Fieldwork the last few days.

This is a path normally.

Lets hope the bats are ok!

I could not feel my fingers while recording this.

Traipsing the bogs of Conamara for Snapshot Galway!

Year 3 of camera trapping set up - hoping the wind and rain didn't knock them out

Don't know why its so hard to recruit volunteers these days.....

Snapshot Galway started again yesterday- 20 cameras for 2 months in the windswept valleys!

@irishwoodlandtrust.bsky.social

This woodland is amazing (biased of course)

But there's the familar pressures for nature in Ireland: high grazing impact, invasive alien species

Its overgrazed by sika (no regen) & there's an encroaching wall of rhododendron (the dark green blanket of canopy).

Neither of which can be easily or cheaply treated given the terrain and habitat.

A story of opportunity and pressure!

My understanding is that this was a plantation around 15 years ago.
It was clearfelled and let naturally regenerate (drains potentially blocked also?)
There's wood sorrel on the ground (an old woodland indicator, likely hung on in plantation and spreading again)