Four men went out the other day on a sort of business expedition. It was up Meath/ Cavan way. Incidental to their other business, all of them (though none of them birders) saw something worth looking at. First they remarked, on the journey of about fifty miles each way, how they would come across a pair, or two pairs of rooks, sitting near nests (ld nests, of course) just looking pensively at the structures. As an architect might consider adding an extension or doing a bit of reroofing. Not one of them was active about building.
Later in the day, one of the companions saw a kingfisher. Common enough sight to river walkers, but it's surprising how many people claim never to have seen one. At the house where they were to have a meal, the birds were swarming like ants around the feeders (and a mouse had got into one.) The seed eaters, finches mostly, were emptying their receptacles at a great rate. In this area, coal tits predominate. Lovely pink breasts, white flash on a black head like a badger. There is always bird life mere, including the dipper, Just getting active about now, and other water birds.
But stunning, absolutely stunning to this not very bird conscious group was a jay. To one or two, the first ever seen. And this jay differed from every picture you had ever seen in the books. It was a deep rose pink along flanks and underneath; deeper in colour than any seen before, in photograph or in life. Perhaps it was a young bird, though, fully grown. And you are told that the Irish jay differs from those on the next island. But this was something. It was on the lawn, about ten yards from the viewing window, and doing what the rooks do plunging its beak into the soil and bringing up some wriggling thing or other. Jays are most often come across breaking cover from the treetops.
Anyway, it lit up the day for the friends. (You may have guessed they were out for the first day of trout fishing. Three had no luck. The fourth, a lawyer - and you must believe him - "met", in his own saying, about 18, lost some, landed six and put them back, for they were below the legal size. But one or two quite plump, thank you.)