ANOTHER LIFE:THERE'S A TYPE of ray, Séamus Mac an Iomaire told us in The Shores of Connemara, "that's called the scolabord tintrí (flashing skate), but it doesn't wander in much from the big deep, as that place happens to be very dark at times. Nature has bestowed on it the capability of making its way through the forests of sea rods that are in the valleys be- tween the high arches, as there is light shining from its eyes that shows it the way ahead," writes MICHAEL VINEY
I’ve been enjoying a skate’s-eye view, so to speak, of the sandy valleys in Co Kerry’s Kenmare Bay – twin torches zooming along at midnight through a swirl of plankton and kelp fronds to dazzle a busy, nocturnal traffic of spider crabs, squat lobsters (pink and blue), snake pipefish, an ambulatory gurnard with emerald eyes, an attentive John Dory trailing a sunburst of fins. Once, a mysterious echo of moans and grunts spoke of a whale of some sort, out there where it happens to be very dark at times.
Vincent Hyland, Co Kerry’s intrepid underwater film-maker, confessed to “feelings of sheer terror” as the creatures caught in his beam of light hinted at invisible others crowding around (to lie still on the seabed, apparently, is to be nuzzled and tickled by squat lobsters exploring an unfamiliar rock). But the second torch on his night dives belonged to Patrick Kavanagh, a veteran of such endeavours and a stickler for safe procedures. Together, their midnight jaunts enabled revelatory images for The Bay, Hyland’s two-part DVD (www.derrynane.ie).
This reminds me what a splendid refuge from current miseries the whole sub-aqua recreation must be – an escape to a world of different, vivid colour and full of creatures governed by intriguingly alien rules. There have been sub-aqua clubs in Ireland since the 1960s, but today’s divers have an even keener feeling for the science of what they see and how it might help the conservation of the ocean.
So much remains to be known and recorded of the life immediately around our shores. In the 1990s, the EU-backed BioMar project, based in Trinity College, carried out an underwater survey around the Republic’s coast to describe and classify the different types of seabed habitat and their marine communities. Most of the sub-aqua photography was done by Dr Bernard Picton of the Ulster Museum, and his often exquisite images, captured then and since, have been viewable online in the museum’s marine database at www.habitas.org.uk.
This is now invaluable to a project recruiting volunteer sports divers to help fill in the living map of the near-shore zone right around these islands, up to about five miles off the coast or a depth of 30 metres. Led by the UK’s Marine Conservation Society and with wide support, Seasearch is already flourishing in Northern Ireland and is rapidly extending to the island as a whole. Last month, the Irish Underwater Council, whose affiliated clubs in the Republic have some 3,500 members, gave its backing to Seasearch, and last summer saw the first observer training course in the South, hosted by the Burren Sub Aqua Club at Doolin, Co Clare. Any qualified diver can join in Seasearch, but some training is needed to know what to note on one’s underwater slate. Descriptions of habitats, their residents and visitors, will help establish the richest ecosystems and sites that need protection.
The divers in Seasearch Northern Ireland are mapping seagrass beds in Strangford Lough and elsewhere – vital nursery areas for flatfish and habitats for species such as seahorses and pipefish. They are also monitoring beds of maerl, the hard, pink coralline seaweed that shelters baby scallops, sand stars and myriad other species, and exploring underwater sea caves on the north coast.
In the current Biodiversity, the bulletin of the Republic’s National Biodiversity Data Centre, the Ulster Museum’s Dr Julia Nunn discusses the mapping of Ireland’s molluscs that has been her personal project over the years. Molluscs are not just shellfish such as limpets, winkles and mussels, but an enormous family embracing octopuses, squid and cuttlefish (pictured). Ireland’s checklist now runs to nearly 1,000 species, but despite more than 1,750 forays for the project, many underwater, the actual abundance and distribution of the animals offshore is still a work in progress.
Seasearch divers can enrich the scientific record of marine life so vital to conservation, as well as their own understanding of the near depths of the ocean. The Northern Ireland co-ordinator is Claire Goodwin (claire.goodwin@gmail.com) and this year's planned surveys are at www.seasearch.co.uk/northern ireland. For the Irish Underwater Council programme, still in its early stages, contact Adrienne Mockler ( cftscientific@gmail.com).
EYE ON NATURE
I have my usual “host of golden daffodils”, but I have miniature, which for the first time I’ve noticed bearing two blooms on one stalk. Is this normal? Louis Mullen, Dundalk, Co Louth
There are miniature daffodil cultivars, such as tête-à-tête, which produce twin blooms.
On a number of occasions when we have arrived at our holiday cottage in Westmeath after an absence of a week or two, we have discovered a quantity of bird dirt littering our garden. This is a black, tar-like, slimy substance with a pungent odour which sticks to the grass. Each piece is a couple of inches long and will only disappear after extensive rainfall and grass-cutting. Could it come from our neighbour’s peahen?
Peter Beamish, Glenageary, Co Dublin
You have a resident or visiting hedgehog.
My husband cleaned out the tit nest box and found that when the contents were disturbed a lot of tiny, black flies came surging out. Were they bird fleas and do they bite humans?
Anne Cowie, Blessington, Co Wicklow
There are a number of insects found in birds’ nests, some flies which have wings, and the bird flea, Ceratophyllus gallinae. The flies will not bite humans, but the bird flea, often found in tit boxes, will.
Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. E-mail: viney@anu.ie. Include a postal address.