The latest report of the Corncrake Conservation Project indicates that the number of calling males in Ireland last year was 151, up 11 on the previous year. Photograph: Andy Hay/RSPB/PA Wire
In her poem Slabhra na Beatha, Kerry poet Bríd Ní Mhóráin captures the peril of our indifference to vanishing species in a few unsparing lines, delivering at the end a haunting indictment of human inaction in the face of loss. “Nuair a tháinig tost ar ghlór na fuiseoige / an traona, an chuirliúin dúchais; Ní dúramar faic” – “When silence befell the voice of the skylark / the corncrake, the native curlew; / We said nothing”.
“We said nothing.” More often than not, the disappearance of life around us passes with barely a mention. For some of us, what lingers is a hollow, ineffable feeling that we’re destined to inhabit a land full of humans, no longer shared – a place emptie
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