"Sure it's an aigle!"

"Sure it's an aigle!"

Lough Derg--Henry Newland--Fishing--Eagles

"'What bird is that ?' said the Captain, rousing himself. 'Sure it's an aigle!' said the men ; and, for want of something better to do, the whole party stood, sat, or reclined, watching the bird as it hovered uneasily round and round them..."

Henry Newland, 1804-1860

Newland, Henry, The Erne, Its Legends and Its Fly-Fishing, pp. 223-24

Chapman and Hall, London

1851

Digitised by Internet Archive, originally from University of California

Public domain

xiv, 395 p. plates. 20 cm

English

Fishing memoirs

DD_0183

54.622709, -7.908866

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t4qj7g05s

"'What bird is that ?' said the Captain, rousing himself.

'Sure it's an aigle!' said the men ; and, for want of something better to do, the whole party stood, sat, or reclined, watching the bird as it hovered uneasily round and round them.

'I should not wonder,' said the Captain, who was a bit of an ornithologist, and in his younger days had been an eminent bird's-nester, — 'I should not wonder at all if that bird has a nest, late in the season as it is. Pull out a hundred yards or so, and then lie on your oars, and let us watch her.'

The boat was hardly pulled off the shore, when the bird, having made some three or four circles round the island, as if reconnoitering the ground, dipped suddenly down in the middle of it, disappearing in a clump of rocks and myrica bushes.

'There is the nest, you may be sure,' said he. 'Many a bird's-nest have I taken in my time, but never an eagle's nest yet.'

There was but little temptation to continue casting out the lines over still water, and all were excited at the thoughts of this new object of pursuit; the boat, therefore, was soon secured to the shore, and all parties dispersed about the island in the search."

Monograph