Icy Weather

Despite a persistent feeling that this would be wonderful weather for the middle of February, we cannot avoid what Nature chooses to throw at us. Three cheers for the drivers who brave the cold weather and dangerous roads to get food, fuel, post and other necessities to us – and the binmen who take away the detritus of our seasonal excess. Where would we be without them? Meanwhile out in the non-human world, the cold and frost mean tough times for our fellow creatures, but also wonder and beauty for those who care to look.
 
At Cabragh Wetlands the landscape is draped in frost, highlighting details and perspectives hidden for most of the year. Spiders’ webs glisten from fences and foliage, each utterly unique in design, different from every one of the billions of webs around the world. In the reedbeds the stalks of last summer’s growth are brought closer to collapse and decay by the penetration and weight of the freezing frost. The cycles of life and death continue inexorably. Nature is clearing out the old and unwanted, and preparing for the new and vigorous growth of next spring.
 
Small creatures can suffer terribly at times like this. As the ground and water froze last week, so a curlew abandoned the safety of the marshland meadows to search for food in, of all places, the mud and slush which cars had heaped in ridges along the road to Holycross. With its elegantly streamlined long, downward curling beak, the curlew must have been pretty desperate to venture to such a public, dangerous place, and the poor thing looked rather pathetic as it forlornly penetrated the soft material before inevitably bashing into the unyielding tarmac beneath. This once common bird of the moors, marshes and fields is now officially classified as endangered, placed on the Red List and carefully monitored. They will be glad of a thaw, and we hope enough survive winter to breed productively in the spring.
 
The ponds are mostly covered in ice, with lines of footprints across the surface giving more evidence of the wealth of wildlife about. A few corners are ice-free so ducks and other birds can drink and clean their feathers; one author suggested that birds are more likely to die of thirst than hunger in very cold weather. They can always find something in the hedges and ditches to nibble on, especially this early in the winter, but if all sources of water are rock-hard, like the curlew pecking at the tarmac, they will be in real danger. My laziness has produced an added bonus this autumn. Hundreds of windfall apples were left lying where they fell, waiting to be raked up and composted. Now they are a wonderful source of food for the starlings, rooks and crows.
 
The sturdy pony tethered near the Cabragh Centre has done invaluable work eating down excess vegetation, manuring the ground, creating crevices with its hooves for other creatures to shelter in and opening up the tightly packed thatch of grass and weeds at the base of an overgrown fence, allowing light and space for new growth next year. In bad weather even the least becoming food source can be a lifeline for something.
 
Do not forget the CAVA (Community and Voluntary Association) meeting at Cabragh at 8.00 this Thursday (9th December).

Icy Weather

Despite a persistent feeling that this would be wonderful weather for the middle of February, we cannot avoid what Nature chooses to throw at us. Three cheers for the drivers who brave the cold weather and dangerous roads to get food, fuel, post and other necessities to us – and the binmen who take away the detritus of our seasonal excess. Where would we be without them? Meanwhile out in the non-human world, the cold and frost mean tough times for our fellow creatures, but also wonder and beauty for those who care to look.
 
At Cabragh Wetlands the landscape is draped in frost, highlighting details and perspectives hidden for most of the year. Spiders’ webs glisten from fences and foliage, each utterly unique in design, different from every one of the billions of webs around the world. In the reedbeds the stalks of last summer’s growth are brought closer to collapse and decay by the penetration and weight of the freezing frost. The cycles of life and death continue inexorably. Nature is clearing out the old and unwanted, and preparing for the new and vigorous growth of next spring.
 
Small creatures can suffer terribly at times like this. As the ground and water froze last week, so a curlew abandoned the safety of the marshland meadows to search for food in, of all places, the mud and slush which cars had heaped in ridges along the road to Holycross. With its elegantly streamlined long, downward curling beak, the curlew must have been pretty desperate to venture to such a public, dangerous place, and the poor thing looked rather pathetic as it forlornly penetrated the soft material before inevitably bashing into the unyielding tarmac beneath. This once common bird of the moors, marshes and fields is now officially classified as endangered, placed on the Red List and carefully monitored. They will be glad of a thaw, and we hope enough survive winter to breed productively in the spring.
 
The ponds are mostly covered in ice, with lines of footprints across the surface giving more evidence of the wealth of wildlife about. A few corners are ice-free so ducks and other birds can drink and clean their feathers; one author suggested that birds are more likely to die of thirst than hunger in very cold weather. They can always find something in the hedges and ditches to nibble on, especially this early in the winter, but if all sources of water are rock-hard, like the curlew pecking at the tarmac, they will be in real danger. My laziness has produced an added bonus this autumn. Hundreds of windfall apples were left lying where they fell, waiting to be raked up and composted. Now they are a wonderful source of food for the starlings, rooks and crows.
 
The sturdy pony tethered near the Cabragh Centre has done invaluable work eating down excess vegetation, manuring the ground, creating crevices with its hooves for other creatures to shelter in and opening up the tightly packed thatch of grass and weeds at the base of an overgrown fence, allowing light and space for new growth next year. In bad weather even the least becoming food source can be a lifeline for something.
 
Do not forget the CAVA (Community and Voluntary Association) meeting at Cabragh at 8.00 this Thursday (9th December).

Thank you to Lisheen Mines

There was very good news for Cabragh Wetlands on Monday of last week, when John Elms, the General Manager of Lisheen Mines, Terry McKenna, Human Resources Manager, and Brian Keaty, Mine Manager, met the Trust’s Committee, supported by a good turn out of members, friends and several local groups who work closely with the Wetland Trust. After an introduction and welcome by the Chairman, Tom Grace, there was a presentation by three Committee members on the development, current work and future plans of the Trust. Michael Lowry TD, spoke about his pleasure in returning to invaluable local matters at the end of a tough day dealing with the national economic and political crisis. He has long been an admirer of the work of the Trust and his commitment and energy were instrumental in drawing attention of Lisheen Mines to the value of Cabragh’s work.
 
Mr Elms spoke of his surprise at and admiration for the extent of the Trust’s activities and ambitions, and acknowledged the importance of local and community organizations. He then handed a cheque for €50,000 to the Chairman. This extraordinarily generous donation shows the commitment of Lisheen Mines to the environment, and will be put towards completing the planned extension of the Centre, which should be underway early in the New Year. With this work finished, the Wetlands Trust should be in a position to extend its conservation, educational and recreational work, with a permanent exhibition in place and other facilities to help boost both tourism and local business in North and South Tipperary.
 
At a recent dinner in Borrisoleigh, North Tipperary CAVA (Community and Voluntary Associations) held its 2010 Annual Awards Evening. Community organizations from all over North Tipperary were present, with Awards given in several categories, including Environment, Youth and Sports, Economic, Social Inclusion, Arts, Culture and Heritage and Outstanding Achievement. The prizes were spread around the county, from Ballingarry to Lorrha, and Cabragh Wetlands was very pleased to win the Community Empowerment Award, reflecting the values of cooperation and local responsibility which are so essential if communities are to deal with the range of problems facing all of us at this difficult time.
 
To build on this, the Thurles branch of CAVA will be meeting at the Cabragh Wetlands Centre on Thursday 9th December at 8.00pm, when representatives from CAVA will give a presentation on the work of the organization, highlighting what it can offer in the way of training and support to all sorts of local voluntary organizations, from soccer clubs, to groups caring for the elderly, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged, to environmental supporters like Cabragh or Tidy Towns groups. If you are not affiliated to CAVA, you really should send someone along to this meeting and find out what you could gain – and, of course, how you might give even more effectively to your local community.

Extinction

If you are free this Friday evening (26th November), then come along to an evening of Song, Music and Story at the Cabragh Wetlands Centre, starting at 8.00pm. It is so important to maintain culture and traditions in a convivial atmosphere. You will be most welcome.
 
A few weeks ago we printed a small article focusing on the good news about tiger habitats being preserved in the kingdom of Bhutan, on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. This weekend the Sunday Times brought a dose of reality with the news that the South China tiger is now functionally extinct. Surveys have found no trace of it in the wild and all 100 South China tigers in Chinese zoos have been proven by genetic testing to be cross-breeds. The genetic purity of the South China tiger, believed to be the common ancestor of all other tiger species, has been lost for ever. Within the last 30 or so years, three other species have become extinct – the Balinese, Javan and Caspian tigers have all disappeared. Those that are left (perhaps just 3200 individuals in the wild) are still subject to poaching for their fur and, most worryingly, for other body parts for use in traditional Far Eastern medicines.
 
We can only give our best wishes to the international conferences and organizations that are working heroically to save the remaining tigers. Like every other living species, tigers have taken about 4,000,000,000 (four billion) years to evolve – the same time as you and me. Indeed we are related to them. If you go back enough generations, humans share common ancestors with the tiger, just as surely as about 7,000,000 years ago there were creatures living, some of whose children became humans while others became chimpanzees and others gorillas.
 
Man emerged just 2,500,000 years ago – that is 100,000 generations of identifiable humans (about one generation every 25 years, for argument’s sake). Why do we believe that the values and lifestyle we have developed within the last mere 15 generations are so important and so right, that it is acceptable to destroy the natural environment that has produced and sustained so many different yet closely connected and interlinked forms of life over so many billions of years?
 
We live in an era of extraordinary technology and wonderful cultural and scientific achievements. Yet for every gain, there are losses. Yes, it is great to combat disease and extend human life, but the consequence is more people, more environmental degradation and more species lost. With each lost species, the fragile web that binds all life is stretched and damaged. The losses cannot be replaced. We need a bit more Socrates – logical questioning and answering to probe far more deeply into the consequences and implications of how we are living. Should our schools teach a bit more about how ideas and values are created and a little less about economic growth and technological wizardry? Should we spend more time thinking about balance and sustainability and a bit less about job creation and economic ‘progress’?

Robins

With Christmas approaching, one bird immediately comes to mind – the little robin redbreast. Robins cling to their territory and seem to form a uniquely close relationship with humans who share their area. One of the most rewarding aspects of working in the garden on cold winter days is the constant companionship of a robin, which follows you around taking advantage of your digging and clearing to help itself to a meal of freshly turned worms, millipedes and other tasty insects.
 
Legend has it that the robin got its redbreast because it was pricked by Christ’s crown of thorns and the flow of blood stained his chest feathers, and because of this and its constancy during the long winter months, the robin has become a favourite on Christmas cards and decoration. Traditions also go back many centuries about how bad luck will come to anyone harming a robin - “Who killed Cock Robin?”
 
Before man chopped down and built over so much of the natural landscape over the last mere 5000 years, robins would have been forest dwellers, pecking around in the leaf litter on the floor of oak forests and ancient woodlands to find beetles and grubs. David Lack in his wonderful book “The Life of the Robin” noted how robins take advantage of the heavy work done by stronger species like pheasants which disturb the ground more effectively, especially during freezing winters which kill a very high proportion of robins. Next time you are digging your vegetable patch and a robin is lurking a yard or two away, ready to leap in if you move away for a few seconds, bear in mind that he probably sees you as a variant of badger, pig or wild boar, which its ancestors will have followed as faithfully as today he sits by you. Lack even saw a robin waiting where a mole was tunnelling, ready to grab a turned up worm before the hard-working mole could get its reward.
 
Adult robins pair off as early as January, though the female will suffer a sustained torrent of territorial aggression for hours, perhaps days, as her persistence steadily wears down the male’s resistance; he will fight males that come too close. That chirpy male song is as much warning as attraction. Pair-bonding will continue until nest-building begins in spring. Nests are clearly very common, but notoriously difficult to find – adults will not want to show you where they have hidden it. They are inventive and opportunistic in their choice of site, though feminists will not be surprised to learn that only the female builds. In the natural world they favour hollows in banks or on the ground, using moss, hair and leaves to line it.
 
Man’s influence cannot be by-passed. Apart from bird-boxes (available shortly from Cabragh Wetlands) they have been known to use jam jars, a boot, a drawer in the garden shed and a human skull. Lack records a gardener hanging his coat in the tool shed at 9.15; when he took it down at 1.00 to go for dinner, a nest was almost complete in the pocket. One pair nested in a horse-drawn cart, which then set off on a 200-mile round trip after the eggs had hatched. Catastrophe? No. The loyal, hard-working parents flew with the cart, collecting food to feed their young on the journey and keeping them alive until they all got back to their precious home territory.
 
Enjoy your robins this winter, and do your bit to give them food, shelter and open water. They are as tame a wild creature as you will find.

Happenings

There has been some serious renovation work at Cabragh Wetlands over the last few weeks. Walkways have been strengthened, with renewal of wooden sections over ditches and boggy footpaths, and many barrow loads of stone flattened down to make wandering around the wetlands both safer and drier. Many thanks to those who gave up their time to help get the work completed.

Of greater importance to the natural habitat has been the start of a programme to clear excess silt out of the pond and to get more oxygen and life back into this very important habitat. The easiest way to capture the interest of young children visiting the wetlands is perhaps to trawl a net through the bottom of the pond and tip the captured species into a tank for detailed closer inspection. The appearance of water boatmen, pond skaters, leeches, caddis fly larvae with their extraordinary cases, backswimmers and so on, will evince both shrieks of surprised delight and sudden silence which shows that the attention of the child has been caught and that for once they are really thinking about the implications of what they have encountered. That is education.

What is hidden is always so much more intriguing than what we can see. Most plants, birds, mammals and insects are familiar and in danger of being boringly mundane to many. What we drag from the dark depths of the water, be it pond, river or sea, is very often exotic and strange. Its features are new - frightening to the young, yet compelling to those prepared to study and compare it with what they already know. It’s all about the wonder and awe of nature, and dissemination of that is a large part of the educational role of the Cabragh Wetlands Trust.

So let us give more thought to what which we cannot see and do not experience. There have been a number of important global research projects recently which have focussed on trying to find, identify and catalogue the many species that are as yet unknown to western science. In the dense forests of Papua New Guinea, species have been able to evolve in small isolated communities cut off in steep-sided valleys. In a two month survey in 2009 over 200 new plants and animals were found, including 24 frogs, nine plants, 100 spiders and almost 100 other insects. The white-tailed mouse, orange frog, the tube-nosed fruit bat and a white flowered rhododendron are among many species entirely new to us.

It would have been awful if we had wiped them out before we had found them. Now we know they exist, let us hope that something can be done to save them. That means reducing our pollution, controlling tourism and construction, preserving forests and other habitats, keeping the growth of human populations under control, and learning to think differently about the natural world and the place of humankind on the planet, living by models other than the profit motive and accumulation of monetary wealth.

Tipperary Biodiversity

We have an exciting new venture that we hope will attract a lot of public use. To help you enjoy and understand the wealth of biodiversity around us, a website has been set up that will help us all to recognise and appreciate the species we encounter. Over time the natural biodiversity of our landscape is changing, and we want to keep track of what is happening. We would like to receive pictures and news of what you have seen, where and when you saw it, what it was doing, what it was feeding on, and so on.



If you go to our website (www.cabraghwetlands.ie) you will find a link to Tipperary Biodiversity. Alternatively try tipperarybiodiversity.blogspot.com/. There you will be invited to download your pictures of animals, plants, insects and birds, and if you have no picture, then leave a comment about what you have seen or want to find out. This is a great way to get help from other users to identify what you cannot recognize, or ask questions on the blog which someone out there in the cyberworld will surely be able to answer.



It is early days, but the site already contains more information and pictures on the marsh fritillary butterfly which we wrote about two weeks ago. There is a request to identify an unusual spider that someone found on the wall of their house, and an answer. A hairy white caterpillar has been photographed, posted on the blog and identified as a Pale Tussock moth larva (there’s a new one to most of us).



Most interesting of all, a Vapourer moth has been pictured. The comments tell us that it has to be a male, because the female is wingless. Our writer tells us that he found a colourful and distinctive Vapourer caterpillar feeding on willow late in September, took it home to show the children, and then, when going to release it, found that it had begun the next stage of its lifecycle – the cocoon phase. Leaving it where it was, he awaited its hatching. This Sunday (10/10), a wingless adult female Vapourer emerged.



She can scarely move, swollen with eggs and waiting for a male to fertilize her. She appears to have no function other than to produce eggs and propagate the species, and as she has no wings, she hardly has an independent life. Using the scent of pheromones, she can attract males, so smell can be seen as a language, a means of communication. After her eggs are laid, she will die. The eggs will overwinter before hatching in batches from March onwards. As the female cannot fly or move more than a few centimetres, the dispersal of the species and the joining of different clusters to ensure genetic diversity are entirely dependent on how far the caterpillar can walk from the pupating site. Not surprisingly it is very localised and relies on its habitat suffering no sudden changes of the type that man in his wisdom is wont to cause. Birds and other predators will give wingless moths and fragile caterpillars a hard enough struggle to survive without human damage to their habitat.



Use the new blog to post pictures, ask and answer questions, add comments and advice, and give extraordinary creatures like the Vapourer moth a little more chance to survive.

Deaths Head Hawkmoth

As with almost every other life-form on the planet, butterflies (17,500 species) and moths (163,000species) are under real pressure. Around the world many species have become extinct; as always the biggest reason is habitat destruction, which means that once again the finger of blame has to be pointed at human activity. Forms of life that can be traced back in the fossil record over 400 million years are threatened by a species that in perhaps just 10,000 years has grown to exert a very dangerous form of control over much of the environment.



Pictured here is the Death’s Head Hawkmoth, common around the Mediterranean, North Africa and the European continent, but rare in Ireland. Recently there have been sightings from Cork City to Inishowen Peninsula, Co. Donegal. One must suspect that the warming climate is bringing it to pastures new. It is a most distinctive moth, with that extraordinary skull design on the back of its thorax giving rise to superstition that seeing the moth was a potent of death or serious misfortune. The Death’s Head Hawk-moth cannot feed from flowers because of the shape of its proboscis, so it instead raids beehives and uses its strong little tongue to stab into waxy cells and feed on the honey.



Their distinctive streamlined bodies make them very quick fliers, reaching 30 mph (hence the name hawk-moth), and the larvae (caterpillars) feed on potato, deadly nightshade, verbena and olive plants. An endearing feature is that when threatened the moth will give out a totally unexpected loud squeaking noise to deter predators. Local entomologists are hoping to establish whether it is present in Tipperary. Have you seen it? Pictures will be most welcome. It is a very large moth, with a body 2.5 inches long and a wingspan of 4-5.5 inches, likes cultivated and lowland. If you keep bees you might be lucky enough to see one. Please let us know.

Flies

The darker mornings and heavy rain take us that first step into autumn. The leaves are starting to turn, telephone lines are filling up with birds gathering for their great annual migrations and plants are going into seed to ensure their survival through the winter. Autumn is a wonderful time to be out in the countryside. Wind and rain freshen the land after prolonged dusty dryness, and many insects are coming into their own.

We tend to be very dismissive towards insects, as if they are of no importance. But of course their place in the food chain and web of life is central; so many birds depend on flying insects for the bulk of their diet – just think of those circling swallows swooping over your garden, scooping up small insects by the hundreds every day. Swifts live almost all their lies in the air, landing only to nest and living entirely on a diet of flying insects and air-born spiders.

At this time of year there is a plentiful supply of suitable insects, with obvious autumnal regulars like the Crane fly (Daddy long-legs) abundant wherever there is a good patch of grassland. The Crane fly spends most of its life as a larva underground; you will have dug up those large leatherjacket larvae, plentiful under your lawn and voracious munchers of grass roots. The mature adults are also known as mosquito hawks, though they won’t bite you, preferring to sunbathe on walls and windows on warm days, and at night lights attract them into houses where they buzz and flap around – annoying, but no danger. With their lanky legs, wings and long abdomen, they are not a cuddly insect. The female has a pointed tip to her abdomen, which makes her easily distinguishable from the male.

There are at least 120,000 recorded species of fly, and probably the same amount again waiting to be identified. Some can be dangerous, like the malaria-carrying mosquitoes (3,500 species) which still kill about five million people every year; the nice male lives off fruit juices and plant nectar – only the female drives her proboscis into the chosen victim to suck blood. Horse flies (3,000 species) have a reputation in this part of the world for biting aggressively, but they are also valuable pollinators. Again it’s only the female who has the mouthparts capable of biting through skin and she needs the blood to help her eggs develop; the male feeds on nectar and pollen.

Blow flies (1100 species) have a terrible reputation, but are really beautiful creatures, with irridescent green and blue bodies. Found across the globe they can be a problem if the female lays her eggs in human food, which they tend to do in batches of about 200 so that the protein can help the eggs. We call their larvae ‘maggots’, and tend to shrink from them in fear and disgust because they are always associated with death and decay. Any mammal corpse in the wild will, if not rapidly eaten by other predators, be full of blow-fly eggs within a few hours. The maggots hatch within a day and consume the dead animal; after about a week they are ready to pupate, burrowing underground to emerge as mature blowflies after another seven days. Disgusting and smelly perhaps, but a wonderfully simple, efficient and necessary way of removing an equally unsightly and inevitable problem of dead animals littering the countryside. Take away the veneer of civilization and that is the fate of you and me.

Heritage Week Success

Heritage Week has been very memorable at Cabragh Wetlands and many thanks must go to the dozens of people who gave so generously of their time and energy to help ensure that our Open Day was such a resounding success. Among the many benefits of the day was the sense of community involvement, both in the planning of the event and on the day itself. To have so many people willing to help out was humbling and reflects positively both the work of the Wetland Trust and the great spirit of fellowship in the area.

Our afternoon with Dale Treadwell went very well, and special thanks to Thurles Library for supporting the event. It was good to see an expert and showman like Dale enthuse the children (and adults) about the smaller members of our community – the insects, bugs, and creepy-crawlies that play key roles in the web of life, and whose myriad numbers are crucial to support the food chain that sustains us. Love that wasp: he does more than you probably realise to clear debris in your garden and pollinate plants. Help those bees, whose future thankfully seems less worrying than a year or two ago. We have several varieties here at Cabragh, including a beautiful red-bottomed species which can be seen readily enough flying from flower to flower on these warm late summer days. Take time to enjoy the wonderful array of butterflies which have been evident this year; think about how you can preserve corners of your garden or farm where plants can grow which sustain species of butterfly and other insects.

Dale’s influence on the children could be seen in our Open day Fancy Dress Parade, when there were some magnificent butterflies, with colourful gossamer wings. I loved the colourful garden fairy, and among the mammals on display were several brown and white ponies (or were they cows?). A fine pair of vivid black and yellow wasps buzzed up and down the catwalk, stings hovering menacingly – perhaps they were visiting Kilkenny fans? They are very welcome at Cabragh, even in this momentous week! Many thanks to every child that took part in the parade, and to their creative advisers!

All Ireland Tickets!

Tickets for the All-Ireland final will be frantically sought by one and all after Tipp’s great semi-final victory on Sunday. Well, just between you and me, we have a pair available at Cabragh Wetlands. All you need to do is invest a couple of euro in a ticket for our Open Day (August 29th 1-5) Raffle (or a book of 6 for €10) and you have as much chance of two Stand tickets at Croke Park as the next person. What a cost-effective way of giving yourself a fair crack at seeing the long-awaited toppling of Kilkenny! There are other great prizes available in the raffle – thanks to those who donated the Fuji Digital Camera and Dinner for Two at the Horse and Jockey.



Open Day preparations are going ahead well, and we hope to see a good turnout on the day. With talks and guided walks, animals and pond life to look at, wonderful pictures and cards to buy, cakes, teas and so much more, this will be a great family day out. Don’t forget the Children’s Fancy Dress Show, with entries on a theme of nature, please. This is a chance for real creativity and memorable fun for parents as well as children. We are still looking for donations of good quality items for an auction, so if you have something, please get in touch (0504-43879). As always we are immensely grateful for the support and generosity of the local community.



There should be plenty of stands for you to see, which as a whole will give a clear message about the great things being done in the Thurles area to create a less damaging and more sustainable way of life. We cannot continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely, we cannot continue to foul our waterways, desecrate the countryside and damage the eco-systems and habitats that sustain the balance and variety of life on Earth. Cabragh Wetlands Open Day will give you and your children important ideas to reflect on, awareness of new technology and the chance to connect with local groups and individuals who are doing their bit to move us towards a better way of living. Do you want your grandchildren to live in a world where success is measured in terms of material prosperity, financial wealth and conquest of nature, or in a world where the natural biological wealth of our flora and fauna are healthy and resilient, where man and other species can live alongside each other in mutually beneficial harmony? At the basis of this must be a network of communities living good lives.



Dale Treadwell invites you to join him at Cabragh Wetlands this Sunday 22nd August from 3-5. The Den’s resident Bug Man will be explaining the wetlands to children and families – Let’s Explore Cabragh Wetlands! Entry is free, and thanks to Thurles Library for their work in setting up this event.

Severe Weather and Global Warming

by Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC
Last week I wrote about severe weather events in Pakistan, China, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland. I could have included Africa where a severe drought is causing hunger and malnutrition in the eastern Sahel in west Africa. It is estimated that 10 million people are affected in four different countries. In Niger, the worst affected area, it is estimated that 7.1 million people are hungry and facing a bleak future as livestock have been lost and food prices are soaring. This catastrophe has received very little coverage in western media.
In Latin America in April 2010 heavy rains in the state of Rio de Janeiro caused floods and mudslides leading to the death of at least 212 people. In June, Brazil experienced severe floods once again, this time in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco in the north eastern part of Brazil. At least 1,000 people died or were reported missing.
Another spectacular event happened on August 5, 2010, when a section of the Petermann Glacier on the north western coast of Greenland, measuring 97 square miles, broke off. While there is nothing new in icebergs ‘calving’ this is the largest break off since 1962. Robert Bindschadler, a Senior Research Science at MASA Goddard Space Flight Center, points out that changes in calving will happen as climate changes because the environment is changing.” Increases in temperature due to climate change are not uniform across the world. The increase in temperature in the Arctic region has been very significant and scientists are predicting that the Arctic Ocean could be free of summer ice within a decade or so.
Peter Scott who is head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office has been sifting through the data on the extreme weather events during the past few months in Asia and Russia. He writes that, “ evidence, including in India and China, that periods of heavy rain are getting heavier, is absolutely consistent with our understanding of the physics of atmosphere in which warmer air hold more moisture. Our climate change predictions support the emerging trend in observation and show a clear intensification of extreme rainfall events in a warmer world.” Nevertheless, he concedes that it is problematic to state categorically that climate change is the cause of a particular climate event such as the hurricane Katrina. Extreme weather events happen once every 50 or 100 years. Peter Scott is now arguing that, as a result of global warming, these extreme events will happen much more frequently and “become considered the norm by the middle of this century.”
In the light of the deteriorating climate situation it was very disappointing that the recent climate change talks in Bonn ended so inconclusively. The 194 countries which attended the meeting failed to agree on a common target or method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. It appeared that many of the gains which had been made in the UN climate conference in Nairobi, Bali, Poznans and even Copenhagen were beginning to unravel. In Bonn many so-called “developing” countries were retreating to positions which they held some years ago. They are insisting that while their attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be done on a voluntary basis, “developed” countries must agree to reduce their greenhouse emission through legally binding treaties. China, which as a country, is now the number one greenhouse gas emitter in the world, refused any suggestion for monitoring its emissions by an international agency. The Chinese point out that their per capita emissions are much lower than either North America or Europe.
The Copenhagen Accord agreed that action needs to be taken on a global level to keep the average increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius. This would give the world a “carbon budget” of 750 gigatons of emission by the year 2050. Poor countries suggest that this figure should be divided between countries on a basic of population and how much greenhouse gases that country has historically emitted. Rich countries have about 16% of the world’s population but they generate 74% of greenhouse gases. The bulk of the 750 gigatons should be allocated to poor countries with huge populations. In this way they would be able to develop their economies to meet the development needs of their people. Unless there is a credible solution soon, extreme weather events will increase dramatically.

Climate Change and Extreme Weather

Article by Fr. Seán McDonagh
Extreme weather is one of the clearest signals that climate change is happening. During the first part of August 2010, news of extreme weather in various parts of the world was seldom off the headlines.
Pakistan suffered its worst monsoon-related floods in 80 years. More than 1,600 people were reported dead, though the real number is probably a multiple of that figure. Rivers burst their banks sweeping away houses, food crops, roads and bridges, leaving areas such as Gilgit Baltistan cut off from the rest of because the Karakurram road has been swept away. The extreme flooding in the Swat valley was partly due to the fact that since the Taliban took over that area forests had been chopped down at an alarming rate.
By the end of the first week of August it was estimated that around 12 million people have been affected by the flood waters in Pakistan. Because the rains had not stopped, rescue operations were difficult to mount. Some charities reported that the only way they could reach the victims was by loading the supplies on donkeys.
The tens of thousands of people, fleeing from the floods by whatever means they could, were often without food, potable water, medicines, dry clothes or rainproof tents. The Pakistani authorities are worried that the death toll will rise dramatically as people suffer from malnutrition and water borne diseases such as typhoid, cholera and malaria. The elderly and the very young are most at risk.
Further east 127 people died and almost 2,000 were reported missing on August 8th after mudslides in north-western China. At least one village in Gansu province was buried entirely in mud forcing 45,000 people to evacuate. One half of Zhouque country was submerged by flood waters which forced 50,000 to flee their homes. The flood waters swept away cars, trucks and even houses. According to figures issued by the Chinese government the number of people who have died in flooding in the first seven months of 2010 stood at more than 2,000. The number of people forced out of their homes by the recent flooding has reached 12 million.
Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic have also been hit by extreme weather events. On August 7th 2010, torrential rain caused rivers to burst their banks in south western Poland, submerging towns and causing at least 3 fatalities. In the town of Goerlitz close to the Germany Polish border, 1,400 were evacuated as flood waters cascaded through the main street. At one point the flood waters topped the seven metre mark. Three people were killed by flood waters in the northern part of the Czech Republic. The Mayor of Bogatynia in the Czech Republic said that the there was little warning. Within an hour the town was totally submerged. Many houses collapsed and the inhabitants were cut off from the rest of the country. Storms and high winds left many communities without electric power in eastern Slovakia.
Further east in Russia the problem is not excessive rain or floods, but the opposite, a prolonged heatwave with temperatures at record levels of 38 degrees Celsius. These have led to numerous forest and peat fires right across the country. A government minister, Sergei Shoigi told the media that there were more than 550 fires covering 17,000 hectares burning across Russia. As a consequence Moscow and its many landmarks such as the Kremlin have been shrouded in a toxic smog for weeks. Flights into Moscow’s southern airport were severely delayed and car drivers used fog lights. The air monitoring service reported that carbon dioxide levels were more than six times higher than they should be. Many people wore gas masks in an effort to protect themselves from the toxic fumes. Despite such initiatives, the mortality rate has doubled in recent weeks according to Andrei Seltsovsky, the head of the Moscow’s health department. Normally there are about 360 to 380 deaths per day in Moscow. In late July and early August 2010, it was double that number. ` Further south there are fears that the fires could release radioactive nuclides from the land contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Yet, despite this extreme weather, global efforts to tackle climate change seem to be unravelling.

Heritage Week

Heritage Week (August 22nd – 29th) is fast approaching, and Cabragh Wetlands is planning a special Open Day on Sunday 29th August, when we hope to celebrate the many good things that are done in the Thurles area to support, cherish and sustain our natural and human heritage. We want to encourage awareness of and support for the many local enterprises and groups which play a part in raising awareness of environmental and heritage issues, be it hill walkers, green schools, sustainable energy businesses, farmers’ market stallholders, food producers, allotment groups, gardeners, chicken coop manufacturers, education and transport providers, and so on.



We face a difficult future in the light of so many environmental challenges, and as individuals and communities we will need to be resilient and innovative if we are to adapt more sustainable styles of living. For our Open Day we hope to have a range of stalls and displays set up by groups and enterprises which can contribute in this area, adding to our local vision of how a better future can be built from the grassroots. We hope that the cumulative effect of a number of such displays will make an informative and challenging statement to visitors about how we can cherish our heritage while adapting a new mindset to help us build a more sustainable future.



As an Open Day there will of course be the usual range of raffles, sales of cards, cakes and bird boxes, animals to see, children’s events, and guided tours of the Cabragh Wetlands, and plenty more. A great afternoon out for the family! Visiting stalls will be welcome to advertise their own events, sell their goods and seek new members. After all this is a community day, a chance for those of us with a common interest to network and build links.



If your group would like to take part, please get in touch in the next two weeks, via e-mail (cabraghwetlands@eircom.net), or call 0504 43879 (mornings), or 086-3179919. The event is supported by the Heritage Council, which will give it some national advertising.



There will be a second Heritage week event at the Cabragh Wetlands on Sunday 22nd August, run in conjunction with Thurles Library, when popular bug expert Dale Treadwell will join children and families in exploring the wetlands, and there will be a display about how the European Union is helping to protect our environment – a timely reminder that communities and government institutions from the local to the supranational, must work together. Competition for progress is a myth – it is cooperation that is needed.

Summer Course

For many months now Cabragh Wetlands have been ringing with the most important sound of all – that wonderful chorus of children delightfully absorbing this fascinating corner of the natural world. Michael Long and his team have brought the ooh-ah factor to hundreds of children throughout the early summer, while the recently held Summer Camp saw drawn-out, sunny dappled days go down a treat along the towering passages through the humongous reedbeds. While having fun, the children have also been learning ideas, values, skills and information that will help them adjust to living in a world facing great environmental changes and challenges.

On an adult level, this joy of limitless movement in the great outdoors turns to concern for the future of all “wildscapes”, and particularly their defining characteristic – their biodiversity. Maintaining the biodiversity of any natural habitat entails a good knowledge of those habitats, initially through personal experiences and hands-on approaches. When we come to understand how a natural habitat developed, its stunning variety and current threats to its viability, then we can work to ensure that this patchwork world of Irish nature survives and maybe flourishes for generations to come.

Increasing numbers of visitors are experiencing the magic of reedbed, wet meadow, hedgerow and pond at Cabragh. This year in the last week of July an introductory course about Tipperary’s varied habitats takes place at Cabragh Wetland Centre, Monday to Friday, 9am to 2pm July 26th to 30th. The course is entitled “A Handful of Habitats” and is targeted at adults who enjoy the varied world of Irish nature. It will also be enjoyed by Primary School teachers who want to develop their confidence and expertise to take children out of the classroom and into the real world, and also older teenagers who might wish to add to their store of knowledge of the natural world, perhaps in preparation for their science certificate examinations. Tourists will also be very welcome.

Wherever you are coming from, your time at Cabragh in the last week of July be of great benefit and is “probably the best staycation” around! The course costs €60 and will be led by local teacher, naturalist and heritage expert Jimmy Duggan. For details phone 0504-23831 or 087-7567273.

Nettles

Of course many people had a good moan, but hasn’t the rain been fantastic over the last week? Getting deep into the ground, it has revived the struggling roots of many plants, from hedges, trees and grass to flowers, fruit and vegetables. The spuds have really perked up. Rivers were running very low and it’s been a blessing to have several downpours. Sorry if your tan has lost its edge, but after months of sunshine, rain is unequivocally good weather – just ask those who live near the world’s expanding deserts.

Being confined indoors for most of July, I was taken aback to see how much the nettles have grown recently – in part due to the rain, of course. This is a much maligned plant, which most of us are only too keen to chop down and rip out of our gardens. It is as important a plant as you will find for the conservation of Ireland’s butterflies, and it is getting close to the time of year when most butterflies will emerge from their chrysalis stage to adorn our gardens and countryside. Their habitat needs protection, and that means looking after your nettles. Nettles are the solitary food plant for the larvae of three major butterfly species, the Small Tortoiseshell, the Red Admiral and the Peacock, and are a major food source for the Painted Lady, which you may remember arrived in Ireland in unusually great numbers last summer. Please allow a patch of nettles to grow somewhere on your land, and cut it back now so that new growth can come through for a second brood of butterflies.

So what if the hairs of nettle leaves secrete a liquid containing formic that causes a few tingles, if you are careless enough to brush your skin against it? Remember the old saying: “A little bit of pain never hurt anyone!” This is a seriously valuable plant. What we eat is largely a combination of fashion and food company policy – they select the vegetables and seed types that we use, giving us a choice from a mere handful of options, while Nature has tens of thousands of varieties that are mostly ignored. Fresh young nettles can be picked and cooked like spinach, chopped nettles make great liquid manures and organic pest deterrents, nettle seeds mixed with mash induce hens to lay more. Many homeopathic remedies pick up on age old folk-wisdom which used nettle to help cure eczema, cramps, anaemia, dropsy, diabetes, diarrhoea, urinary problems and rheumatism – and even dandruff and baldness. Throw young nettles (without roots and seeds) on your compost heap – they are nitrogen-rich and their long root systems draw in much goodness from deep in the ground – more green manure.

I heard a familiar yet out of place sound yesterday, a solitary buzzy-bellow that spread hauntingly across the fields on the edge of Holycross. Could this be a lone specimen of a southern African species that normally lives in huge flocks, enjoys human company and displays with memorably vibrant tones? Despite scanning the area with binoculars, there was no sign of its instantly recognizable long streamlined body and bulbous head, but one must have migrated from the southern hemisphere, perhaps smuggled in a tourist’s luggage. Yes, the first vuvuzela has arrived in Tipperary. No doubt many more will be in the pet shops in the coming months. Now there’s another use for a large patch of nettles – just chuck the vuvuzela into it.

June on the River Suir

Many thanks to George Willoughby for this beautiful video
http://www.thurles.info/2010/06/20/river-suir-water-lilies-and-mute-swans/

June On The River Suir, Thurles, Co Tipperary, Ireland. from George Willoughby on Vimeo.

Tigers and Whales

It is hard to find words to describe the anger felt when reading about the continued slaughter of two of the most iconic species on the planet. There are apparently only about 1400 wild tigers left in India today. Between 1800 and 1950 something like 160,000 were shot by virile, trophy hunting big game hunters, with numbers reduced to around 40,000 by 1900, and by 1972 down to just 1,800. Hunting, felling of forest habitat for timber and encroachment of ever growing human populations into precious wild areas, brought this beautiful animal to extinction in some parts of India, as well as in Java and Sumatra.



The Indian government in the 1980’s stopped the export of tiger skins, but they still fetch €28,000 on the Tibetan black market, and the demand for tiger body parts for traditional Chinese medicine and aphrodisiacs has been met by the rise of poaching. To preserve the skin, trapped tigers were sometimes killed by the insertion of a red hot poker into the anus. Protection boosted numbers to about 4,000, but standards slipped, more habitat was lost and although tiger tourism boosted income for conservation, it created more problems with tourist vehicles disorienting and killing animals, and continued growth of human habitation to support the tourist trade. Two Indian tiger sanctuaries now have no tigers. At least 12 have been killed by poachers this year already. As numbers fall, so it gets harder to avoid in-breeding and genetic decline.



Now the Sunday Times has exposed the extent of whale hunting over the last few years, at a time when there was meant to be a moratorium. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered, and it seems as if the ban on hunting will be lifted, with certain wealthy whaling countries using dubious financial inducements (including offers to build valuable infrastructure) in third world countries to buy their vote to overturn the embargo.



Man claims to be rational, but it beats me how any sane person can justify or tolerate this sort of extermination of our fellow creatures. Of course species die out, but by natural processes over tens of thousands of years, not by the deliberate action of a deluded self-important branch of the great ape family who has decided over the course of a mere 5,000 years and 200 generations that we humans are more important than anything else. What we are dealing with is not human rationality, but human mass hysteria, and human alienation from the natural world which produced and nurtured our species. We no longer seem to know who or what we are.



There is an urgent need for us to think. Ideas matter. Human rationality requires thought, reflection and silence. Education needs to move on from teaching children how to find an appropriate role in human society, and to start to focus instead on understanding the place and nature of human society within the framework of the natural world.

Thank You!

Many thanks to the good citizens of Thurles who gave so generously to the Cabragh Wetlands Church Gate Collection at the end of May. The total raised was beyond our expectations, and remarkable given the current economic climate when so many of us are having to tighten our financial drawstrings. We take it to mean that the local community supports and appreciates what we are trying to do at Cabragh, and that environmental issues are steadily becoming more important in public debate and education.



This is just as well, because climate change science has taken a bit of a battering in the press in recent months. We are indebted to Nenagh-based Father Sean McDonagh, a prolific writer on environmental issues, for a recent e-mail containing his latest thoughts on the issue. He points out that in the last year global temperature has been the warmest on record, despite the obvious contradiction that China, Europe and North America had a very cold winter in 2009-2010 (our coldest in 47 years). He cites NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen (mentor of Al Gore), who reports that data from 6,300 monitoring stations around the world show that the mean surface temperature was 0.65 degrees Celsius warmer in the year April 2009-April 2010 than the period 1951 to 1980.



Those childishly petulant private e-mails at the University of East Anglia damaged the climate change cause, as did overly pessimistic UN reports that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by the middle of this century. But the glaciers are still melting away; if they survive a century longer than predicted, say to 2165, the message is still the same. The planet is warming; the science is overwhelming. Predictions about the precise rate of change will always be predictions, and thus subject to doubt and imprecision. As a result of a well-organized campaign by climate change sceptics, a growing number of people think that global warming is not happening. Remember that climate and weather are not the same thing. Weather is what hits us locally day after day, with wide ranging temperatures and varied rainfall. Climate is the long-term global trend, which is demonstrably and inexorably getting hotter.



The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association reports that the first four months of 2010 were the hottest ever recorded, with record temperatures in North Africa, Canada and South Asia. In India and Pakistan temperatures have reached 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit). On June 1st 2010 the mercury hit 53.7 Celsius in the Indus valley, the fourth highest ever recorded on Earth. In Baghdad there have been several days of over 50 degrees Celsius. People in northern India are dying from heat-related illnesses. Lake Tanganyika is at its hottest for 1500 years, threatening both fish stocks and the fishing industry on which many depend. You will not find many doubters about climate change in these parts of the world, nor in the Pacific Ocean, where they are watching rising levels remorselessly engulf their homes, and the evacuation of the Carteret Islands continues as the land is submerged.



Average ocean temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean are at their highest since records began in 1880 and scientists predict a very active hurricane season with 8 to 14 expected, half “major storms”. We may yet see that Gulf oil landing on Irish coasts as it is washed into the Atlantic tidal streams. Raw oil pollution seems an apt punishment for a problem largely caused by our fossil fuel usage. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.



As Monday 21st of June will be the longest day of the year, there will be a celebration of the Summer Solstice at Cabragh Wetlands at 8.00pm.

Water and Toilets

There will be a great chance for you to fine-tune your composting skills this Saturday, 12th June, when a Home Composting Seminar will be presented in Holycross. The event will be lead by Aine Madigan, who is Education Officer for the Peat Council of Ireland. The event starts at 2.00pm, and will be in the Riverside Park, Holycross opposite the Old Abbey Inn. Following Aine’s presentation, local environmentalist and Tipperary Institute graduate, Joe Bourke, will give an overview of biodiversity.

I enjoyed the article in last week’s Star about the great work going on at the new Cabragh allotments, and in particular the launch of the new ladies’ powder room, or compost toilet to give it a more realistic name. Apparently some leading figures were asked recently on television what the most important technological advance was in the last couple of centuries, and the immediate reply was ….the flushing toilet. This was the invention of Thomas Crapper, and there’s no need to explain how his name has been immortalized. Imagine what life might be like if it were not for this simple device, so central to all our daily lives.

In a number of African counties (Uganda and Rwanda from memory) plastic bags are banned because they were being used as toilets and then flung away – locally known as flying toilets. This foul brew would lie on the ground without decomposing, the plastic stopping water and light getting through to the ground below, eventually killing off the fertility of large areas of ground as fetid, stinking, disease-infested swamps were created around human habitation. As human populations mushroom and urban areas sprawl without planning and essential infrastructure to get fresh water in and sewerage out, so there is a growing risk to human wellbeing and a threat to healthy habitats for biodiversity.

In The Humanure Handbook Joseph Jenkins makes the case for going back to composting toilets, exhaustively studying the benefits of composting rather than flushing our faeces down the loo. Water is such a precious resource. Over 95% of the Earth’s water is in the oceans; about 2.5% is fresh, and most of that is locked up as ice in Antarctica and the Arctic. About 1% of the planet’s fresh water is available for our use, which amounts to 0.01% of the world’s total water supply. And yet every day 40% of the water you and I use is simply flushed down the toilet.

What a waste of such a precious resource. Furthermore the majority of private sceptic tanks do not work properly, so that much flushed water resurfaces to contaminate ground water. Jenkins suggests that this is the biggest cause of groundwater pollution in the USA, and goes on to argue that it is possible to treat human faeces in a safe and healthy way. What has always been seen as a foul pollutant can be a resource to be cherished. Composted human waste can become a valuable fertilizer for growing more food.

I yield to none in giving thanks to Mr Crapper for his life’s work, but maybe it is time to move on to less wasteful systems of waste disposal and save more water. It takes 130 pints of water to make a pint of beer and several more to flush it away. We can do better than that.

Willow trees

At Cabragh Wetlands the mallard parents are doing their very best to keep their ducklings alive, but inevitably some predator has taken a few of the brood. The yellow flag iris is flowering, lilies are developing on the surface of the pond, tadpoles are getting ever-closer to maturity, and the welcome recent rain means that our walkways are in need of regular mowing to keep them open. Perhaps surprisingly the birds are getting quieter, but you can put this down to parental exhaustion after weeks of nest-building, egg-sitting and chick-feeding.

A stroll around those walkways will bring you to the small river from Killough Hill which feeds into Cabragh the pure water which has done so much to sustain the exceptional biodiversity of the wetland habitat. There are about 400 known species of willow, with more expected to be identified when the botanists manage to do systematic research in western China. Willows are widespread in the northern hemisphere, but very rare in the south (like oaks). Each region has developed its own subspecies, as populations of trees have evolved in relative isolation, and even for the experts identification is a real challenge. Nearly all willows have male and female as separate plants; they produce catkins and rely on the wind or insects for pollination. Seeds are tufted and float on the wind.

Few plants have been as widely used by man. Osiers (the thin twigs) have of course long been grown in wetland areas and used for basket-weaving, but also for boats like the coracle and for hurdles and walls, while larger timbers have been used in the building industry. Today it has great potential as a fuel, with many seeing it as an invaluable biomass to supply energy without worsening the problem of global warming. Willow bark also has traditional medical value; it is rich in salicin, which is the core molecule of salicylic acid, from which aspirin was developed. So from willow a painkiller and anti-inflammatory was developed, and is used today (but don’t take it without appropriate expert advice!) to reduce the risk of blood clotting and thrombosis.

With so many plants out there waiting to be researched, who knows what benefits have yet to be unearthed? All species matter.

The Burren

How nice to receive a letter from a Cabragh member who recently went on an outing to the Burren organised by Bird Watch Ireland. It was one of those lovely sunny Sundays in May and not only did they hear that rare visitor, the cuckoo, but they also saw it. A personal thrill was to come across a group of newts in a small pool. At first movement in the pond weed seemed to be caused by tadpoles, but slowly the newts ventured into clear water to feed on surface insects. What a delight it was to see a group of these beautiful creatures in a pristine habitat, simply getting on with their lives.

The number of habitats in the Burren is amazing, and they support an equally impressive variety of life. Our visitor became very aware that if we can but maintain the range of existing habitats, then the cycle of life will continue to flow quite naturally. Be it a flower, insect or bird, if there are suitable places to live, then they will find them and take occupation.

In conversation on the bus, a fellow traveller pointed out that while he has installed a solid fuel stove in his house, he tries to avoid burning turf. You would think that he laudably wanted to reduce his CO2 emissions, but he went on to explain that when the bog is stripped for turf cutting we destroy valuable habitat. There it is again. We don’t need to teach survival skills to the birds and the bees, but we should leave them a place to live.

This beautiful Earth of ours has worked out many difficulties over eons of time. It has created numerous communities of life which inter-connect and inter-depend in extraordinary ways. We too exist within this precious web, and are invited to play our part.

Come out to Cabragh Wetlands, where the walkways are drying out, the ducklings and young swans are enjoying their first dabblings in the ponds, the shimmering blue of the dragonflies can be seen darting over the water and in the reeds, and the summer snowflake will still be looking magnificent for a few more days in this wonderful spell of weather. We won’t claim to match the Burren, but there are many wonderful things to see right on the edge of Thurles

Marsh Harrier Returns to the Wetlands

Word spread quickly last week that a rare visitor was spending a day at Cabragh Wetlands. The Eurasian marsh harrier was once a very familiar sight in Ireland and Britain, with the Victorian folk lore writer Charles Swainson reporting an old story that considerable numbers of harriers would land on the Wiltshire downs before heavy rain. Victorian hunters, egg and skin collectors raided nests and shot them out of the sky. Agro-chemicals and drainage of fenland habitat caused more problems, with organochloride pesticides wrecking attempts to re-establish numbers in the 1950’s and 60’s. By the 1970’s there was just one breeding pair in the west of Britain and one at the great Suffolk nature reserve at Minsmere, which is perfect harrier reedbed habitat. Many books published before the end of the millennium did not even record the marsh harrier as a resident of or visitor to Ireland.



Reduction in chemical use allowed numbers to grow at about 20% per year, and by 2000 there were 206 breeeding females spread from Kent to the Orkneys, with individuals crossing the Irish Sea. With luck a success story is developing.



Marsh harriers are the biggest and heaviest of the harriers, with the male about 50cm long and the female larger. She has a brown body and wings with a pale yellowish head, throat and forewing. It was a male that visited Cabragh, magnificently photographed by Eamonn Brennan, who captured its pale body, head and wings as it spent some time investigating our owl box atop a telephone pole. Most impressive were the great reddish-brown shadings on his wings. Old Irish names include Duck Hawk and Snipe Hawk, which reflect the lifestyle of the marsh harrier as he glides over reedbeds and wetlands searching for prey.



The marsh harrier is not a fast-flying hunter. In fact he is master of slow flight, gliding silently over reedbeds at barely 10mph, giving himself every chance to spot mice, frogs, reptiles, eggs, nestlings and rodents that make up its varied diet. Like the owl, marsh harriers have keen hearing, with facial feathers hiding large ear openings which help it to funnel sound and improve ability to detect prey in thick reedbeds. Nests are a mass of reeds and willow twigs, lined with grass and containing four or five eggs, which the female incubates for 36 days, with the male feeding them for another 40 before the young fly. Resident harriers spend winters in communal roosts on wetland sites.



It was a real pleasure to have a migratory marsh harrier at Cabragh for a day. Perhaps they will nest here in the future, though our ducks, snipe, frogs and mice will have to be on their guard.

Swallows

All members of Cabragh Wetlands Trust are reminded that the AGM will take place at the Wetlands Centre this coming Tuesday, May 4th, starting promptly at 8.00pm. As always, this is a very important time for communication between the Committee and the membership, and as a local community-based organization, the Trust welcomes the chance to update members on the plans to renovate the Centre and the ever-growing education programme, as well as our core work of conservation of habitat and bio-diversity.



With spring well on the way, the rain over the weekend was very welcome, easing the task of digging the vegetable patch and watering the new crops. Gardeners at the newly inaugurated Cabragh organic allotments have been out in force preparing the ground for their first growing season. The sight of swallows arriving has certainly gladdened the hearts of many of us – is there a more graceful sight in nature than the gliding-swooping flight of the swallow? One almost feels that telegraph wires were made for them to sit and survey the world beneath.



After wintering in southern Africa, the swallows have flown 6,000 miles or more to return to their breeding grounds. Most adults will go to the same locality year after year, so you really are welcoming back old friends. They tend to build their nests on ledges on top of walls or against roof beams, and may well use exactly the same nest for many years, upgrading it with fresh mud and straw so that it is secured with architectural precision. Ornithologists conclude that swallows were originally cave nesters, and began to move to man-made structures when human construction began in the Tigris-Euphrates valleys some 10,000 years ago. They love to nest under bridges, recreating their ancestral caving instinct, and nests have been found several metres underground in old mine shafts. Last week Kevin Collins showed us a remarkable picture of a swallow’s nest at his house that contained 17 tiny wrens, crammed into it for shelter on one of the coldest nights of the recent freezing winter.



Swallows play a major role in keeping insect populations under control, catching them in flight. Often they live around busy farms and are known to follow farm machinery, no doubt because the activity will disturb insects like aphids, flies and bluebottles, driving them into the air for the swallows to seize. Their natural habitat is that invisible space hanging over the earth up to about 500 feet in height; as they fly lower than house martins and swifts, swallows are more susceptible to pollution and pesticides and are consequently declining in numbers compared to their close cousins. They will often drink on the wing, gliding open-beaked over a pond and swooping low to scoop up a mouthful of refreshment. In late summer and autumn places like Cabragh Wetlands provide reedbed roosts where hundreds of swallows may gather before migrating in mid-September.



The good news is that Ireland’s population of swallows is holding up better than most, largely because of the relatively low use of pesticides and the preservation of a lot of ruined buildings. One man’s ruin is someone else’s niche habitat.

Starlings

At Cabragh Wetlands we love the autumnal appearances of those huge flocks of hundreds of thousands of starlings, which swirl and sweep across the evening sky in massive grey-black clouds before settling into the reedbeds to roost for the night. But at this time of year we see a different side of this little fellow, as they busily set about nesting and breeding.



They love to build their nests in the eaves of our houses, landing on the guttering and finding gaps up into the roof space through which they can squeeze. For weeks now our garden has been festooned with little yellow tufts of soft material, like cotton wool. This is (or was) our precious roof insulation, dragged out and casually tossed away by the fussy starlings, who work very hard to clear out unwanted debris and create a nest as soft and clean as they can manage. A few days ago a skeleton appeared on the lawn, the dessicated remains of one of last year’s brood that did not survive infancy. Thrown out of the nest to create space for the class of 2010 and stripped of everything unpleasant, the bones now make an interesting exhibit for children to study on visits to Cabragh.



With its speckled feathers glinting in the sun, the starling is a truly beautiful bird. In summer and autumn a purple plumage on the chest makes him even more impressive, especially if you can put up with the noise. Almost from hatching they hold forth with a variety of indescribable noises, clicking, gurgling and whistling but never managing the mellifluous sounds of the blackbird or thrush. They are also great mimics, not least of human sounds. They have been known to imitate cats, frogs, owls and chickens; at least one dog has been driven mad as it dutifully tried to respond to its owner’s whistle, and people have rushed indoors to answer phones that weren’t ringing. Nowadays mobile ring tones are a favourite. Mozart’s pet starling is supposed to have inspired his G-major Piano Concerto, and certainly Mozart and the starling share a reputation for being brash, aggressive and generally obnoxious.



They are considered dirty and unhealthy (she-who-has-to-clean-the-windows would agree), but are good friends of sheep, pecking off ovine ticks in their fleece. The sites where they roost in the autumn can be devastated, vegetation broken down and killed by acidic guano from vast numbers of individuals answering the call of nature; in such death and decay mould and fungi flourish. Introduced to North America in the 1890’s, they are regarded there as a serious and invasive pest, with millions of dollars spent trying to eradicate them from Alaska to Mexico. In contrast the Russians love them, seeing them as a friend of the farmer (think of the number of insects a large flock will eat) and the harbinger of spring. Under the communists, the state provided 22.5 million nestboxes to encourage starlings, with children given school projects to record their usage.



The collective noun for a flock of starlings is a “murmuration”, which memorably evokes the sweeping rhythm of a million starlings on the wing, but certainly not the raucous cacophony coming from our roof spaces at this time of year.

Frogs

A year ago the papers were publishing alarming stories about the plight of the world’s frog populations, reporting that many species were under threat and not producing enough healthy young to guarantee their long term viability. That may still be the case, but it is great to report that here at Cabragh Wetlands our frogs seem to be in very robust and noisy good health.



Our artist-in-residence, Eamonn Brennan, has produced more wonderful pictures of frogs doing what comes naturally in late March as the weather warms up and spring gets underway. The females are laying huge quantities of eggs, and the males are busy fertilizing them at extraordinary rates – up to 4,000 each. Areas of the wetlands are alive with small bodies piled on top of each other, with pools of frogspawn spreading around. The air is filled with a cacophony of croaking as the males try to find a female partner.



This of course is one the best known signs of spring, and most of us will remember as children collecting frogspawn in a jam jar and studying the life-cycle of the frog by watching the eggs turn into wriggly tadpoles. It can almost be seen as one of those childhood rites of passage, an event which takes us out of the narrow cocoon of the family and introduces us to the wonder, beauty and variety of the natural world. How many of you remember that the frog begins as a fish-like creature, breathing through gills in its tadpole stage, before growing a tail and legs? In an amazing transformation it then abandons its gills by growing lungs and breathing like a land-based animal before emerging tailless as a fully mature frog.



Here at Cabragh Wetlands we are in a great position to give children the chance to study this sort of process at first hand, rather than from an indoor textbook lesson, computer screen or newspaper article. Children will love learning out in the middle of nature. If you can, get in touch and arrange a visit for your school or group. We can be contacted on 050443879 (mornings) or via e-mail at cabraghwetlands@eircom.net. Give the kids a chance to experience those tadpoles and frogs in their natural environment.

Furze

There is a fresh feeling to the countryside this week. Much needed rain is putting a touch of green back into the yellow-brown grass and the daffodils are beginning to open out, giving a wonderful golden-yellow display in our gardens to supplement the still-flowering remnants of snowdrops and crocus. Spring is here. Of all the plants of spring, my own favourite is one that barely gets a mention in most gardening and flower books – the spiky furze, or gorse.



We cultivate broom, its less dangerous cousin, which fits nicely into any sizeable country garden as well as colonizing wild areas, but you can be sure there would be vociferous objections from many in the family if you tried to introduce clumps of furze with its long branches covered in sharp-spined thorns. So the poor old furze tends to be an outcast, left on the edge of civilization, flourishing only in wild heathland, open grassy areas high up in hill country with only a few sheep and cattle for company. But what a magnificent display it provides at this time of year. As the road from Thurles to Nenagh climbs higher, the landscape from the Devil’s Bit across to the hills beyond Templederry is ablaze in a fiery yellow swathe as the furze flowers in its wild beauty.



It makes wonderful cover for wildlife. Canoeing on a lake one day, we enjoyed great views of a fleeing fox with hounds and huntsmen in close pursuit. Large patches of furze sprouted across the open moorland; the fox ducked into one for a few minutes’ rest, and then slipped unseen to the next while the dogs gathered on the perimeter of the first, apparently intimidated by the ferocity of the bristling spikes on the furze. For the best part of an hour the fox toyed with its pursuers, who could never quite pin down where it was hiding (we were not going to tell them) as it moved from cover to cover before eventually escaping to live another day.



Furze is a reminder of the natural wildness in the environment, helping us remember that our cultivated farms and gardens are all unnatural creations of the last few thousand years, and that the plants we grow for food and beauty are almost all bred by man from original species that slowly evolved over countless millennia.

Linnaeus the great Swedish naturalist visited Britain in the 1730’s and is supposed to have fallen on his knees and given thanks to God when he saw his first furze-covered common, so overcome was he by the sheer beauty of the scene.



So enjoy the furze, which will flower for most of the year and will give the bees an early source of pollen. If you make your own wine, gather its flowers and you will find it makes a wonderful, fragrant dry white. Use the plant to reconnect with untamed nature. Walk around Cabragh Wetlands and you will find a number of bushes; note that the flowers grow from leaf nodes and smell of cocnut. And you may enjoy putting that wonderful old saying to the test – “When furze is in blossom, kissing’s in season”.

A Lecture on Soil

Cabragh Wetlands is getting down to the basics at its next evening talk on Tuesday 23rd March starting at 8.00pm. The speaker is Stella Coffey, an organic farmer from Cahir; she has a BSc in Biological Sciences and her subject is “The Wonder of Soil”. This is a topic that most people will recognise as being of prime importance, especially for those interested in the quality of the food they put on the family table and in sustaining healthy biodiversity. Stella has one of the oldest organically certified herds (of Aberdeen Angus cattle) in the country. If you value the health of your garden, are starting out on a new allotment, enjoy the fruits of the Farmers’ Market or are concerned about the state of farming and use of chemicals on the land, then this is a key evening for you to attend. All are welcome and entry is free.



At the heart of any consideration about the health of our soil is that most undervalued of creatures, the humble earthworm. Though surrounded at home and Cabragh by books on wildlife, it is alarming that so many contain no indexed references to this crucial little fellow. The normal public reaction to a wriggly worm is almost invariably one of disgust, and total failure to recognize the key role played by worms in the development of life on earth. The sprawling compost heaps in my garden are a constant source of fascination. They act as breeding grounds for worms, which live in their thousands, eating their way through remains of plants and other biodegradables thrown on the heap. Material passes through the body of the worm, is cast out and gradually transformed by the action of bacteria into humus, that essential ingredient of fertile soil.



In a day a single worm will eat about a third of its bodyweight, well under a teaspoonful. Insignificant on one level, but on another perhaps the most important day-to-day activity on the planet. Every ounce of organic vegetable mould has passed through the body of worms many, many times. Worms alter the composition of the soil, improving its ability to absorb and contain moisture, changing the balance of microorganisms and nutrients. Through these processes they determine the ability of soil to grow particular kinds of plants, thus playing a key role in deciding which plants grow above the surface of the earth, and in turn influencing the type of insects, mammals and birds that can evolve and live in any area.



The worm moves through the ground, eating tiny particles of decaying organic material, which it ingests with a few grains of clay, creating a permanent burrow. At night it comes to the surface, leaves a few milligrams of castings and then searches for new material (leaves, grass, anything organic) to drag underground and break up. As well as acting as a miniscule plough, worms will, piece by tiny piece, shape the landscape above the surface, burying items left on the ground. That key you dropped, those stones you flung in a corner of the garden, that path you laid, all will be buried by the action of worms. Given enough time and enough worms, collapsed houses, towns and whole civilizations will disappear under the ground. Is it an illusion that things sink below the surface? Surely worms are causing the level of the surface to rise? Archaeologists having to dig down several feet to find their lost treasures are surely clear evidence of the unlimited power of the humble earthworm to shape the landscape above.



Charles Darwin spent his last years studying and writing about worms. This most humble of creatures has a strong case to be considered the most important and indispensable creature on the planet. There can be no doubt that it plays a far more important role in sustaining life on earth than humans. Come to Cabragh Wetlands on Tuesday 23rd to reflect more on “The Wonder of Soil”.

Biofuels

As part of a vast raft of ideas to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, stop global warming and save whatever we can of the huge range of life on earth, the European Community is legally committed to ensuring that a steadily increasing proportion of petrol and diesel used in road transport is sourced from renewable sources. This will mean more electric vehicles, but most (it is anticipated) will come from plant-based bio-fuels, including soy, sugarcane, rapeseed and palm oil. The advantage of plants grown for fuel is that they are renewable year-by-year, and that each litre of green biofuel burnt will reduce carbon emissions by 35% compared with a litre of traditional fossil fuel (coal, oil).



This sounds wonderful, but inevitably problems are emerging. The fuel-crops mentioned above are mostly tropical plants, and palm oil (apparently the most efficient for biofuels) can only be grown in regions like Indonesia and south-east Asia, west Africa, Brazil and the Amazon rain forest. To grow crops for biofuels to reduce greenhouse emissions, rainforests are being cut down at a frightening rate – rainforests which soak up carbon dioxide emissions as they grow. To meet desirable emission targets in Ireland, Britain and the EU, millions of acres of pristine forest are being logged, burned and converted to palm oil plantations. In Indonesia alone an area the size of Wales is being deforested every year. The orang-utan, one of our closest relatives, has been driven to the verge of extinction in Sumatra, and the survival of many tropical species of plants, insects, animals and birds is in doubt, including species only recently discovered – and probably others that we have yet to find and study.



We are now at the stage when studies are emerging which suggest that it is better to burn oil in your car than green biofuel, because of the environmental cost of producing palm oil, which is directly causing an acceleration of the loss of rainforest habitat. Burning rainforest releases greenhouse gases and reduces Earth’s natural ability to soak up carbon dioxide. A Danish study says that it would take 75-93 years for the benefits to the climate created by switching from fossil to biofuels outweigh the terrible damage caused by converting tropical forest to palm oil plantations. Apparently it will take 840 years for a palm oil plantation to soak up the carbon emitted from trees and soil by clearing forest to plant the crop.



This is a problem of horrible complexity. What is becoming clear is that palm oil is not likely to be a magical solution, despite massive lobbying by the multi-billion dollar business. Needless to say there is also evidence of corruption, violence and trampling on the rights of indigenous peoples. Can we ask those who are experts on these issues to share their expertise and perspectives with the general public? Are there crops that could be grown for fuel in the Irish climate? Certainly our farmers seem to open to chances to diversify with traditional agriculture struggling at the moment.

Birds

So many good people have devoted a lot of time and money to feeding the birds during this very cold winter. Whether helping the birds in your garden or feeding the ducks at your local pond, everyone deserves praise for their generous efforts. Now, with spring surely just a few weeks away, can we ask you to help out again? This is the ideal time for getting your nestboxes sorted.



With older rough-walled buildings gradually disappearing from the countryside and walls, hedges and woodlands all under a bit of pressure, anything we can do in our gardens to help the local birds to build nests, sit on their eggs and raise a brood of chicks is to be welcomed. Garden centres and pet shops are obvious places to look for commercially designed birdhouses, but if you fancy making your own, drop by the Cabragh Wetland Centre one morning and I am sure someone will find you an easy design to take home.



Make sure you get boxes that are suitable for the birds in your neighbourhood – some are very specialist and may be designed to be attached high on the wall of a house. If you have space and can put up several boxes, then get a variety of types. A box with a small hole in the front will attract garden regulars like tits, sparrows and nuthatches, and if the hole is larger then bigger birds like starlings will take over. This sort of box can be placed in a hedge, attached to a tree or secured to the wall of your house or shed.



Robins, wrens and pied wagtails do not normally nest in holes, so a small, open fronted box is better for them. House martins and swifts like to nest in communities tucked up under the rafters of your roof, so two boxes near each other is desirable.



Placement is crucial. Think about predators in your area. Cats are so agile and climb so well that they are a huge threat to nests, so look for a site two to five metres high and well away from overhanging branches which might be a launch pad for your local puss. Do not put a perch under the entrance hole – it will make access easier for predators and also allow noisy house sparrows the chance to sit near the nest and upset the occupants, perhaps driving them away.



Another key issue is to face your box the right way. If you face it south or southwest, there is a danger of too much sun and wind getting into the heart of the nest, and this can dehydrate and kill the defenceless chicks. So north to east is the best direction for the opening. Another important tip is to keep nestboxes well away from the place where you feed the birds. Feeding sites will always be very busy, with noise, squabbling and a lot of species very active, all of which will discourage parents from choosing a nesting site nearby.



There are a lot of things to bear in mind, not least trying to ensure that you are rewarded for your community spirit by having a good view of nesting sites. So act now to get boxes up, and do drop in to Cabragh Wetlands Centre or contact us by e-mail (cabraghwetlands@eircom.net) if you want more advice.