Rabbits blend into ecology of rural Ireland

A COUPLE of weeks ago I wrote on this page about great spotted woodpeckers and how they’re re-colonising Ireland.

I said that they were more or less confined to eastern and northern counties. Then the emails started to come in, and they suggest that this is not entirely true. There were, for example, four reports of sightings in different parts of Co Cork.

So maybe they have become more widespread than we thought. I can see how this might happen. Most of the data is collected and sorted by BirdWatch Ireland. This organisation does magnificent work but has limited resources. BirdWatch has its headquarters in Co Wicklow so it’s not surprising that their research efforts have been concentrated on the eastern part of the country.