Decided I'd post this now when its fresh in my memory. Today I went on a BCNI trip to Peatlands Park, Dungannon, Co Armagh. This is a 600 acre site that raises awareness of peat bog conservation. There is different areas including an apple orchard of about 20 bramley apple trees, the car park that had lots of mature birch trees and some oak and rowan around, a bog garden beside the visitors center which has one or two of each plant found at the bogs here such as crowberry, cranberry, bilberry, bog myrtle, cotton grass and bell heather and a non bog garden with lots of flowers including mullien and scabious. There is a lake with wild cherry, willows growing around.
There is a miniature train that was put there in 1970s to take people around the site.
There was a moth trapping event there last night with 13 traps placed at various locations in the site and over 1000 moths were caught despite rain which was great. Since this site is around 50 miles from my house, bit far to get to for the trapping event last night so came for the day event today. The event was to try and find large heath, forester moth, grass wave, wood tiger, beautiful yellow underwing and try to lure red-tipped clearwing.
I got my gear and boots and checked the temperature at 8:30am prior to leaving, it was 19C and sunny, great for that early in morning. Since I am unable to drive, and since my dad was going, got a lift with him.
We left and it was sunny, all good. We got into Belfast and it was cloudy, sun fading. Still a long distance to go so I was optimistic. We got out of Belfast and the sun was coming and going through cloud and felt if rain was in the air. We eventually arrived at 10:10am at car park, where we were told to meet rest of people at. Waited until 10:30am and found out it was the car park at the back of the visitors center. We went and saw the results of the overnight catching. Many moths I had never seen before which included: Birch Mocha, Grey Arches, Beautiful Snout, Bilberry Pug, Pebble Hook-Tip, Dark Tussock, True Lover's Knot, Sharp-Angled Carpet and Scalloped Hook-tip. Many I had seen though.
- Scalloped Hook-tip
- Pebble Hook-Tip
Next after the moths were released, we all got out stuff and went to mullenakill bog not fat away. This is a large bog that is intact, never been cut for peat, rare these days. This is where we went to look for large heath.
- mullenakill bog
It was cloudy and misty with rain but we thought it would be easy to disturb one or two large heath. A few of us went onto the bog and disturbed grass waves (couldn't get any photos of any though). I thought I would mistake one for common heath, but their size and lighter colour stood out straight away. One of us managed to disturb a large heath, then I saw a group crowd around one to photograph one and I managed to get a photo, my first large heath. Defiantly something that stays with you when you see your first of a species.
- Large Heath
This bog was burned a few years back by vandels so the cranberry that was growing here, much of it got swamped out by purple moore grasses and heather but there is still some around the edges. It got slightly brighter and I saw 8 large heath and dozens more grass wave. However, I made a mistake, I put my had onto some sphagnum moss and grabbed a red ant nest, they were in the moss! (the first of many annoyances with ants). I looked around and saw many common cow-wheat, a plant I had hoped to see for a long time.
- Cow-wheat
There is a path running along the edge of the bog between here and a woodland and its made of wood chips and at the edge we saw our first ringlets of the year, then lots appeared. On way back we saw a few azure damselflies both male and female. Then we went to a reedbed on way back and saw lots of ringlets, grasshoppers and heard a chiffchaff calling nearby and saw our first straw dot of the year.
We had out lunch and at 1:30pm we went to Derryadd, a huge bog with woodland. We had to take two cars to get to it since it would have taken 20 minutes to walk, and well, was quicker this way. We arrived and there was an area that had been cut for peat many years back but not anymore and there was a sign nearby stating how peat was cut and another sign that mentioned that the sphagnum moss there was used by soldiers in WW1 to help heal their wounds. The area had lots of bog cotton grass in it
- Bog cotton
We went past here into a large bog. Now when we entered we are in a large bog with lots of wet areas, sundews, bog myrtle all over the place with heather and lots of these yellow flowers I have not ID'd yet:
- Yellow flowers
The problem with this site was that, a few weeks ago I damaged my knee and found it hard to walk and it was still sore a little today and found it tough going here. There was lots of hidden ditches covered by heather. Took 20 minutes but managed to go across the bog, saw quite a number of grass wave and grass moths. There was rhododendron that has established itself at a couple of areas of the bog (two large bushes) and in the woodland too, but they are trying to control it.
We eventually came out to a large area I was told, once was a lake that got covered with vegetation (water horse-tails, marsh cinqfoil, common spotted orchid, grey sallows and birches with a few straggling oaks. It was a really strange site and when you walked around, it was as if you were walking on thick jelly as when you walked, the ground around you moved up and down quite a bit.
- Horse-tails
While here, we saw another target species, one I had wanted to see for a very long time, forester moth. One person saw the blue/green adult resting on a horse-tail and took me a minute to see it. Once we saw it, there was more. I tried netting one but wasn't too successful. I set up my red-tipped clearwing lure, as did two others who brought theirs. While it was set up, it got warmer and all over the place there was ringlets and a very dark, almost black meadow brown flew past as did a couple of large heath.
- Forester
- Two Foresters
After about 30 minutes we didn't get any clearwings, so we decided to leave the rest and head back. We had just got to the edge of trees and my dad said to me to watch for a ditch, unfortunately for me, I didn't hear him right and fell into the ditch, had my left wellington boot with a few inches of water, ugh. Had wet feet until I got home.
On way back I saw a Northern/Oak Eggar caterpillar (at least I think thats what this is):
- eggar cat
On way back through the bog, had my second unfortunate ant problem when I leaned on some moss and disturbed a red ant nest. Cross that with the cleg fly bites, my right hand was getting red and sore. Finally we made it to the railway which goes right around the forest and between bogs:
- train tracks
Turned out if we had taken the path to the area we saw the foresters, we would not have had to trek through the tough bog terrain and only took 10 minutes instead of the 20 minutes we took.
We then went back through the forests and back to the car and this last area had a sign near some mature scot's pine that said that Scot's Pine that is native to Ireland and was common around 6,000 years ago but they all died out and in 19th Century most seeds were brought in from Scotland and pines regrown so most of the oldest pines are from Scottish decent whereas younger ones stem from those or other areas.
- Forest path
When we got back to the car, I leaned on the mature downy birch and found black ants wandering around the tree and onto my hand, my third and final experience with ants for the day, thank goodness. I found quite a few micro moth leaf mines on the birch leaves, some rolled up leaves on the birch from leaf rollers and micro moth pupal cases on birch leaves that had hatched. Just have to ID those.
Had my fill of wet, boggy places for a while, tiring but worth it. Since there was so much bog myrtle around, I took a few cuttings back to try and root and grow in a large plastic storage box as a "mini bog garden in a box" with a few bog species in it, no peat used in it though as it damages bogs, so compost and a little moss I took back as well and will seed round-leaved sundew in it as I have seeds of it a friend gave me from plants he grew.
I have some more images on my other camera which I will upload tomorrow. Weather wasn't the best, but the day turned out great with seeing quite a few new species I have never seen, got to see places I have never been even if it was tiring. Always good to go out of your local patches and see something different and new.
