At the corner of the boreen leading down to the strand a stubborn shoulder of bedrock juts out from a grassy bank. A century ago, when the only wheeled traffic was horse-carts bringing seaweed from the tideline, the rock would have taken the odd bump from a wooden axle.
Super-sized tractors have seen successive lumps bashed off it with sledge-hammers, and the coming of tarmac and camper-vans eventually brought the county council's rock-chiseller into play.
But the bulk of the rock survives and in only a few years has managed to fill its scars with enough wind-blown sand, sheep-droppings and seeds for a brilliant floral display in July. Taking a breather on my morning march, I perch among wild thyme and heather, white stars of squinancywort, dark sapphires of milkwort, violet spires of self-heal, goldenrod, yarrow, burdock, red and white clover . . .
Back home the other day, I found an e-mail inviting my thoughts on conserving local biodiversity. The county council and the Heritage Council are developing a five-year Biodiversity Action Plan for Mayo and Roscommon and consulting all kinds of people likely to be willing to "take a few minutes" to respond to a lengthy questionnaire.
"What habitats," it began, "do you feel are most important in Co Mayo and what in your opinion are their conservation priorities?" I tried to put a rough order on a dozen kinds of habitat - intact oceanic bog, offshore islands, limestone lakes, western oakwoods, freshwater pearl rivers, the waters of Clew Bay, and so on. But what a huge gap there is between such ecological categories and ordinary human experience, between clumsy words like "biodiversity" and my lovely flowery rock.
It's a gap that some western counties have already done much to meet. Co Clare was the pioneer, and the local biodiversity action plan it launched in May reinforces a whole programme of popular wildlife promotion, from excellent brochures and website to a community survey of bluebells. Co Galway is not far behind, with a popular People and Nature programme, run with the university, preceding publication of its plan this year.
The remaining local authorities are obliged to follow suit under the National Biodiversity Plan (this 15 years after Ireland signed up to Rio).
Eighteen counties have now been lined up in pairs for plans prepared by ecological consultants funded by the Heritage Council. They have until November to consult all round and get their first drafts on paper.
In Louth and Meath, for example, Padraic Fogarty (www.openfield.ie) is asking everyone with likely credentials or interests: "Do you know of wild places, no matter how small, that you feel should be protected?", and "What one project would you like to see carried out for nature conservation in your county?" Far from obsessing about pinhead Arctic snails or other rare species, it's the corners of landscape "that are under our noses and would be sorely missed" he particularly wants to gather in.
To still-sceptical minds and cautious councillors, he emphasises "all the free and ignored services that are provided by biodiversity - soil regeneration, water treatment, air conditioning, waste disposal, flood control, carbon sequestration", and adding in, a bit defiantly, "the spiritual wellbeing and feeling of serenity that only nature can provide".
Typically of the nine consultants, Fogarty's CV comes crowded with science qualifications and survey work in the field (red grouse, butterflies). In Mayo and Roscommon, Bohola-born Karina Dingerkus (karina@giorra.com) brings pioneering research on the Irish hare. Their initial plans will be broadly persuasive and promotional, with research projects reaching out to the community (Clare is counting cuckoos). Not too slowly, one hopes, many of the real effects will filter through the great awareness of planners, engineers and landowners.
In the UK this month, Bill Bryson became president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. "I know of no landscape anywhere," he said, "that is more universally appreciated, more visited and walked across and gazed upon, more artfully worked, more lovely to behold, more comfortable to be in, than the countryside of England. The landscape almost everywhere is eminently accessible. People feel a closeness to it, an affinity, that I don't think they experience elsewhere."
Would we could say that of Ireland, but history has not been a help. We stand at a crux of public access to the countryside. For its wildlife, belatedly, things are brighter, with a willing generation of schoolchildren and the Heritage Council as a shining agent of change. A "local biodiversity plan" is not a phrase to set the heart on fire, but it offers a chance to put in a strong word for that bit of bog, shoreline, old meadow, clump of trees, road-bank, churchyard, or whatever, where nature is still in full - or even partial - swing.
EyeOnNature
Early on June 29th, a moth the size of my hand fluttered for 10 minutes outside a wild beehive over my bedroom window. Its abdomen had black and cream stripes
Aubrey Fennell, Palatine, Co Carlow - It sounds like a death's head hawkmoth, which raids bee hives and is a summer visitor from Africa.
Why do goat willows or sallows turn rusty brown at this time of year?Margaret Jackson, Lisnagry, Co Limerick.
I have a crack willow on which the leaves have turned brown -Stepher Colton, Dromore, Co Tyrone.
The leaves are attacked by either the brassy or the blue willow beetle, which remove the epidermis, so they turn brown.
On 3rd July, from Coliemore Road, we observed a small pod of minke whales in two groups moving slowly through Dalkey Sound. They were a fabulous sight with their arched black backs and distinctive curved dorsal fins. As they neared the Killiney Bay end, the two groups suddenly formed a circle of some seven or eight whales - having no doubt trapped a shoal of mackerel.
Greg Carley, Killiney, Co Dublin