Small Creatures

Irish wildlife expert Eanna Ní Lamhna on Ireland’s small creatures.

Ireland has very few native mammals when compared with the rest of Europe. This is because we were covered with ice until ten thousand years ago when the last ice-age ended and then we were only joined to Britain and continental Europe for a further one thousand years before rising seas obliterated the land bridges and we became an island.

As a result, many mammals that are common and widespread in Britain or northern Europe, are absent here. We have no moles, no weasels (only stoats), no water voles, dormice never made it here under their own steam, nor did the wildcats that can be seen in the Scottish Highlands. There are about 32 mammal species on the Irish list, including ten bat species.

Hedgehog An Grainneog

The hedgehog is beloved of gardeners because it makes short work of the slugs and snails that are dining on their garden plants. Interestingly, hedgehogs were introduced to Ireland by the Vikings, just over a thousand years ago who used them as a source of food. The Irish were underwhelmed by this addition to the fauna and called it an Grainneog – the ugly one. It hibernates at the end of October ideally in a lovely nest of leaves under the garden shed, and reappears the following March/April, starving after its long winter sleep. It ability to roll into a spiny ball protects it against all enemies except badgers, and ten ton trucks when it tries to cross the road,

The Rabbit An Coinín

This animal was introduced here by the Normans, also as a food source. They obviously mustn’t have thought too highly of Irish hospitality. The name Coinín comes from the Danish for the creature – kanin. The introduction did very well under Irish conditions, as it could thrive on grass and could excavate burrows no bother in the sandy areas where it was originally introduced, some of which bear the name Coney to this day. They fed many a hungry family up to the 1950s when the horrible disease myxomatosis was deliberately introduced from Australia. Although many of our rabbits have become immune to this, cases of it break out from time to time still.

Bats Sciathán leathair

We have ten different species of bat in Ireland, all of which are highly protected under Irish and European environmental law. They are a much-maligned group of mammals and people believe all sorts of ridiculous things about them. They are not blind at all. Nothing can see in complete darkness. If we tried to move around as quickly as bats do, we would crash into everything, but no-one says we are blind. Bats navigate expertly by sound (echolocation) and catch food such as tiny midges, yet we feel they will fly into our hair, as if their echolocation would somehow fail when they are near us. One small bat can eat 3000 midges per night as well as mosquitoes and pesky moths that harm our crops. We should have the bunting out for them.

The Pygmy Shrew An Dallóg fhraoigh

This little fellow is our smallest mammal and is about half the size of a house mouse. Unlike the house mouse, it is not a rodent but quite a blood-thirsty carnivore. It is so small that it has a very high metabolic rate and must eat every twenty minutes to assuage its appetite. If it gets no food at all for three hours, it will die of hunger. It feeds voraciously on beetles, woodlice, spiders and flies, anything small that they can catch really. Lately – in the last twenty years or so - they have been losing out to a bigger, introduced invasive shrew – the white-toothed shrew which arrived from in the roots of large trees with soil and root ball, imported for instant effect during the Celtic Tiger period. They are spreading rapidly and out-competing the smaller pygmy shrew in the areas where they occur.

Stoat Easóg

Although this creature is sometimes called a weasel, we do not actually have any weasels in Ireland. A weasel is smaller and never made it to Ireland after the ice-age. Our stoat has been resident in Ireland that we have a sub species all of our own and the Irish Stoat does not go white in the winter as it does in Scotland, where the white fur is called ermine. Stoats are very curious creatures and are not really afraid of humans at all which has led to a lot of pisreogs about them. They are supposed to hold stoat parliaments and to have stoat funerals no less. But one thing is certain, they are quite ferocious and can easily tackle and kill a rabbit, which is much bigger them in size. They have a long body and undulate as they run across the road in front of you as is described by their Irish name. Eas is the word for a waterfall and their rippling running gait reminded the onlookers of flowing water.

Squirrels Iora

The red squirrel is our native species and is particularly at home in coniferous woodlands where there are plentiful supplies of seed-filled cones for it to feast on. However, since the introduction of the larger invasive grey squirrel in 1911, the red squirrel has been out competed in the eastern half of the country and has become quite rare here. Grey squirrels are able to eat unripe acorns and so get to that source of food before the red does. When there are no nuts in the summer, they eat the bark of trees and can cause enormous amounts of damage in woodland areas where they are common. Neither species hibernate, they collect nuts in Autumn so that they have a store of food to eat in winter when they are most definitely awake.

The Pine Marten An Cat Crainn

This arboreal creature used to be one of our very rarest mammals, but with the increase in forestry it has become much more common. It can climb trees in pursuit of its favourite prey, the squirrel and indeed so good is it at catching the bigger, heavier invasive grey squirrel, that these have been quite wiped out in places where pine martens are common. Pine Martens will also eat birds’ eggs so hole-nesting birds like woodpeckers can be prone to attacks from them. They move around a lot at night, but are active in the day too, so if you are very quiet on your woodland walk in the morning you might be lucky enough to spot one.

Badger An Broc

The badger is a large, common, nocturnal animal. So well-known in fact, that places are called after them such as Clonbrock and Pollbrock among others. The setts where they live underground are controlled by the matriarch who sends the sons off when weaned to find another territory to marry into. The home sett on a farmland can be there for hundreds of years. They don’t rush out as you pass by and grab your leg in a vice-like grip which can only be released by breaking a stick so that they think they have broken your leg bone. Really, who comes up with this unscientific rubbish?