The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has recently begun conservation work on part of the Black Islands archipelago on Lough Ree on the River Shannon.
The habitat management works on Kings Island and Nut Island are being carried out in collaboration with the Breeding Wader European Innovation Partnership (EIP).
The EIP project aims to maintain existing wader populations at “key sites”, and to support population recovery through wider landscape management and policy development.
NPWS
The conservation works will remove scrub and protect grasslands on the islands that endangered species such as curlew, lapwing, redshank, oystercatcher and other vulnerable wading birds need for nesting and foraging.
The NPWS said that these actions are “a vital tool in ensuring the future survival of breeding waders”, which are red-listed birds of conservation concern in Ireland.
Red-listed birds require direct conservation actions and have undergone catastrophic declines in recent decades.
The habitat works commenced in early December and will continue for three weeks.
The NPWS noted that some areas of scrub and trees will remain untouched as they provide numerous other biodiversity benefits.
Lough Ree
A survey carried out in 2020 ranked Lough Ree as Ireland’s number one hotspot for breeding waterbirds.
This targeted scrub removal is the latest step in securing this ranking alongside the nest protection programme undertaken by NPWS on Lough Ree and the Shannon Callows over previous years.
In 2023, the NPWS purchased the Black Islands as a strategic investment in nature conservation.
Working in partnership with new Breeding Wader EIP, local farmers, communities and businesses, the NPWS aims to revive traditional farming practices on the Black Islands to support the long-term conservation of breeding waders, other waterbirds and the habitats they rely on.
Other waterbirds of national significance such as common scoter, gadwall and common tern also use the lake as a breeding site and will benefit from these works.
The common tern is vulnerable to fluctuating lake levels as they nest on island shorelines and spits.
To help overcome this, NPWS in collaboration with Waterways Ireland developed and launched an artificial breeding tern raft in a strategic location in the Black Islands earlier this year.
The breeding tern raft was successful and adult terns were observed bringing food onto the raft, which indicated they were feeding young.
NPWS and Waterways Ireland hope to provide similar breeding rafts at other strategic locations on the lake in the near future.