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.