamp cypresses I hear a strange call – a single repeated note – a note with an odd slight echo. I get out my phone and make a recording, checking it on the birdcall app – I repeat the recording – once – twice – three times – each time getting the same result …Greater Spotted Woodpecker it reads. I save the recordings without verifying.
Saturday morning I’m back and the water isn’t brown, it’s running clear. Below the surface I can see the river bed where there is a film of red silt covering all of the bigger black stones and all of the the spaces between. There is no sign of life anywhere in the river, enlivened only by its own steady movement, the light on the sinewing, stranding, twining, purposeful water as it flushes ever westwards. The paths on either side are busy with humans in ones and twos bare legs heading for the Yin Yang gathering, and the Saturday morning park run.
At home on Saturday night I listen back to the recording from the week that I have labled “woodpecker (?)” I send it in a text to my contact in Birdwatch Ireland/Cork – he texts back: “100% correct” and asks “When was this recorded please?” – “It was 13th November 5 pm-ish” I return, and then realise it is the small hours of Sunday morning and apologise. “I can’t sleep either” comes the reply.