Greencastle man monitors Inishowen buzzard population
Public asked for help with current bird-tagging project
A Greencastle wildlife expert is leading a team of ecologists, currently monitoring the native buzzard population in Inishowen.
Michael McLaughlin and other members of the Inishowen Raptor Study Group and the Northern Irish Raptor Study Group have visited a number of buzzard nests, tagging chicks across the peninsula in an effort to learn more about the majestic birds of prey, often seen soaring high above us.
McLaughlin, who has worked for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the North for much of the past decade, revealed that buzzards have, by and large, been in rude health here in recent years.
“The Inishowen buzzard population is at a healthy level these days.
We are monitoring them here in order to determine their movements and range of fledgling buzzards in the areas, and their dispersal across Ireland,” he said.
“This project will link up with other similar buzzard studies around Ireland, namely in Down, Wicklow and Cork.
All this information can tell us why the birds are doing so well in densely populated areas and why they are slow to re-colonise some areas of Ireland such as Mayo,” McLaughlin added.
Buzzards became extinct from Ireland in the late nineteenth century, but re-colonised from the early twentieth century onwards.
They first came back to Inishowen as recently as 1981 and now numbers are doing well here.
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