Ballynafagh Bog
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| Ballynafagh Bog, Kildare | |
|---|---|
| Portach Baile na Faiche | |
  | |
| Location | County Kildare, Ireland |
| Nearest city | Prosperous |
| Coordinates | 53°17′42″N 6°46′39″W / 53.295°N 6.7775°W |
| Area | 155.23 ha (383.6 acres) |
| Governing body | National Parks and Wildlife Service |
The Ballynafagh Bog (Irish: Portach Baile na Faiche) Special Area of Conservation or SAC is a Natura 2000 site in County Kildare, close to the town of Prosperous in County Kildare, Ireland.[1] The three qualifying interests by which this site is protected as an SAC are the presence of active raised bog, of degraded raised bogs still capable of natural regeneration, and of depressions on peat substrates of the Rhynchosporion.[1][2][3]
The Ballynafagh Bog SAC is located close to Prosperous, in the townlands of Ballynafagh, Coolree (E.D. Robertstown) and Downings North, County Kildare. Schedule 1 of the Statutory Instrument for this site (S.I. No. 141/2017) identifies it as encompassing an area of 155.23 hectares.[3][4] A detailed map of the area is included in the National Parks and Wildlife Service Conservation Objectives for the site.[5]
Special Area of Conservation qualification
The Ballynafagh Bog site was designated as a Natura 2000 site (‘Site of Community Importance’ or SCI) in 1997 under the Habitats Directive.[2] Statutory Instrument No. 141 of 2017, establishing the site as an SAC (Site code: 000391), was passed in 2017.[3] The ecological features which qualify this site for an SAC designation are
- Active raised bogs (priority feature) [Natura 2000 code 7110]
- Degraded raised bogs still capable of natural regeneration [Natura 2000 code 7120]
- Depressions on peat substrates of the Rhynchosporion [Natura 2000 code 7150] [1][4]
The Biodiversity Information System for Europe website notes that Ballynafagh Bog is one of the most easterly examples of a relatively intact raised bog in Ireland. There are only two of these types of sites in County Kildare (the other being Mouds Bog).[6] The Ballynafagh Bog site is also a proposed National Heritage Area site or pNHA.[7] Close to the Ballynafagh Bog SAC is the Ballynafagh Lake SAC, which is also a pNHA.
Features
The Ballynafagh Bog site includes approximately 70 hectares of uncut high bog. The high bog includes an area of 23 hectares of wet active bog, and approximately 44 hectares of degraded raised bog which is drying out. This area is surrounded by a larger area of approximately 90 hectares of cutover bog.[4]
Active raised bog
Of the three features qualifying this site as an SAC, the priority ecological feature of this site is the presence of active raised bog, where there is a high, wet, peat-forming bog with a high percentage cover of Sphagnum spp., and where some or all of these features are present: hummocks, pools, wet flats, Sphagnum lawns, flushes and/or soaks.[4] The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Site Synopsis notes that there is a system of tear pools at the wet, active, peat-forming area towards the centre of the bog. These are overgrown with the bog mosses Sphagnum capillifolium and Sphagnum magellanicum. A pool-and-hummock system occurs at this site, where the pools contain a further bog moss species: Sphagnum cuspidatum. Other key plants occurring in wet channels here include white beak-sedge, cottongrasses (Eriophorum spp.) and great sundew (Drosera anglica). These plants proliferate in this wet channels, while on the hummocks bog rosemary (Andromeda polifolia) and cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) are to be found.[4]
Degraded raised bogs
The Ballynafagh Bog also includes areas of degraded raised bogs capable of regeneration – these are sections of the raised bog where the hydrology of the system has been negatively impacted by factors such as drainage, peat-cutting or other land use activities, but for which regeneration of this ecosystem is still possible.[4] The flora in the degraded areas of the bog includes bog asphodel, cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix), deergrass, hare's-tail cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum) and heather (Calluna vulgaris). In this area, the peat is dry (rather than wet as in the active raised bog), and supports colonisation by downy birch (Betula pubescens) and gorse (Ulex europaeus). Heather, as well as the moss Hypnum cupressiforme, grow in the driest areas of the high bog dome. In the cutaway bog at the site, the plant life includes rushes (Juncus spp.) and common cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium). Downy birch grows in patches of woodland.[4]
Depressions on peat substrates of the Rhynchosporion
The third feature that qualifies Ballynafagh Bog as an SAC is the presence of a specific habitat: depressions on peat substrates of the Rhynchosporion. This comprises:
“Highly constant pioneer communities of humid exposed peat or, sometimes, sand, with Rhynchospora alba, Rhynchospora fusca, Drosera intermedia, Drosera rotundifolia, and Lycopodiella inundata, forming on stripped areas of blanket bogs or raised bogs, but also on naturally seep- or frost-eroded areas of wet heaths and bogs, in flushes and in the fluctuation zone of oligotrophic pools with sandy, slightly peaty substratum. These communities are similar, and closely related, to those of shallow bog hollows (Pal. 51.122) and of transition mires (Pal. 54.57).”[8]
At this site, the Rhynchosporion habitat is to be found in erosion channels, pool edges and wet depressions. The flora includes white beak-sedge (Rhynchospora alba) and brown beak-sedge (Rhynchospora fusca). It also includes bog asphodel (Narthecium ossifragum), sundews (Drosera spp.), deergrass (Scirpus cespitosus) and/or carnation sedge (Carex panicea).[4]
Birds
Protected bird species recorded at this site include merlin (Falco columbarius), snipe (Gallinago gallinago) and curlew (Numenius arquata).[6] This Special Area of Conservation is adjacent to the Ballynafagh Lake wildfowl sanctuary and SAC, and likely to be used by the birds of that site.[9]