 This is Helen Radio and you're listening to Around the Northwest this Monday afternoon and I'm delighted that Ingus Kennedy from Nature Northwest has joined us now in studio. Ingus, good afternoon and happy new year to you. Happy new year John, lovely day although chilly day and it's slippy out there so be careful anybody who's out and about in the roads or even on the paths just came in one of the back roads and it's still very slippy. When we get harsh weather like this our attentions turn to the small wildlife I suppose in particular birds and we realise they can't get at their food because everything is frozen over so it's a good time to leave out a few e-scraps for the birds. Yeah, really important thing to do if you can and birds like so much of our wildlife where they really suffer is from habitat loss and for years and years we've been chipping away at all of their natural habitats to suit our own needs but we can replace that to a certain extent by looking after our hedgerows by looking after our wild patches in our gardens and we can help by feeding the birds and if you feed the birds study after study has shown that the birds they tend to hang around in the garden they tend to eat your pests when the spring flowers and crops start to come and of course they're very beautiful you know. I feed peanuts and that will get the various different the blue tits the great tits the cold tits that kind of thing get the chaff inches as well but I also get the little sunflower seeds now they're a bit more expensive but it's worth buying a small bag of them because you'll get the gold finches and when the gold finches arrive they're beautiful red faces and they're golden yellow wings they're a stunning thing to have in your garden. And it gives you a chance I suppose to take a closer look at the birds and just to enjoy them when you have a feeder out. Yeah definitely and if you're thinking about getting a feeder and you can get these things a big industry now the bird feeding industry the bird feeders the bird food itself and you can get them all over the place but try and put them up somewhere where there's a little bit of shelter nearby because they like to have a little bush or a tree that they can jump in and out of so they'll feel safe there from the cat from the sparrow hawk but try and put them by somewhere where you can see them by the kitchen window by the sitting room window so you can sit and enjoy them and you'll get used to it there's only a few species really there's only about a dozen species that regularly come to your bird feeder so you can get to learn them fairly quickly. Okay, speaking of birds there's an online guide and this is aimed at children and it's really good in that it's well for a start you know when it was children you don't want it too long secondly you do want it fairly informative and the third thing is you want plenty of pictures and it ticks all these boxes. It does, yeah this was something that the Glen Bay National Park team education team I created a few years ago they created a few different books but one of them was a Guide to Birds of Inch Wildfowl Reserve now I don't know if there's many of the hard copies left anymore although you could ask them of course next time you're in Glen Bay but you can get it online and you can download it or you can just browse through the PDF online and it's free and it's a wonderful thing it's beautifully illustrated by a artist called Aideen who's based down in Galway and it's aimed at children but the information covers everything and it's very accessible, very easy to read so it's a lovely easy way to get in and try and figure out start figuring out some of the winter birds that have come to visit us. And it's a great introduction as well to Inch Wildfowl Reserve if you're not familiar with it and it gives you an insight into you know a bit of the background, a bit of what's you know what's ongoing down there and then the birds themselves that come there Yeah, Inch I think is a fascinating place really because of course it's all reclaimed land so over a hundred years ago that land, the waters the swillie would have flown freely around Inch Island whereas now all of that flat plain which you see when you're driving towards Derry and you're passing Bert and the Green On Hotel and what's not all of that land to your left Down left, yeah Yeah, that's all reclaimed and it's an amazing feat what they did engineering well over a hundred years ago and now that's farmed but they also right beside it have an amazing Wildfowl Reserve and it's a great argument or discussion for how we can have farming we can also have nature at the same time if people work together and if people work with the National Parks Wildlife Service and if they look after the kind of birds and just leave room for the birds, you know Yeah If you've got a question by the way that you'd like me to put to Angus get in touch, you're at 60, 25,000 by text message or on WhatsApp and just to remind our listeners where they can access that guide Yeah, so I googled it this morning just to check and I put in Inch Birds Book and I put as simple as that those three words Inch Bird Book and up comes the free PDF so you'll be able to get it there and what we'll do is after this session we'll pop it into the comments section on the Facebook page as well Okay, okay, perfect Yeah, link into it Now, staying briefly with birds I see there's a new study by Birdwatch Ireland and it's found that the number of water birds that winter here in Ireland has actually dropped by 15% over the past five years that seems like a lot in five years It's an awful lot in five years and it's a very worrying thing really because a lot of these birds even though some of them might be invisible to a lot of the public because they'll go into the muddier places in the estuaries and quite often a lot of them only visit us here in the wintertime their numbers are going down and down and remember these birds have been coming to our shores for thousands and thousands of years before we were here before we started changing our shores and draining our lands and manipulation of the foreshore I mean, we're chatting about a lot of birds that come to places like Inch but right the way around to our wetlands and wet lakes and other wet areas Absolutely, so Lox Willey and Lockfoil just across the Hillsmouth are very important bird sites they're internationally important bird sites for the amount of birds that they hold particularly winter birds but all over the place any bay that any estuary in Donegal will hold a good number of birds this time of year and then around the fields around the estuaries and around the bays a lot of the birds will go to feed during the daytime so you'll get some of the bigger geese there and you'll get some of the bigger waders the ones of the big long beaks that will go there as well and they're all relying on us to provide a bit of a habitat so that they can survive for the wintertime and again back to that point of they were doing this before we arrived so surely it's incumbent on us to make sure that we leave space for these birds so that they can go back to the breeding grounds in safety Absolutely and it's not just about birds but other wildlife as well and what do they feed on? They come here and they like us at certain times of the year but what do most of them feed on? So there's a huge variety of types of birds but one of the lessons I do in schools on a regular basis is I bring in various different stuffed birds that I have and I show them the different kind of beaks and you can tell a lot about a bird by its beak so if you look at the birds on your garden feeder the birds like the robin and the wren with the little tiny, tiny, fine little pointy beak it's like little tweezers and it's looking for tiny bugs or tiny seeds whereas the big chunky beak on say the chaff inch or the goldfinch is better for cracking nuts and you can tell a bit the same for a lot of the water birds so the ducks, some of the ducks are looking for weeds different kind of plants growing just underneath the water and some of them are looking for little mollocks little animals that are under the water whereas the waders they're the ones that quite literally wade through muddy water and they've got the long, long beaks and you'll see their beaks probing down and they're amazing creatures really so if you think of the curlew with its beak which is about 15 centimetres long it's huge with a slight curve on it and it has as much nerve endings in its finger or in the tip of its beak as we do in our fingertips so they're amazingly sensitive they can probe, probe down quite deep into the mud and then pull out the little ragworms and things like that Right Why are there, I mean you mentioned earlier there about us providing the right habitat for them and places for them to feed and come to but is that really the main reason why the numbers are down so much? It's one of the big reasons and like any of these things like the corn creak when it heads off to Africa in the winter we can't control what happens when it goes elsewhere and climate change of course is having an effect on everything it's having an effect on us it's having an effect on the birds and all of nature so that affects birds whether they come here for the summer or whether they come here for the winter but the way that we look after the habitats that's the big thing for the birds here the disturbance that we have on the habitats people going down exploring more getting out and looking at these wild places more which is a wonderful thing to do but the more you do that the more you disturb in the birds and if you bring a dog along with you and you'll see if you go to Inch Wildfell Reserve dogs are allowed there but people are asked to respect the rules keep their dog on the lead because even the presence of a dog just running around it might not touch the birds might not catch the birds and your dog isn't trying to do them any harm most likely but it's enough to push them on push them on and you think of some of those birds you think of the little sandalings for instance I was up at Killahoe Beach yesterday the beautiful Killahoe Beach near Dunfanahee and there's these tiny little birds called sandalings they're kind of white and grey and they've got a black black little beak and they run along the edge of the beach and anybody who walks out any of our beaches will be familiar with them in the winter and a tiny little fella the size of a black bird and they run in and out with the waves and the waves will disturb these tiny little shellfish that we don't even notice they're picking away with us those birds have come from Siberia so they've come all the way from Siberia to our shores in Donegal and then we let our dog off and the dog chases them up and down we think this is great because we see the dog interacting with the birds but what the dog is doing is putting those birds under pressure and it's depleting their little energy reserve that they have because that same bird when we're tucked up tonight and when your dog is tucked up nice and cosy tonight it has to try and survive those freezing temperatures so we need to be mindful when we're out and about interacting in these places and then on the greater scale of things we need to start protecting their habitats as well I was thinking the exact same thing actually over the weekend because we went for a walk not far from where you were we were at Lergo Braque the so-called secret beach and on the way over you sort of go where you want there's no clearly defined path and I'm thinking now we didn't have the dog with us but I'm thinking you know if we go that way and somebody else goes that way and somebody else goes the other way you know the chances are we're going to be disturbing something or other instead of having you know clearly defined path over and another one back or something to that effect or maybe one for over and back and you know and it all adds up it does all add up and people don't really see the impact particularly with the dogs that they do because the dog is gone and the dog comes back quite happy and they don't really notice what's been happening that area is very interesting that area around Hornhead there's a program called the life on maher program and if you're interested in conservation or nature preservation look up life on maher and they've only really started they employed some people last year they've got a great team of people in Donegal they're also based down in Mayo and they're working with local farmers local landowners to try and preserve some of that fantastic and unique habitat which shelters birds in the winter and shelters a certain amount of animals in the winter but also looks after a huge amount of birds in the summertime as well and you'll have them very close to where you are and I'm not an advocate of keeping dogs on the lead all the time but I suppose we have to be mindful of you know wildlife and other people as well but it's just a pity that there weren't more places where we could comfortably let dogs off the lead and that's been... Well I think that's a conversation we should be starting to have with the council and with ourselves more because the dog ownership has increased from it was a bit over 400,000 before Covid and now it's estimated at over 800,000 800,000 bird dogs so the amount of dogs in the country have doubled and that's the ones that are registered so that's the responsible dog owners and of course people love their dogs and need places the dogs need places to exercise but we also love our nature and we need to be able to find space for both so in the meantime keep your dogs on the lead and just be aware of where you are and then we'll get to enjoy the nature all the more Speaking of keeping dogs on the lead there was an incident last week and it was just one that was highlighted it happens all the time where there was a seal that came up on a beach and people were being advised just leave it alone don't approach it and just give it some space what should we do when we see a seal like that? Resist temptation that's what we should do and I fully understand the urge if you see a seal and typically if you see a seal on the beach at this time of year it's most likely going to be a pup the adults will haul out seals are incredible creatures again you think of the cold of the water at the moment and seals spend about half of their life in the water hunting hunting hunting but crucially they need to spend the other half hauled out so that the oxygen come all the way back through the blubber all the way back through their blood and they can warm up enough and the adult ones will tend to haul out in places where we can't get to or we don't get to as much because they're wise to us whereas the young ones the grey seals which are bigger of the two species that we have around the coast around the grey seals they give birth to their young from between August and January so typically October and November is when it peaks and it's an amazing thing really the mum feeds these young pups with the richest milk in the world some of the fattiest milk in the world fix and then just heads off starts breeding again and goes off to the business and that pup needs to figure out its own way to be able to needs to learn how to swim needs to learn how to hunt survive with the winter just setting in in Ireland so often times they'll haul up in beaches at this time of year just having a rest there's probably nothing wrong with them and the temptation is to go up and have a look and try and get a good photo or your dog might be taking a snap at them or whatever stay away from it leave it alone don't disturb it like all wildlife if you can in general they're curious and then we're curious and they can lead to problems again just going back to the dog especially if you have a dog with you the dog's going to start barking and yapping and then the seal will be you know distressed yeah so the seal is hauled out for its rest and remembering half of its time is spent out of the water so it's just trying to recuperate and trying to build up its energy again and trying to warm up again it's one of the big things for them and they're amazingly graceful in the water but they're amazingly clumsy on land they can't waddle around but they can't move very fast so their only line of defence it's not really escape it's to defend themselves as to attack excuse me so they'll tend to snap and I have taken part in seal surveys over the years and they've very strong teeth and you don't want to get bitten by one of them and you certainly don't want your dog to get bitten by one of them so it's another reason to keep them away the seal can't run away it can't just get out and it can't fly off like the birds can so they're going to defend themselves and if you do see a seal that's an obvious distress there's a hotline there is indeed yeah there's the Irish seal sanctuary I am seeing look up the Irish seal sanctuary and if you google that you'll find them they pop up very quickly and they've a load of fascinating information as well if you find a seal anytime I find anything I thought especially when my children are a bit smaller it's a wonderful opportunity to go home and then to get them to google that and look it up on the iPad and you sit with them or on the computer or whatever you have and start going through some of the start going through some of the information on them because the websites the Irish websites on that kind of thing be it for bats be it for seals be it any of those kind of websites they've got really really good over the last few years they've put a lot of resources into it and they're very accessible just some questions going back to birds where did the blue Ted go caller says that she's seen none about oh that's interesting just a little local drop-in population perhaps but they tend to move around at this time of year anyway some birds like the robin and the ren are very sight fateful so the robin that you hear singing this morning when you're defrosting the car or out and about that robin will be with you as long as nothing happens all winter whereas the blue tits they tend to move in flocks and they'll move around from trees to trees to trees and hopefully more will come but keep putting out the bird feed and they'll come someone has asked about robins why do they not eat off the bird feeders they don't have the dexterity a couple of times I've seen them jumping onto the bird feeder and pecking away the peanuts but it's very unusual normally they hang around the bottom and robins that's what they do if you're digging away in the garden the robin will come up because it's very curious but they think that behavior goes right back to when it was a woodland creature like before humans were there and when the boar or the deer or whatever else was rummaging through the forest they'd be following those kind of characters and looking for any little bugs that they've disturbed so the robins will hang around underneath the feeder but they won't have the dexterity unlike say the siskin which is another beautiful bird and something worth looking up if you have garden feeders look up the siskin S-I-S-K-I-N and they're bright bright yellow yellow and black birds and they'll hang upside down on the feeder so they're the opposite of the robin they're like little acrobats S-okay to get at what they need to S-to get at what they need and they're feisty too they'll chase off some of the bigger finches and what not the gorgeous things S-and finally someone says how to take my bird feeder away because it's attracted rats but I loved watching them to feed it's a tricky one S-yeah and I would start again but just start cautiously start with peanuts and just put in a few peanuts and nothing else unfortunately with that we referred to it earlier that the industry has turned into a huge industry bird feeding industry and not all the products are as they should be like any of these kind of industries when they start to explode so the big bags the cheaper bags of bird seed they tend to have a lot of wheat in them that the birds don't want and perhaps other seeds the birds don't want and if the bird is discarding those seeds and not picking them up well then something else might come whereas you're better off buying just a small bag for a few years of really high quality feed or another thing that I like to do is I buy a bag of porridge the cheapest porridge I can find and I'll put out just a sprinkle a thimble full on a little table nearby or even on the windowsill nearby and the birds will come and find that very quickly and gobble that up and then you'll know that you can put out a little bit more the next time a little bit more the next time and if there's any left over by the end of the day you know you're putting out a bit too much S-alright simple as that S-okay informative as always Angus thank you very much and more information about what you've been chatting about on your website obviously naturenorthwest.ie or on the Facebook or Instagram and all that yeah brilliant thanks John