Our Limestone Landscapes
10 June 2008
To coincide with Planet Earth Week and the start of European Geoparks Week, an exhibition promoting Ireland’s Limestone Landscapes has been launched at Castle Archdale Country Park Museum by UTV presenter Frank Mitchell.
The exhibition has been developed to promote the value of our visually stunning limestone landscapes. This rare habitat, formed over millennia, supports a unique mix of flora and fauna. The striking images and information on display in the exhibition aims to raise awareness of the threats to this habitat and the need for conservation of its biodiversity.
The exhibition is a joint project between the Environment and Heritage Service, National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Irish Wildlife Trust and arises from work with the UK and Ireland Limestone Pavement Biodiversity Group.
EHS Castle Archdale will host the exhibition from 23rd May – 31 August 2008.
The Fermanagh Conservation Action Team have been playing their part in raising public awareness of geoconservation and promotion of geological heritage with guided walks around Cuilcagh and Killykeegan Nature Reserve at Marlbank.
At first glance this barren rocky landscape resembles the surface of the moon, but closer examination reveals a wide range of flora and fauna living on the limestone pavement.
Highlights were the Cuckoo chorus, boxing hares and very curious ant behaviour. We observed a group of ants acting very strangely. They would climb to the tip of the tallest blades of grass, reach up into the air and dance about on their hind legs until they lost their balance. They would then repeat this process many times.
It was later explained to us that a flukeworm infects the brain of the ant and drives it to climb as high as possible so that it is eaten by grazing animals or birds so that the next stage of the fluke’s lifecycle can continue.
High up in the hills it is hard to imagine that this area was once a corral reef under a tropical sea, but the wealth of fossils found by our volunteers in the limestone bear this out.
The Team have also been busy repairing and patching up the drystone walls that surround Killykegan Nature Reserve. Walls which over the years have been damaged by walkers, farm animals and people robbing the stone to build rockeries in their gardens.
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| Killykeeghan and Crossmurrin Nature Reserve |