rEo ECO-WARRIORS OCTOBER 2009 ENVIRONMENTALLY AWARE Page 60 Page 12 s s n esties... ettin Page 61 se n ersn The secret to understanding the Bogs of to throw on the fire have a little look at it first. Ireland, and Glenveagh, is to get up close How long is it, how many years of formation and personal. Bogs are a fascinating are about to keep you warm? Through this miniature world, with a diverse variety of slow formation and the acidic, bacteria free plants, from the simplest of mosses to our nature of the bog. it tends to be an excellent most aggressive insect eating plants. The preservative. Pieces of Oak, Birch and Pine insect life is also very rich from our smallest have all been retrieved from Glenveagh's flesh-eating midge to the country's largest bogs, all these pieces in a remarkably good and most ferocious insect predator, the state seeing as they're often more than 4,000 Dragonfly. That's not to mention its mammals years old! They show us what was in place and birds. And of course, water, lots of before man and climate change got to grips water. with this land. Ancient canoes, ancient butters (that would have been stored in the The first question to ask as you arrive at the bog) and human bodies in near perfect bog is which type is it? Blanket or raised. condition have been recovered from the bogs Page 11 Apart from a small stretch of partially raised of Ireland. bog at the end of Loch Veagh all the Bog in Glenveagh National Park is Blanket Bog. The Sphagnum moss, the key plant to the bog, is difference is simple to understand. Raised also its most prolific. Like us, these plants are bogs are formed on a lake or previously wet mostly made up of water. They can be up to area with vegetation collapsing in and 80%!! Bogs are acidic, which makes them building on itself. quite clean, in the way that bacteria won't thrive in them. Blanket bog was mostly formed about 4,000 Sphagnum moss years ago. Deforestation through the has been used activities of man and a possible change in throughout the the climate led to minerals being leached ages as a Page 56 from the soils to form what they call an Iron bandage for Pan. This is like a big waterproof sheet on open top of which water could not escape. As wounds, plants die and the vegetation that would because it have rotted away stays on top of this layer, it can absorb so all decomposes in the water to form bog as much liquid we now know it. and because of its relatively sterile This all happens rather slowly, very state. approximately one inch for every hundred Aengus Kennedy years. So next time you pick up a lump of turf 1 Page 25 The Green-Eco 2009 Marshes, Swamps and Peat Bogs In the turbulent days of this and forms peat. Sphagnum does not rot completely, land’s history, the land west because of the waterlogged conditions. A peat bog of the Pale was deemed to be may take over 5000 years to form. In Ireland, where wasteland and those who plentiful rainfall and a low rate of evaporation have dwelled in its barren wastes, formed extensive bogs, peat has long been collected boghoppers, or some such equally and used as fuel. Many ancient bogs have been D. Hines dubious title. Not withstanding the destroyed in this way. About 90 million tonnes of peat inaccuracy and ignorance of such namings, the effect are dug up each year, representing many thousands of this led successive generations to look with derision of years of growth and impossible to replace. on one of the richest habitats on Earth. Conservationists are now trying to protect the Ponds, swamps, marshes and bogs produce more remaining bogs by encouraging people to use plant matter than the most fertile grasslands and are alternatives to peat, such as compost and farm home to thousands of animals. Marshes and Swamps manure in their gardens. act as natural water purifiers, soaking up harmful chemicals from the water. They help to prevent International pressure to protect lakes and wetlands flooding by absorbing water like sponges, and led to the Ramsar Convention coming into force in absorb potentially damaging amounts of carbon 1975. Ireland signed this agreement on the 15th of dioxide from the air. The wetlands are capable of March 1985, pledging to halt the destruction of producing over fifty times as much plant material as a 66,994 hectares of these important ecosystems. similar area of grassland. Peat bogs form in a similar World Wetland Day is celebrated on way to swamps and marshes, as bog mosses take February 2nd. Much time has over the water. These mosses, also called sphagnum elapsed since the blindness of moss, can soak up ten times their own weight in previous administrators dubbed water. When sphagnum dies, it builds up in layers our richest asset a wasteland. It is up to us now to ensure that naming is not a self- fulfilling prophecy. D. Hines The Snipe a Bird of the Bogland irh The Snipe inhabits bogs and marshy places where it makes its nest on the Ethna Diver from Bird ground. It is a medium sized bird with Watch Ireland came and brownish striped plumage and a long flexible bill. One of the most told us about Birds of the remarkable features of the Snipe is its Bogland. She told about the long bill which is about a quarter the length of the bird. Snipe live on worms the Kestrel, the Skylark, the Grey and insects that live in the soft muddy Heron, the Peregrin Falcon, the Meadow Pipit, the ground of the bog and they find this food by probing the ground with their long sensitive bill. Curlew, the Grouse, the Golden Plove and the Snipe all found at the bog. In Ireland the Snipe is often called the Bog Bleater, Heather Bleater, Airy Goat, or Gabhirin Reo (Little goat of the Frost). These names arise from the strange drumming sound resembling the bleating of sheep or goat which the bird makes as it dives. The sound is not made in the throat of the birds but is created by the air rushing over its tail feathers which are arranged in a A Snipe Chick special formation. The Scottish poet Robbie Burns called the Next time you visit a bog Snipe “the blitter frae the boggie” which can be translated as the bleater from the bog. Country people believed that when the look out for the snipe. It snipe made this sound a storm was on the way. tries to hide itself in the Snipe are shy birds and their brownish colour means they are vegetation so you will very difficult to see when hiding in the bog. They are most active probably only see it when in the evening and at night. Snipe nest in the bog, in rushes or it suddenly flies up as you other vegetation. The chicks are brownish with white speckles. get close to it! 2 The Green-Eco 2009 Mrs. Daly’s 5th Class Trip to Glenveagh National Park I remember going at 9.25 in the a look. It was actually a flock of morning on James Doherty’s bus. It sheep. Then some came up behind didn’t feel like a long journey as we us. It was like they were the were talking the whole way there, predators and we were the prey!! so that passed the time. When we But they ran away as they were got off the bus, we met one of our actually scared of us. We continued instructors who was called Aengus. on our walk and over some dead We walked up to the visitors centre flowers that I did not know the and met our other instructor whose name of. We came across the ruins name was Leanne. We put our of a hut where American bags into a small room and then set archaeologists used to work. We off. We walked on a little path up walked up to the ruins, which were the mountain and through the bogs. full of poison ivy. We came across Aengus showed us the peat. We a little pond and some of the boys touched it and it was very soft to threw rocks into it and we all got touch. He showed us a plant called splashed! Further along on our Bog Myrtle and when you rubbed it walk and over a big hill we came against your hands it gave a nice upon a small black frog, which smell. He told us that this would jumped onto two boys feet! We keep the midges away! walked back past the and a gate. This was to protect the archaeologist’s ruins and up trees from the deer that would We kept walking down the another hill where we came across destroy the trees by rubbing their mountain until we came to a very a sheep’s skull. Aengus told us a antlers up against them and big oak tree. It is the oldest oak tree fox had probably killed and eaten stripping the bark from the trees. in Glenveagh and is well over it. He even showed us its teeth. Without the bark the trees would 200 years old! When we came After that, Aengus pointed out a eventually die. Aengus told us that over the hill I noticed something on blanket bog to us, which was really a little seal used to come to the the hill.