 Dalkey Tidy Towns |
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| Dalkey Tidy Towns |
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Wildlife
Newsletter for the Township of Dalkey August 2007 - Michael Ryan |
| CLIMATE
CONSEQUENCES. I had more birds coming to my garden feeders in June then at any time during winter. Some were feeding fledglings directly from the feeders but most were adult birds feeding themselves, probably very few insects flying about in the cool weather. Another odd consequence of the weather was that even before the bad weather struck them the terns in Kilcoole had been subject to egg predation by starlings who had bred earlier then usual during April’s heat wave. Last month I expressed concern about our tern colony on Maidens Rock off Dalkey Island. The birds had not nested at their usual time and we were worried that enough sand eels were not available. Over thirty five nest boxes, a few hundredweight of gravel and four decoy terns shipped from the US sat unused on the rock. But then there was cause for some optimism in mid June. Some Common Terns began to nest on the rock and though numbers were well down on previous years it looked like we would at least have some birds breeding. Unfortunately though, the treacherous weather that is becoming normal for our summers was to play its part. Later that week the weather forecast warned we were in for the worst possible conditions for the birds. Strong northeasterly winds were forecast combined with a new moon, which would create very high spring tides. I went down on Thursday evening and though the sea was crashing against the rock the birds were still there resolutely sitting on nests as their partners flew in to feed them sand eels. I was hopeful they might survive but next day I heard that the Little Tern colony on the beach at Kilcoole in Co. Wicklow had been washed out by the high seas with many chicks and eggs lost. Our terns in Dalkey are subject to the same conditions as the Little Tern colony in Wicklow and unfortunately so it turned out to be when I went down to look. Although I had seen rougher seas there was a huge swell and the sea was just completely washing over the rock. No birds left and 25 nest boxes washed off as well as three of our four decoy terns. The only small compensation was since the birds had only been nesting a week it would only be eggs that would have been washed away not tern chicks. At time of writing there’s no sign of any terns nesting there, the first time this has happened in the twelve years since we started our Tern Project. DOWN UNDER UP ON THE HILL. Bordered by Torca Road and the right of way from Torca to Knocknacree Rd the little area of parkland comprising gorse and woodland, known by some older Dalkey residents as Gorse Hill, contains some of the tallest trees in Dalkey in the shape of some of the older Eucalyptus trees that form such a noble and distinctly exotic silhouette. Walking along the right of way on a summer evening with the sun setting and these towering trees backlit by the reddening sky you could easily imagine you could be looking at a forest in South East Asia. Equally delightful from the other side of the wood is to see the moon rising behind the trees, framed between the stark branches and the clumps of long pointed leaves. Native to Australia, eucalyptus trees do very well in Ireland’s mild climate. Being the fastest growing tree and the tallest broadleaved tree, some growing to 100 metres, they are nevertheless, generally, a very stable tree and although some branches fall it is rare for the actual trees to be blown over. This is due to their flexibility, allowing them to bend and sway in high winds having evolved to survive in hurricanes and tropical storms. When cut the trunk of the eucalyptus does not have obvious growth rings since they do not have seasonal growth cycles, and will keep growing when the weather is mild enough. They produce a lovely white flower often very high on the trees. When the seeds fall on to the road and get crushed by car wheels the air fills with that lovely eucalyptus oil smell. Eucalyptus is used in many products designed to unblock nasal passages. Eucalyptus is a very useful tree for birds and mammals in their native Australia but here they are more useful as a roosting tree for Hooded Crows, Jackdaws and Wood Pigeons and their height makes them a good vantage place for perching Sparrowhawks and Peregrines as well. I have seen ravens, fly into to perch in them and then virtually disappear from sight, stealthily concealing themselves from the unwanted attention they get from other members of the crow family. But the Torca Road eucalyptus has been responsible for some very unlikely avian visitors over the years. Many years ago a eucalyptus was growing in our neighbours garden and looking out the kitchen window one evening I saw a large conspicuously white bird perched on it. It was a Sulpher Crested Cockatoo! Undoubtedly a escaped bird, I heard afterwards that a cockatoo which had spent many years in a cage in a school quadrant had been released in a misguided attempt to liberate it, presumably the same bird. Was it coincidence a bird native to Australia had found itself in a tree native to the same country although it had probably been born in captivity and never seen one before? Subsequently a pair of cockatiels also appeared in the wood and later two more individual cockatiels, - their very loud call sounding as shrill as a referee’s whistle. It was one lunchtime over ten years ago that possibly the most unlikely bird appeared. Walking the dog around the wood we heard a very strange call and looking around saw a silhouette of a large bird being harassed by crows and magpies. The sun was bright behind it but we could see it was big as a crow with a very heavy bill. Two chaps walking behind us had also been drawn to the noise and said they had never seen a bird like it. It’s call had stuck in my head and later that day I mentioned to an employee of Birdwatch that I had heard what sounded like a Kookaburra, a well known member of the kingfisher family unique to Australia. The Kookaburra, like the cuckoo and chiffchaff, is named after the sound of its call and that’s what the call we had heard sounded like. When he replied that someone, who had lived in Australia, had recently rang up Birdwatch head office to report they had seen a Kookaburra in their garden in Shankill I thought that was more then a coincidence and that was surely the bird we had seen. Evidently something buried deep in the bird’s genetic make up had brought them to this little grove of trees from their original country of origin. This bit of land was once part of a garden and at one spot under the gorse there’s still the cement foundations of some kind of garden hut or gazebo. I have no great regard for griselinia hedges but there are a few plants of it in the wood, possibly the remains of a hedge, which had grown to the height of a reasonably sized tree. Having dense cover and being relatively undisturbed it is still a good habitat for native birds and beasts. Blackcaps, Chiffchaff, Goldcrest are just some of the birds that breed there, we had a cuckoo calling from the woodland one spring, and a Long-Eared Owl is occasionally seen flying through the trees. It used be a good spot for hedgehogs though they are now rarely seen as well as fox and rabbits. And in mid summer this year our suspicions about the half gnawed pinecones we had seen on the road were proved well founded when we saw a red squirrel feeding on trees over the roadside. |