IWT NEWS
A C T I V I T Y U P D A T E By Kieran Flood, IWT Coordinator The IWT reserve at Boora c. K. Flood inset: Sprawler moth
Update from Lough Boora This winter there were interesting developments at our IWT Lough Boora nature reserve in County Offaly. New species were found on site with help from volunteer surveyor effort and Moths Ireland, and we met Bord na Mona to discuss re-wetting of this peatland site. Our Lough Boora nature reserve is located within the Lough Boora Parkland, a public nature parkland created by Bord na Mona in an area of cutover bog located just outside Tullamore, Co. Offaly. Our IWT nature reserve is found in a quiet corner of the parkland beside a Mesolithic archaeological site and just off the Offaly Way. The reserve is on the site of a former lake, called Lough Boora, which was drained in the 1950s. At the Mesolithic site adjacent to our reserve the remains of ancient human presence were found at a location thought to be the shoreline of the ancient lake. While the site was never mined for peat, it was significantly drained and thus the peatland habitat is drying out and most likely emitting carbon in the process. The site today supports a mosaic of habitats including birch dominated bog woodland, scrub, poor fen and flush and pioneer 10
Molinia (purple moor-grass) grassland. We have previously recorded beautiful orchids, marsh fritillary butterfly, smooth newts and pine marten at this secluded reserve. Earlier this winter we met with Bord na Mona ecologists at Boora who talked us through a proposal to block a number of the drains on and around our site as part of their greater Peatlands Climate Action Scheme at Boora Bog. The scheme involves rewetting thousands of acres of Bord na Mona peatlands in order to capture carbon and they offered to include our site in the scheme. The blocking of drains in strategic locations will slow down the drying out of our site and hopefully allow the peatland habitats to recover somewhat. We agreed to go ahead with the drain blocking work in order to preserve the peatland habitats and do our bit to contribute to carbon sequestration. We are at the early stages of this process and will report back with details in this magazine. As well as the habitat restoration we also increased our knowledge of the wildlife of our Lough Boora nature reserve in 2021. Thanks to the efforts of a dedicated volunteer we began moth monitoring on site. With such a diverse range of habitats
it was hoped that an interesting array of moth species would be found, and we were not disappointed! Our volunteer worked with support from Moths Ireland to identify the species found. Moths were surveyed on site with the use of moth traps. These are simple traps placed out at dusk and opened in the morning at which point the surveyor records the moths inside and then lets them go unharmed. Traps were placed within the woodland and the open habitats on site. 53 different species of moth were detected within a few months including some rare finds. Sprawler Asteroscopus sphinx moths were found at Lough Boora in November 2021. Sprawlers are rare in Ireland and near threatened globally. Due to their rarity they are a priority species of conservation concern. The loss of broad-leaf woodland threatens the species. The species is on the 2016 Irish red list for macro-moths. Red lists are used to evaluate the conservation status of species and determine which species need urgent action. Sprawler moths have experienced an 85% decline in abundance in Britain (1970 - 2016) and a 34% decline in distribution during the same time period.
Irish Wildlife Spring '22
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