Serious ornithologists may well be competitive about who has the first sighting of the amiable Brent geese returning from Greenland and beyond, back here again to winter it out on Dublin Bay. But everyone else who lives on or near the shore around this intriguing bit of coastline is allowed their own personal first sighting.
We savoured it just after noon today (Saturday), when half a dozen or so in a loose Vee-formation came southward at the end of their long flight from the Arctic, in over the sandy tombolo at Sutton, semi-gliding and steadily descending towards the north end of the Bull Island where the expanding seal colony
is adding to the many natural attractions of the City on the Sea.
The Brents are a reassuring presence as we face November's inevitable gloom, even if the possible lateness of their arrival may be another sign of climate change. Nevertheless, if they've come all that way to spend the winter here, maybe we can get through it, too. And then, come the Spring, their uncountable numbers preparing to return north will be impressive, skins of Vees close aloft, gobbling along in search of the last food top-up before the increasingly challenging flight north.
Having stripped the shore, they take their last calories on board along the area's ten and more golf courses. There, the significant evidence on the otherwise immaculate greens is that constipation is not a Brent goose problem. But it does provide a skid-pan challenge for over-focussed golfers. Yet even the most dedicated player feels a lifting of the spirits as the familiar silhouettes come back against the darkening Autumn sky. Life goes on, albeit in a short-day-long-night rhythm.
