From Islay to Ireland – a peatland learning event for ACT staff in the CANN project

Last week the team from CANN partners Argyl Coast and Countryside Trust (ACT) crossed the waters to visit peat bog restoration sites in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. Due to Covid this was the first visit for some of the staff to any of the partner project sites and an opportunity to put real faces to names, email addresses and Zoom screens!

removing pine by hand

The first on the list of visits was a large blanket bog called Sliabh Beagh, spanning the border between north and south. The ACT team were met by Paul and Rory from Monaghan County Council, who walked their visitors up the hill, telling tales of local folklore (apparently Noah’s brother landed his own ark of animals nearby) and the group were honoured with a fleeting view of a hen harrier, the only one of the trip. Paul and Rory have been removing conifers that were drying out the bog and using peat dams, a system of ‘borrowing’ peat from nearby, to infill small sections of ditches to reduce drainage, all in efforts to return the bog to a wet, healthy habitat.

The next day the tour continued, this time teaming up with Simon from Ulster Wildlife to have a tour of their works at Peatlands Park, a country estate with an extensive trail system through a mosaic of gorgeous woodlands and raised bog habitats. There is a large network of drains throughout the site, so hydrological mapping was done using LiDAR (a type of laser scanning) to help plan where damming should take place. The team checked in on the range of peat and plastic dams, getting some very wet feet in the process (surely a good sign that the damming is working!) and compared notes on Islay’s efforts with rhododendron removal (something that has been a key deliverable on the island!). Ulster Wildlife are monitoring effects of the restoration

volunteers clearing rhodi seedlings

work using piezometers, an instrument inserted deep into the ground which measures the water table using data loggers.  Some of these are automatically taking measurements every 15 minutes! This gives an insight into how the water table changes throughout the year and after restoration; a nice wet bog for most of the year will be more resilient to the hotter, drier weather events predicted due to climate change.

The tour then took the team up to Cuilcagh mountain with Roisin, also from Ulster Wildlife. Here they have been using a variety of methods to block gullies that have been caused by water eroding the peat. Coir logs made of coconut fibres are dug into the base of the gullies, slowing water flow. Cut heather is spread over areas of exposed peat to stop it oxidizing and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. They have even been trialing a new method of gully blocking, using wool from the very sheep that graze the mountain. The wool is used to create a bale which is then used to block gullies much

coir log in place

like the coir logs.

For the final two days of our trip ACT joined forces with a range of CANN staff as well as other outside projects interested in bogs. Again, more trips out onto bogs, but many of which are managed by community groups. One such was Abbeyleix bog which was saved from further peat extraction by its locals. They now manage the area and its diverse surrounding habitats, liaising with universities to carry out research and organising work groups for everything from boardwalk maintenance to habitat creation for marsh fritillaries. It was inspiring to witness the hard work and passion that has gone into managing the area for the benefit of the environment, but also for the enjoyment of the local community, all co-ordinated by volunteers.

meeting the volunteer team at Abbeyleix

All in all, it was a highly education trip and the ACT team has have come away brimming with ideas and enthusiasm to continue their work with bogs, back on our home peat of Islay and Argyll.

Eye Spy Wildlife on Sliabh Beagh

Eye Spy wildlife on Sliabh Beagh, published today, results from a great collaboration between book lovers and nature lovers.

The Library service of Monaghan County Council reached out to the CANN project and its officers working on Sliabh Beagh, to see if there was a way of helping enrich the lives of local citizens by making the limited lockdown walks more meaningful. The CANN project wants to encourage more citizen science on the mountain and took the opportunity of the Library’s Keep Well COVID funding to create this booklet.

The Keep Well campaign aims to show people of all ages how they can mind their mental health and physical wellbeing by adding healthy and helpful habits to their daily and weekly routines. The CANN project believes that recording wildlife on a regular walk adds richness and encourages people to go out more often. The citizen science of data gathered in this way is essential to the long-term health of the mountain and the long-term health of the people encouraged to walk. Unless the CANN team knows what species live where, it is difficult to conserve them, and walkers can provide the eyes and ears to record this information.

The booklet features twenty species of birds, terrestrial animals, insects, and plants found on Sliabh Beagh. Spotter points are collected depending on how rare or common the species is. People are encouraged to use their mobile phones to scan a QR code to record what they see with the National Biodiversity Data Centre. QR technology is also used to link users to the bird song and other sounds that might help them identify what they are looking at or listening to.

 

Monaghan County Library Service celebrated the launch of this booklet by decorating the windows of all its branch libraries throughout the county with beautifully handpainted images of the animals and plants featured in the booklet.

The booklet is available for free from libraries and has been delivered to all primary schools throughout County Monaghan. It is also available as an electronic flipbook on the County Council website here .

 

Eye Spy Wildlife on Sliabh Beagh

This booklet is part of the Keep Well campaign funded by the Irish Government. It is aimed at showing people of all ages how we can mind our own physical and mental health & wellbeing by adding healthy and helpful habits to our daily and weekly routines. Recording wildlife on your regular walk adds extra richness and will encourage you to go out more often.

Open the pdf by clicking the link below

Eye Spy Wildlife on Sliabh Beagh

or, for an easier reading experience, click here to open a flipbook version.

Film…Camera…Action

Since lockdown eased slightly, the work to create a video of the CANN project has been progressing. Before lockdown, we filmed some fabulous footage of the skilful digger drivers blocking old drains at Cranny Bogs. The diggers rest on huge wooden bog mats which weigh over a tonne each, these are moved by the machine operator as he progresses across the bog allowing the machines to continue work even when the bog is like a sea of jelly. To see these huge machines delicately moving peat from sacrificial pits to block the drains is quite amazing.  ASG, our video contractors, are getting used to the soggy feet of working on wetlands and now bring wellies as standard. They were thrilled to film a demonstration of our Robocut machine which, working by remote control can get into areas which are unsafe for a ride-on cutter (and cameramen!). The machine has been a huge hit with farmers wanting to find out how to manage their land better for biodiversity.

During the main part of lockdown, filming was postponed but as soon as it eased the cameras were back on the job using skilful drone work and pared-back crew to ensure social distancing and safe working practices. Their first date was in Peatlands park where volunteers from the Lough Neagh Landscape Partnership were pulling scots pine seedlings out of the bog and cutting down young rhododendrons.

The team also got close up and personal with a licenced filming of young hen harriers at the nest on Sliabh Beagh and had a meeting with lovely traditional breed cattle on the mountain, these Dexter cattle act like mobile conservation rangers, they are light enough to not get bogged down and will eat the roughest of vegetation, they are also incredibly photogenic with their big dark eyes.

A trip out onto Lough Arrow was carefully carried out to avoid close contact with our scientists. Clever camera angles to mimic the camera being on the boat complete with drone footage demonstrated water sampling and the laying of jute carpets to control alien invasives and encourage native charophytes.

Jute laying at Lough Arrow

Laden with gear, the team climbed to the top of Cuilcagh Mountain and were able to film the delicate work of restoring the unique boreal and subalpine heathland on the peak. This habitat has sadly been a victim of its own popularity being eroded away by the thousands of visitors climbing the boardwalk. Still, our fabulous contractors were able to show the film crew how they put together the giant rock, plant and soil jigsaw, searching for exactly the right shape of stone to fit.

On Lecale fens just outside Downpatrick, the team got the macro lenses out to film the tiny Desmoulin’s whorl snail and the webs of the beautiful marsh fritillary butterfly. Filming is in the home stretch now, and a trip to Scotland in October will tell the tale of making Colonsay Island a rhododendron-free island and find out about surveying birds on the loughs and mountains of this beautiful area. The final filming will be with the Ulster University team surveying white-clawed crayfish on the Kilroosky lake cluster near Clones.

We are looking forward to seeing this lovely video when it is finished it has been a long time in the making, but we are sure it will be worth it.

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