Winter Wetlands

North East Slob Channel

Photograph of the North East channel of the North slob on the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve.

North East Slob Channel

North East Slob Channel

Photograph of the North East channel of the North slob on the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve.

Enlarge image

Unless a changing climate dramatically alters the picture, the island of Ireland will continue to receive more rain than can evaporate from its surface, thus maintaining its many kinds of wetland. Marshes, swamps, fens, bogs, lagoons, floodplains and wet meadows are just some of the wetland types, each with its own ecosystem and biodiversity.

Even without climate change, existing wetlands are disappearing at a rate that worries ecologists. A long equation with 'wasteland' continues to make them a target for construction, landfill and forestry, and estuary mudflats are increasingly annexed for development.

Wetlands are now recognised as vital to human concerns. They help to check coastal erosion and prevent floods, and their rich plant life and aquatic bacteria have great potential in treating polluting wastewater. Their value to wildlife is shown most dramatically in the autumn and winter months, when Ireland draws in migrant wildfowl and waders from breeding grounds around two-thirds of the world.

Whitefronted Goose

Photograph of an adult Greenland Whitefronted goose on the ground.

Whitefronted Goose

Whitefronted Goose

Photograph of an adult Greenland Whitefronted goose on the ground.

Enlarge image

Bewick, Mute and Whooper Swans

Bewick's swan (Cygnus columbianus) is the smallest of the Irish swans. Bewick's come to Ireland from mid October to march after spending the breeding season in Siberia. Bewick's can be distinguished from the Mute and Whooper swans by the large amount of black on its bill. They feed on leaves shoots and roots and are found in flooded grasslands, saltmarshes and lakes. Bewick's and Whooper swans are both on the amber list of bird species of conservation concern in Ireland. Whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus) are large birds with a long thin neck and black legs, they have a large yellow triangular patch on their black bill. A winter visitor to Ireland from Iceland, it roosts on lowland farm areas near the coasts, flooded fields or lakes. Whoopers feed on aquatic plants, grass, grain and potatoes. The Mute swan (Cygnus olor) is Ireland largest bird. It has a long s-shaped neck and an orange bill with a black base. It is now quite common in Ireland and can be found living very close to man on canal and in urban parks. It feeds on water plants, insects and snails.

Bewick, Mute and Whooper Swans

Bewick, Mute and Whooper Swans

Bewick's swan (Cygnus columbianus) is the smallest of the Irish swans. Bewick's come to Ireland from mid October to march after spending the breeding season in Siberia. Bewick's can be distinguished from the Mute and Whooper swans by the large amount of black on its bill. They feed on leaves shoots and roots and are found in flooded grasslands, saltmarshes and lakes. Bewick's and Whooper swans are both on the amber list of bird species of conservation concern in Ireland. Whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus) are large birds with a long thin neck and black legs, they have a large yellow triangular patch on their black bill. A winter visitor to Ireland from Iceland, it roosts on lowland farm areas near the coasts, flooded fields or lakes. Whoopers feed on aquatic plants, grass, grain and potatoes. The Mute swan (Cygnus olor) is Ireland largest bird. It has a long s-shaped neck and an orange bill with a black base. It is now quite common in Ireland and can be found living very close to man on canal and in urban parks. It feeds on water plants, insects and snails.

Enlarge image

Most of them are short-haul visitors, converging from Iceland and Britain, but great numbers arrive from Arctic Canada or Greenland or, in later waves driven by falling temperatures, from Siberia or Scandinavia. Still more Arctic waders use Ireland as a staging post on the way to wintering grounds in Spain or Africa. In all, perhaps one million or more migrant waterbirds seek the comfort of ice-free water, ample grazing and the plant and invertebrate food of mud.

The patterns of migration are often ancient, but they are not immune from change. Up to half-a-century ago, the common wild goose of Ireland's winter countryside was the Greenland white-fronted goose (named for its white forehead) that fed on the bulbs and stolons of peatland sedges.

Today, displaced by bog drainage and disturbance, its flocks concentrate at the Wexford Slobs, on estuary land originally reclaimed for farming. This now holds a well-developed Wildbird Reserve with a spectacular mix of waterfowl in winter and year-round interest in its flora and fauna.

The common 'wild' swan of Ireland (as distinct from the resident mute swans of the rivers and canals) was formerly the small, gooselike Bewick's swan, a winter migrant from Russia. Today, it is quite outnumbered by the large whooper swan from Iceland, whose bugling calls are among the most stirring of Ireland's wild sounds.

As many as 12,000 whoopers arrive at Ireland's big northern sea loughs, mostly in October. Many move on to Lough Neagh before dispersing southwards in small parties to the shallower lakes and turloughs of the midlands and west.

Wigeon

The wigeon (Anas Penelope) is a medium sized duck with a round head and a small bill. Male widgons have a grey body, pink breast, chestnut neck and head with a yellow forecrown. In flight, birds have white bellies and males have a large white wing patch. Birds overwinter in Ireland, escaping the harsh weather of their summer grounds in Iceland, Scandaniva and Russia. In Ireland and the UK widgeons roost on estuaries, coastal marshes and lowland lakes. Widgeons eat aquatic plants, grasses and roots and produce 9 eggs generally. Theses eggs are incubated for 3 and a half weeks, and once hatched are immediately brought to water. Chicks fly after 45 days. Although not under immediate threat, due to loss of its habitat here, widgeons have been placed in the amber list of bird species of conservation concern.

Wigeon

Wigeon

The wigeon (Anas Penelope) is a medium sized duck with a round head and a small bill. Male widgons have a grey body, pink breast, chestnut neck and head with a yellow forecrown. In flight, birds have white bellies and males have a large white wing patch. Birds overwinter in Ireland, escaping the harsh weather of their summer grounds in Iceland, Scandaniva and Russia. In Ireland and the UK widgeons roost on estuaries, coastal marshes and lowland lakes. Widgeons eat aquatic plants, grasses and roots and produce 9 eggs generally. Theses eggs are incubated for 3 and a half weeks, and once hatched are immediately brought to water. Chicks fly after 45 days. Although not under immediate threat, due to loss of its habitat here, widgeons have been placed in the amber list of bird species of conservation concern.

Enlarge image

In any season, Lough Neagh holds more ducks than anywhere else in Ireland, and in winter its great expanse attracts flocks of migrants such as pochard, tufted duck and goldeneye, all diving ducks from Russian and Scandinavia.

Further south, the floodlands of the Shannon callows particularly suit the grazing and surface-feeding ducks, such as wigeon, teal and shoveler, along with whooper swans and a few, greatly reduced, flocks of Greenland white-fronted geese. The communal whistling of some 20,000 wigeon is a characteristic winter sound of the callows, while sweeping aerial ballets of migrant lapwing and golden plover are a dramatic pleasure of clear winter days.

Away from the midland lakes and floodlands, the estuaries of Ireland play an internationally important role in the feeding and shelter of migrant species. Here, too, there are spectacular sights among the swirling throngs of waders. On the west coast, the soft mud and salt-marshes of the inner Shannon Estuary may hold some 20,000 tiny dunlin ('sea mice' in one local name). On the east coast, the bays and estuaries are even more sheltered and their sediments even richer in food.

Grey Heron

The Grey Heron[Ardea cinerea]

Lorcan Scott Duchas

Grey Heron
Lorcan Scott Duchas

Grey Heron

The Grey Heron[Ardea cinerea]

Lorcan Scott Duchas

Enlarge image

Perhaps the most striking migrants here are the Brent geese, small but robust birds of a particular light-bellied race that breeds on the tundra of Canadian Arctic islands and migrates exclusively to Ireland. Their most important point of arrival is at Strangford Lough in County Down, where the geese feed on marine grass called Zostera. As this is exhausted, thousands of them move to estuaries further south, including the Wexford Slobs.

At Dublin Bay, the Brent geese become part of the remarkable winter assembly of migrant waterbirds feeding at the doorstep of the capital. The sand spit and salt marsh of North Bull Island, in the estuary of the River Liffey, are probably the best-attended and most highly-protected bird-watching sites in all Ireland. A great community of waders and ducks is sorted by dietary menu, social habit and shape and length of bill. Flocks of wigeon and teal pack together in the salt-marsh; shelduck and pintail join the waders in harvesting the millions of tiny marine snails that graze the mudflat algae at ebb tide. Along with the silvery hosts of dunlin wheel the clouds of knot from Canada and Greenland, redshank from Iceland and bar-tailed godwit from northern Europe.

The picture is repeated, but on a more dispersed scale, on the biologically rich muds of Cork Harbour, an almost landlocked estuary with many remote inlets and creeks. These were among the first on the south coast to attract the exotic and beautiful white heron, the little egret, now established as an Irish breeding bird. The expansion of this Mediterranean species, north and west in Europe, was one of the most dramatic waterfowl trends of the 1990s. After several decades of visits to Ireland's south coast, in increasing numbers and for longer and longer periods, the first breeding took place in the sheltered and wooded valley of County Waterford's River Blackwater, when the egrets added a dozen nests to an existing breeding colony of grey herons. Nesting has since increased, both in Ireland and Britain, and the egrets are seen more and more often on the island's east and west coasts.