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Wildlife Surveys

New Citizen Science Project needs your Seal Sightings!

Grey seal wildlife holiday Ireland

A new research project at the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) in partnership with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is looking for public input to analyse seal populations around the Irish coast. The project is being undertaken by German native Kristina Steinmetz, a graduate of the Biodiversity….

The Birdwatch Ireland Garden Bird Survey: how you can help monitor Ireland’s garden birds

Waxwing

This post is part of the Crossley ID Guide Britain & Ireland Blog Tour — yesterday the tour was over at Mark Avery’s blog here — tomorrow it moves on to BirdWords… the official site of Dominic Couzens… who’s one of the book’s authors. You’ll find the full tour schedule here. NB. I’ll be….

Have you seen a dormouse in Ireland?

Hazel Dormouse Ireland

If you have, then researchers at NUI Galway want to hear from you. The hazel dormouse (also know as the common dormouse) was discovered living in Ireland very recently, most likely introduced from the UK or Europe. NUI Galway is conducting a survey to discover where they can be found and….

Irish Pollinator Initiative: driving bee conservation through better data

Andrena fulva - extinct solitary bee rediscovered in 2012

Dr. Una Fitzpatrick, Ecologist with the National Biodiversity Data Centre, explains why we need to conserve our pollinators, and how you can help. The staggering value of pollination Pollination services provided by insects, mainly bees, have been valued at €153 billion a year. With 71 out of the 100 crops….

Birdwatch Ireland Garden Bird Survey starts Monday 03 December

The blue tit -- one of the most striking of our common garden birds

Birdwatch Ireland’s most popular “Citizen Science” project… the annual Garden Bird Survey… starts next Monday, 03 December. It’s a survey that anyone can take part in and its really easy to get involved here’s how Birdwatch Ireland explain it: The way the survey works is very straightforward…  Between December and….

Irish Earwigs: the caring nature of a much maligned insect

Common Earwig Distribution in Ireland

Dr Eugenie Regan from the National Biodiversity Data Centre introduces us to Ireland’s three species of earwig. Earwigs are an unloved group of insects. They generate reactions of disgust from the general public, are considered by most a pest, and are surely one of the reasons that insects have a….

Ireland’s nature and biodiversity featuring invasive alien

Earlier today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched the fifth of their four-yearly State of the Environment reports “Ireland’s Environment 2012: An Assessment”. I read the press release, scanned through the main points with interest, and went straight for my main area of interest, Chapter 6, Nature and Biodiversity… I….

Ireland’s BioBlitz 2012 kicks off today!

The final countdown is on for Ireland’s island wide BioBlitz 2012, with four sites across the island competing for Ireland’s biodiversity crown. Killarney National Park took the title last year, and I’m off to Glengarriff Woods Nature Reserve in West cork later today to do whatever I can to help….

Stranding: learning from the death of a harbour porpoise

It was Sunday morning, and it was raining. Not just any kind of rain… it was that sneaky, endemically Irish drizzle that saturates you before you realise you’re getting wet. It was misery incarnate. Miserable or not, we had a job to do. I grabbed the gear, threw it in….

Hop to it: report your Irish frog sightings

To mark World Wetlands Day on Thursday the 2 February the Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC) is launching its annual ‘Hop To It Frog Survey’.  The survey helps the IPCC to map the distribution and habitat preferences of the Common Frog (Rana temporaria), Ireland’s most widespread and familiar amphibian species…..