The final countdown

The siren call of raw and windswept places that wildfowl love intensifies as 1 September rolls round and an expansive estuary promises early duck

- BARRY STOFFELL

Wildfowling is every bit as much about the wildness as it is about the fowl. For me, the first weeks of the season — before bird numbers swell with the migrant arrivals and the weather obligingly disintegrates — have always been about a welcome return to the raw, windswept places that remain etched in your memory long after you retreat to the comforts of home.

Here on the Atlantic coastline of County Kerry, we are endowed with many such wild places and, by the last week of August, I was longing to reconnect with them. Storms Ellen and Francis had blown through, bringing with them a sense that summer was categorically over and, as 1 September loomed closer, my thoughts turned to duck.

A call to my good friend John Mangan of JMM Hunting had put me in contact with Grant Rogerson, a Scotsman and wildfowler now native to the nearby village of Waterville. He confirmed he would be heading out on the opening day of the season into the wetlands of the nearby estuary and would be happy to have me along. I patched the waterproofs, washed the flask and counted down the days to the first of the month.

Grant and I met in the late afternoon at the mouth of the river Inny, just north of the village. Behind us, gently rising bogland ran to the foot of the mountains, piles of cut turf pockmarking the plain like the leavings of some giant animal.

In front, flashes of reflected sunlight stencilled the architecture of the estuary, river braids winding through verdant marsh before widening to tidal flats and then, almost two miles distant, spilling into Ballinskelligs Bay and the Atlantic.

Mallard