For the first time in a century an Irish-bred golden eagle reared a chick in the wild last year, conservationists have reported.
Three separate pairs each hatched a chick, according to the Irish Raptor Study Group (IRSG) 2017 review of birds of prey in Ireland.
The eagles fledged in Glenveagh National Park, Co Donegal. The species disappeared from Ireland in 1912 but has been reintroduced in the park since 2001 from Scotland. The chicks that hatched last year were the first born in Ireland from the Scottish eagles. Lorcan O’Toole, of the Golden Eagle Trust, wrote in the IRSG review that if the birds could fledge at the same rate there would be a slow improvement in the wild numbers that could lead to a bounce in the overall population.
“While this fragile population is still confined to Co Donegal, the addition of three healthy juveniles to a small population, a total of 20-25 birds, is a very welcome boost,” he said.
Dermot Breen, a ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, said that a national survey for the Irish merlin, a small species of falcon, was overdue.He has recorded 20 successful breeding attempts in five years in the Connemara Bog special protection area.
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They were a secretive bird and little was known about them during the breeding season. “They seem to be a slightly neglected bird of prey species if one compares them to the hen harrier, with whom they share several different features but differ in how they have been studied in recent decades,” Mr Breen wrote in the review.
Peregrine falcons are still in recovery after severe declines due to chemicals. For a 2017 study 257 individual surveyors, mainly volunteers, undertook fieldwork to monitor the world’s fastest bird. The survey found that there were a minimum of 425 sites around the country occupied by territorial pairs, an 8 per cent increase on 2016.
The IRSG report will be launched at the group’s conference today in the Green Isle Hotel, Dublin.