Networks for Life

Curlew

The Curlew (Numenius arquata) is the largest wading bird in the Europe. It is very widespread, with its range extending east to the Urals and from Scandinavia and Russia in the north. It is easily recognisable by its long curved bill, brown upper plumage and long legs. There has been a decline in its population across Europe which may be due to agricultural intensification. It is resident in Ireland throughout the year. It breeds in damp pastures and meadows, boglands in and some lowlands agricultural areas. Curlews generally winter in coastal areas in Britain, but in Ireland they over winter in inland areas as well. Curlews use their long bills to hunt out worms, shellfish and shrimps in coastal muddy areas. Curlews are among the red list species of conservation concern in Ireland as specified by Birdwatch Ireland and RSPB Northern Ireland.

Curlew

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Intensive farming and ever-bigger fields have brought great changes to Irish wildlife. The end of small-scale mixed farming, with its plots of grain and haystacks, has finally extinguished the corn bunting from Ireland; the grey partridge barely survives; the yellowhammer is missing from much of the west.

Drainage of wet meadows and the change from hay to early-mown silage have helped reduce the corncrake to near-extinction, and the steady reduction of wetlands is threatening even the curlew, a symbol of 'wild' Ireland.

Corncrake Bird

Corncrakes are rarely seen or heard in Ireland today. Prior to the 1970's however, corncrakes had a large population here, numbering into the thousands. Current estimates place their population (based on the number of calling males) at 139 in 2002. Ireland is internationally important as a breeding ground for corncrakes. Their small population here accounts for 20% of their entire population over Western Europe. Corncrakes migrate to Ireland from Southern Africa to breed. They require cover (meadows, field margins, nettles and marshy areas) when they arrive and throughout the breeding season. With changing farming practices in Europe such areas are becoming increasingly rare. Grass is cut earlier and with heavy machinery to try and maximise the growing season, leaving no chance of escape or survival for hatchlings or eggs. But things are changing, with increased co-operation from farmers conservation measures are being put in place to try and prevent this bird from going extinct.

Corncrake Bird

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With so much of the island given over to farmland and human settlement, the hedgerows, roadsides and river-banks make up a network of increasing importance to wildlife. Plants, insects, animals and birds depend on it, not only for food and shelter, but for the links it offers to larger refuges and a wider pool of genes. Wildlife needs room to travel, to meet and mate, swap genes within species and recover from change and disaster.

The total length of Ireland's hedges, banks and walls is put at some 830,000 km, or more of Ireland's land surface than is covered by deciduous forest or protected in national parks and nature reserves. Its many microclimates and microhabitats range from the tall, leafy hedgerows of the sheltered eastern counties to the lichen-crusted stone walls and close-cropped field banks of the windy western seaboard. The density of the midland tree-lines and hedgerows can be remarkable, as is the maze of limestone field walls on Aran. Both are dramatically different from the open field divisions of continental European farming.

Guelder Rose 1

English Name: Guelder-rose Botanical Name (Latin): Viburnum opulus Irish Name: Caor chon Order: DICOTYLEDONES Family: CAPRIFOLIACEAE Brief Description: Deciduous shrub to 4m tall; leaves with 3–5 lobes, to 10cm long, green, often turning brilliant red in autumn; flowers white in flat, circular heads; inner flowers small and fertile, outer larger and sterile; berries translucent scarlet.

Carsten Krieger

Guelder Rose 1
Carsten Krieger

Guelder Rose 1

Carsten Krieger

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The first enclosure from Ireland's medieval open-field system arrived with the colonial landlords of the 17th century, when most of Ireland was divided into large estates. For another century, great stretches of farmed land were open landscape, with temporary fences of dead bushes.

The enclosure movement arrived from England in the late 1700s and took most dramatic effect in Leinster, where big stone-and-sod banks were raised around rectangular fields. Here, the use of hawthorn and tree-lines of beech and sycamore produced the most impressive divisions.

Elsewhere in the country, hawthorn has found itself in company with native shrubs of the local soils - hazel, spindle and guelder-rose in the lime-rich lowlands, gorse and blackthorn in the acid uplands, scrub willows where the land is wet. On the western seaboard it is fuchsia, the frost-tender shrub from South America, that lends itself to easy propagation. And everywhere, rooted high on the bank, the bramble, or blackberry bush, weaves its thorny barrier.

Flowering Ivy

Photograph of a flowering Ivy plant showing the leaf structure and the various shaded of green, and the greenish white flowers.

Flowering Ivy

Photograph of a flowering Ivy plant showing the leaf structure and the various shaded of green, and the greenish white flowers.

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Hedgerow trees swathed in ivy are characteristic of lowland Irish roadsides, and many tree lovers show alarm at the climber's unchecked growth. Trees and ivy can co-exist for centuries, since the plant is nourished from roots in the ground and the tiny adhesive roots it uses for climbing do not penetrate the bark. Once it has reached the crown of the tree its stems no longer cling but spread into a bush that has nectar-rich flowers in autumn and berries in winter - both a late resource for wildlife. But this evergreen bush can also increase the tree's resistance to winter winds and hasten the fall of a dying or poorly-rooted specimen.

Ivy is particularly hospitable to birds such as the wren, whose tiny size and powerful legs and feet give it remarkable manouevrability. While the robin watches for food from a look-out point, and the dunnock is adapted to search the ground, the wren explores every available surface in its ceaseless search for insects. As a hedge-nesting bird, it is Ireland's most widespread species, followed by the robin,
blackbird and chaffinch. Populations of all have been increasing in the milder winters of this century.

Bramble 2

English Name: Blackberry, bramble Botanical Name (Latin): Rubus fruticosus Irish Name: Dris Order: DICOTYLEDONES Family: ROSACEAE Brief Description: Very variable, thorny, deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub forming vast impenetrable thickets; stems erect or arching and often rooting at tips; flowers with white or pink petals; fruits black.

Carsten Krieger

Bramble 2 - Carsten Krieger

Blackbird head

Blackbird close up.

Blackbird head -

Burren Stone Walls

Linear features in the Irish landscape, such as stone walls, hedges and tree lines are a very important from an aesthetic, cultural and conservation viewpoint. They are part of the landscape of our cultural heritage but they also act as an essential resource for wildlife. Stone walls may appear, on first glance, to be barren lifeless structures but they are habitats for a range of flora and fauna species. Lichens, ferns and mosses grow directly on the rock surface, helping to make it more hospitable for other organisms in providing shelter and food. Insects find the nooks and crannies of stone wall an ideal home, and large holes can even become safe nesting spaces for small birds. The importance of stone walls in forming a network which allows animals move (disperse) from one area to another is also a much needed conservation function of such linear features.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Burren Stone Walls - With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

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