A Walk to the Shannon Callows
Clonown N.S.
We
went for a walk to the Shannon callows in October 1999. Cormac brought the
trundle wheel and he measured the distance to the river. It was 500 meters to
the gate into the Garbh Inch (the callows or river meadows). It was 500 more
meters to the riverbank.
When
we got there we saw a type of “scum” on the fields. The river had been in flood
and when it went down it left this “scum”. We didn’t know what it was. We took
a photograph of the scum. We sent e-mail to Stephen Heary, author of “Shannon
Floodlands”. We sent him the photograph as an email attachment.
He replied by saying it was
algae and a natural fertilizer for the grass.
Because
artificial fertilizer is not used, lots of wild flowers grow in the callows.
Insects
feed on the nector of the flowers.
Birds are attracted because of the insects
and that’s why birds like corncrakes nest there in the summer.
Yesterday
April 6th 2000 we went on a field trip back to the Garbhinch, near the Shannon,
to go bird watching with a man called Jimmy. He said that the wind had changed
to a southerly direction and as it was warm we would see a lot of birds
feeding.
Before we started our walk
we heard a blackbird singing loudly in the hedge. Jimmy said that the female
blackbird was on her eggs and the male blackbird was in the bush protecting
her.
When
we got to the Garbhinch we did see a lot of birds.
The heron
We saw a heron and it looked lovely with its
long wings.
A
bit further on we saw a bird of prey, the kestrel which is the smallest hawk.
He had a small bird in his mouth and it was screeching.
We could not see with our own eyes so Jimmy
let us use his binoculars.
the cormorant
We
saw birds such as the golden plover, curlew, tufted duck, and the cormorant
We
were told that the tufted duck and the lapwing have both got curls on their
heads.
We saw a moorhen it had red
on its face.
We
wouldn’t have seen them if Jimmy didn’t know a lot about birds and if he didn’t
have his binoculars.
Click here to read about the
corncrake officer.