Thursday, November 16, 2006

A stopover for arctic-nesting species,

Unlike US warplanes, the cead mile birds that use Ireland as a migratory refueling point or winter stopover receive a cead mile failte. Ireland’s mild weather makes it a suitable home for many over-wintering water birds, although the crustaceans and shellfish must shudder in the soupy mudflats when they hear them arrive.

Winter hastens the arrival of arctic wading birds including knot, dunlin, godwit and redshank to probe our estuarine mud. Whooper swans, Canadian and Greenland geese, Icelandic, Russian and Scandinavian ducks make their annual return to our skies. Redwings, fieldfares, starlings, chaffinches, waxwings, also from Scandinavia, come visiting our autumnal gardens, picking at berries, bird tables and teasels. British lapwings and continental curlew and woodcock arrive. Summer visitors to Ireland include swallows, corncrakes, warblers and wheatears.

The habitats of these transitory birds need ongoing monitoring and protection. According to Birdwatch Ireland:

"Ireland's position along the major flyways of arctic-nesting species, together with its relatively mild climate (which provides ice-free feeding opportunities) supports large numbers and a high diversity of migratory and wintering waterbirds. Our diverse wetland habitats provide a home for an equally diverse wetland bird community, which are increasingly coming under threat from human developments. While a large proportion of Irish wetland habitats have already been lost through land claim during this century, the variety, scale and form of developments have never been greater than at present. Proposals for housing developments, marinas, aquaculture, tidal barrages and wind-turbines all threaten essential feeding and roosting areas for wintering waterfowl. The effects are compounded by the associated disturbance problems due to increased recreational usage of shorelines in the light of such developments. Ireland thus have an obligation to protect and conserve these species and the habitats they depend on, so that together with other countries along the various flyways, their populations are maintained."

These international responsibilities are recognised through the Irish government's participation in a number of conventions and agreements, including the


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The island of ireland

Once upon a time, and for 15000 years, ice a mile high blanketed Ireland. When the lingering Ice Age finally released and the Irish ice departed it left a landscape scoured. Across land bridges linking Ireland, Britain and mainland Europe plants and animals arrived to colonise the new lowlands, mountains and valleys. The world’s ice continued to melt, the sea levels to rise, and some 8000 years ago Ireland became the island we now know, accounting for just 0.01% of the world's total land area and the most westerly point of Europe.

Though at Alaskan latitudes, the country's climate is tempered, due partly to the neighbouring waters of the Gulf Stream and partly the prevailing southwesterlies that veering and backing make landfall on our sodden coast. These offerings from the Atlantic mean it is never too hot, never too cold. But without doubt it is wet. Rain lingers year round, never far away, though is most frequent in winter, the western counties and, inevitably, on the day of your parade.