Photos

All photos on this blog, Wildlife on Wheels, are taken by me. If you want to use any of my photos for anything other than personal use, send me an email and we'll talk about it. The email address is listed in the sidebar on the right .

Save Dunmanus Bay

Thursday, December 18, 2008

5 new species breeding in Eire

As most of you know by now, I'm mad of Birds, Wild Flowers and Moths. Plus other Insects and indeed Butterflies too. (I'm not talking of all other wildlife species which are out of my range mostly because of access to hills, woods, and fields. Oh, and swimming is out of the question too, unfortunately because I used to love it, as my late gran would admit after she would lose me in the sea in Scheveningen, The Hague (Holland) on a few occasions when she took us to the beach in November. I was very young, and even then loved swimming underwater, where my paralysed arm and leg posed a lot less hinder than when I would poke my head above the surface.
.-.
I read a few interesting, Irish nature related, columns in the Irish Examiner recently and a few topics caught my eye.
Having been disappointed this summer because I had only spotted a lot of Small Tortoise Shell, Large White, quite a few of Speckled Wood,2 Meadow Brown Butterflies and at last a Red Admiral Butterfly in September. With all the Brambles and Nettle around, I had expected a Peacock in this area also.
Anyway, it appears that Ireland has 4 new species of Butterfly breeding here, some of which for a number of years already. Which is great news. I only hope that we will be able to offer enough suitable habitat for it and the generations to come.
It involves the Comma Butterfly, the Real's wood white which had chosen the Emerald Isle in 2000 already as their new breeding ground.
The Full article by Dick Warner is here at the Irish Examiner website.

Also, this island has been seeing Woodpeckers! This is great news for people like me who can still remember the Black Woodpeckers back in Holland.
When I heard of this I thought that it just involved a few which had taken the wrong wind and had ended up on our east coast, coming from the UK. However they seem to be turning up in all kind of different parts of the country, and juveniles ave been sighted also.
So have they started breeeding in Ireland? Who knows. This is what Birdwatch Ireland has to say about the Great Spotted Woodpeckers.

However would they have chosen Ireland if they had known of its reputation on protection of wildlife and her lax attitude towards the the creation of SPA's (Special Protection Area) So I really hope they are all here to stay, but that if they do, one will perhaps come my way too?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for visiting Wildlife on Wheels; Feel free to leave your comments; it is very much appreciated.
Yoke.