Typically, a text message from Micheal Cottrell means good news, along the lines of an interesting whale sighting or some such, last Thursday was however the very worst of news, as his message read “Steve Wing died this evening on Cape”.
A final wave from Steve to birding friends leaving from Cape Sept. 2024
You reach a certain age in your life when you get used to people you know dying and you take it on the chin and get on with life, which is I guess as it should be. But this blow landed hard. There is of course a palpable sense of shock among his friends and colleagues in the birding community, but Steve touched so many more people, among whom were the many hundreds of whale watchers who joined us on Cape for IWDG’s weekend courses (2001-2015).
Every moment spent with Steve was an opportunity to learn from someone with a great passion for all aspects of the natural world, which he was only too willing to share. But Steve was just as interested in people as they were curious about him and his work as the warden at a bird observatory on an offshore island.
I first met Steve in the late 1990’s after he took up the warden position on Cape. Despite our divergent interests, common ground was always found and I was always made feel most welcome in what was essentially his home at the “Obs”. Hours would pass quickly in his company, often with Mary, his pre-deceased partner and “Benson” their beloved Jack Russell, who always seemed to look suspiciously at me through his cataracts….he was clearly a good judge of character!
For so many years Steve was the first familiar face we’d see on arrival at the pier on Cape and the last to wave us off. It’s our turn now to wave you off Steve. In your passing, we’ve not only lost a great field naturalist, but we’ve also lost a good friend and if we can take any positive from this, it is in the knowledge that you and Mary are together in spirit in your favourite places, Oileán Chléire and Lundy respectively.
At this week’s memorial service in Ringaskiddy, Cork, Steve’s good friend Dick Coombes told the large gathering that Steve had recently told him, that when he died he’d return to Cape’s cliffs as a chough. We’ll all be keeping a watchful eye out for you Steve. Go easy my friend and enjoy the sea watching from whichever vantage point you now watch from.
By Pádraig Whooley
Steve’s favourite bird, the chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax