FERMOY’S BIRD MAN
Every day, Pat Phelan leaves his home early in the morning and goes down to the nearby river where he meets the birds to give them their breakfast, the mallards and ducks, the heron, seagulls, crows and jackdaws alike.
A native of Fermoy, Pat has been taking this trip daily for over 20 years now.
“To be quite honest, I don’t know how it developed, but it’s a habit now. I think it started around the time the coarse anglers came,” he told The Avondhu.
Fermoy Coarse Anglers have been running festivals on the river Blackwater since 1957. According to Pat, the ducks only came to Fermoy some time after this and that they began to accumulate in the past twenty years or more.
“The coarse anglers used to be down by the river and it was a huge business and they used to feed the birds and in the 1970s I used to join them to feed the birds too. The birds used to gather around them looking for tit-bits,” he said.
Among the iconic Fermoy ducks and mallards is a more elusive bird that can often be spotted in the shade of a tree or along the weir: the heron.
“There’s a heron down there that I feed as well. They won’t eat bread so I bring him down some meat, some chicken or ham,” Pat said.
A much larger bird, with a wingspan of between 1.6 and 2 metres, Pat assures us that there is no reason to fear the bird in spite of its size, stating ‘they wouldn’t be a threat, they’re not built for strength.’
TREATED WITH RESPECT
Over time, Pat has managed to get up close with one heron, befriending the creature through his patience, kindness and perseverance.
“There was one heron there, I used to get very close to him and he’d take the food from my hand, the one that’s there at the moment though is very timid, I can’t get close to him at all,” Pat said.
In the summer time, Pat notes, the birds don’t seem to have much interest in the food offered to them, but in the winter they’re more hungry and appreciative.
He recalled how last winter, seagulls migrated inland in their hundreds and the ones that stopped in Fermoy joined the queue for the 'breakfasts' provided by Pat.
“They’re a more aggressive bird, but they’re all the one to me, seagulls, crows, rooks, birds, animals, I treat them all with the same respect,” he said.
The many birds along the bank of the river Blackwater have now become familiar to the Fermoy man, especially the ducks and mallards, who have taken a particular liking to him.
“The ducks are very tame and there’s a huge number of them at the moment because thankfully, they’re not being harmed.
“In winter, they come halfway up the hill to meet me, squawking away. It’s embarrassing at times,” Pat laughed.
It’s no wonder that the birds took to Pat like a duck to water, if you'll excuse the pun, as he has been known through the years as a campaigner for animal rights.
STOPPING THE CULL
His concern for animal rights and welfare began when he was in his twenties when he lived near a mink farm in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Witnessing how these creatures were treated, both in their lives and in their death, had shocked and horrified him and had opened his eyes to the reality of the fur trade, which he believes is also done in Ireland.
“That was one of the things that pushed me into caring about animals. I would suggest that people who support that trade by buying fur should rethink it and look into the background,” he cautioned.
Since then, Pat has been involved in several animal welfare and rights campaigns, one even involving the Fermoy ducks and mallards.
About 10 years ago, as reported on by The Avondhu at the time, local landowners invited shooters from abroad to come to their land and shoot the birds for sport.
“They’d come and spend a fortnight here, shots were going all day long, every second,” Pat remembered.
Along with other animal activists, including the Irish Council Against Blood Sports, Pat staged a campaign in response to this, which was successful and saw an end to the culling of Fermoy's ducks, mallards and other wild birds.
“If everybody was kind to animals, we’d have a better world. We might have superior intelligence to them, but they’re our fellow creatures and it upsets me to think that people use their superior intelligence to harm animals.”
Although he has taken a step back from his main campaigning which was against blood sports, Pat is as passionate as ever.
Now though, his attention has been turned to the environment and natural habitats that are being affected by human interference.
“The natural world is being hugely interfered with, it is being eroded and destroyed,” Pat warned.
In recent times, he has noticed a difference in the river Blackwater, with the scarcity of once common animals and a lack of fish.
“There isn’t a fish there at the minute, you could say they’ve been wiped out because the quality of the water is so poor and I can assure you, that’s not the way it used to be,” he said.
According to Pat, eels, minnows and cormorants, which were once plentiful in the Fermoy stretch of the Blackwater, are now rarely seen, which is also having a devastating effect on otter and mink populations which once inhabited the banks of the river.
"JUST SOMETHING I DO"
With fish in low supply, the birds continue to welcome Pat day in and day out, but Pat does not believe that he is the reason for their survival.
“I think they’d survive either way, they have a peculiar knack of surviving. They’d get on fine without me, but they still welcome the grub in the morning because it means they don’t have to work for it,” he added.
Despite all that he has done, for not only the birds of Fermoy, but for all animals throughout the years, Pat remains humble.
“It’s no big deal, it’s just something I do,” he concluded.