In Your Nature Ep 59 - Breeding Waders EIP
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What is the Breeding Waders EIP and why is it needed?
Hello everyone, welcome to In Your Nature Podcast with me, Ricky Whelan of Offley County Council.
And me, Niall Hatch of Birdwatch Ireland. And Ricky, it's great to be back.
I'm delighted. It's um it's it's it's it's fantastic and we we've we've got the band back together. No, so yeah, though, it's I'm thrilled and we've really good episodes to s to to kick off with this season and we're talking about the Breed and Wader EIP with the Breed and Wader project manager Owen Murphy, so uh really look forward to uh getting into that with him.
Uh uh absolutely. And I suppose we should kick off just by saying uh about the sponsorship. So this series is supported by Leash Offley and Westmead County Councils, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and the Heritage Council. So thank you to them.
Yeah, so I mean I spoke to I spoke to Owen about breeding waders, but I suppose before we get into breeding waders, let's talk a little bit maybe about waders and what that family of birds is and why they're called waders and why Owen and the Breeding Waders EIP project are specific uh particularly, should I say, worried or interested or focused in breeding waders?
Well, waders are a very important group of birds because they um they they're Great indicators of the healthy overall environment. But also here in Ireland, we really punch up overweight when it comes to the presence of waders. Now, the vast majority of the different wading species we get are here just during the non-breeding season in the winter. But I would say Ireland is one of the best countries in the whole world to see a diversity of waders. And these are the birds, of course, with generally have long legs, generally pretty long beaks, some extremely long, which wade around in water on wetlands. Not all of them do birds like woodcock, they're they're forest birds. mainly that come out to fields in the evenings.
But uh waders generally are uh are evolved for an aquatic lifestyle where they're probing in mud or in wet areas or marshes, wherever it may be, to to to to take out the the invertebrates and and crustaceans and things that they may find there. And that's what they do. And and in Ireland, given our places of migratory crossroads, we have lots of these different wading birds coming from all over the northern hemisphere. You know when you look at a field guide or a maybe a list of birds of the world, you know when you see things Like all the parrots we don't have, all the hummingbirds we don't have, you're not going to see them. Well, you actually have in Ireland you have a very good chance of seeing a significant proportion of the world's waders in a given year.
But that's kind of hiding the fact that actually the ones that the few species that breed here in Ireland are actually doing really badly. And they're a real s cause for concern. Uh so it's really important now that they're getting finally they they're starting to get the attention that they deserve. And hopefully it's not too late. Hopefully we can save some of these species.
They're really incredible and the the the sounds they make and the landscape and I mean people that this sort of it brings us nicely into the breeding waders and the ones that are having problems in in this country. And I suppose the headline one, the flagship species we all talk about is the curloo. And the curlew are probably the most on the brink and followed followed kind of very tightly behind by Lapwing uh and and others. So the the breed and watery IP is really focusing on a suite of bird species that are really on the brink for for many reasons now. What has brought them to the edge?
Well, uh there's many reasons. I think that really it can all boil down to us humans though, if you want, like the the the the short and and sharp answer to it. Uh but the big thing that's affecting them, well, it it's it's loss of habitat.
Why are Ireland’s ground‑nesting waders like curlew, lapwing and redshank in steep decline?
That's the case for so many of our birds, but the breeding wagers are so specific in the habitat that they need that that really has brought them to the brink because the Irish landscape has changed really beyond all recognition in just the space of a few decades.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the Breeding Waders EIP and why is it needed?
0:00–3:07
2
Why are Ireland’s ground‑nesting waders like curlew, lapwing and redshank in steep decline?
3:07–13:35
3
How have habitat loss, modern agriculture and predator pressure driven these declines?
13:35–30:52
4
What predator‑control strategies are being used to protect wader nests?
30:52–1:03:27