Be kinder to migrants

The Untamed Gardener

Aisling Blackburn

The nine-foot spikes of fireweed are flailing about, scattering their fluffy seed willy nilly in the wind. A new but familiar sound pervades the air as I sit here listening as huge raindrops dive onto broad leaves. This sound will eventually go as the season rolls over and autumn arrives leaving the branches bare of, not only leaves. The electric wires are bristling with birds ready for take-off. The new generation of swifts, swallows and martins are nearly ready for travel buzzing and twittering among themselves.

It gets a bit confusing, the many terms for the natural world. Migratory species, well that one is easy enough. Anyone who has done a little sky diving might understand how a bird or butterfly, something that flies, jumps into a jet stream and with a woosh, zooms north to breed, landing on a lovely patch of land in the middle of the ocean somewhere, to hang around for a bit of mating, and feasting. They then head back south, to over winter in warmer climates, led by the need to breed and survive. In winter, birds arrive in their droves, seeking the refuge of our vast rich wetlands. Along the way there are resting places, they are drawn to, those undisturbed nature reserves that provide this resource, like Booterstown and Kilcool in the east of the country.

The painted lady butterfly “Vanessa cardui” travels from sub-Saraha desert all the way to the outer artic circle and back again in a journey that spans 9,500 miles all together! This incredible round trip is completed as a relay taking up to six generations to complete. This is the whole species by the way, not just an isolated few groups. That’s a bit like the whole population of Ireland heading to India for the winter and back again with only the winter bird population left at home to run things, hey actually…

The V.cardui finds it too cold to overwinter here in Ireland, unlike the red admiral, another migratory species who finds it increasingly hospitable. If it were to make Ireland its permanent home, it would take many years for it to be seen as a native species. It will never be an introduced species, because it occurred naturally without any human interference.

Many invasive species have been introduced by humans. I am referring to the likes of Rhododendron ponticum, Japanese knotweed and Giant hogweed. The spoils of botanical expeditions, these plants were brought into old world gardens to shock and admire, then, along with the decline of large unmanaged estates fugitives have escaped into the wild to colonise forests and bogs from Cork to Donegal. R. ponticum spreads by seed as well as root, effectively colonising areas of woodland and blocking out sunlight with its 8-meter-high stems. It destroys ecosystems and has a negative knock- on effect to invertebrates and fish communities. It is expensive to remove as well, in the past five years, €2.5 million has been spent on its eradication in Killarney National Park and it’s not over yet. Closer to home, a biodiversity grant was approved to remove a colony of the plant from the woodland in Jampa Ling.

Let it be

Nobody batts an eyelid at the seed heads of the fireweed though. And I think that is a good thing. Some plants are best left well alone. Then you or I might see a whole field of buttercup and think “isn’t it lovely, the beautiful wildflower meadow”. Well, it is, and it isn’t. The farmer knows it isn’t, and the ecologist agrees. The farmer knows that the land is wet and has little nutrition in it and the soil is probably acidic. The ecologist sees one plant dominating a perfectly good piece of land at the expense of all the other species and insects that depend on a variety of plants. The rest of us, who see something rather attractive, our view is dependent on our detachment from the land, and its use. It isn’t real. We may go and buy seed, maybe native, maybe introduced and sow a ‘wildflower meadow’ to capture the same experience, when all we have to do to create a heaven on earth is to simply leave a patch to do its thing; if only for the poor old starving overwintering and migrating butterflies and insects that need a bit of food and shelter. Then for a meadow, reduce the amount of cutting, maybe let it grow longer and cut simple paths through it. Start to enjoy and learn about the new flowers that emerge, watch who visits them and lays their eggs on them.

There is nothing simple about nature, so just simply let it be.

Aisling Blackburn is a visual artist and horticulturalist who nurtures the community garden at Jampa Ling in Bawnboy.