Introduction
BirdWatch Ireland has developed a set of hotspot maps to highlight areas of particular importance for various combinations of birds in Ireland.
The Farmland Bird Hotspots map is based on twenty-eight species of birds that depend on farmland habitat. These include ground-nesting birds such as the Lapwing, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, and Corncrake, smaller birds of the countryside such as the Yellowhammer, Tree Sparrow and Twite, and birds of prey such as the Barn Owl, Kestrel, and Hen Harrier.
The Breeding Farmland Wader Hotspots map is focused on six species of breeding wader, including the Curlew, Redshank, Golden Plover and Snipe.
Our Approach
Many records from a wide range of validated datasets were gathered, and a scoring system was developed and applied to calculate a cell score for each 1 km square in the Irish Grid. The scoring system took into into account factors such as
• the species observed and its conservation status
• the season of the record (e.g. breeding season or winter season)
• the typical range of that species for that season
• any level of breeding evidence recorded
• the age of the record (more recent records score higher)
The 15% of grid squares with the highest scores were then selected as the key hotspots for that grouping of species in Ireland.
Complete details of the techniques used are available in the project report, and have also been published as a scientific paper in Irish Birds, Volume 45: 35-48 (2023).
