The Marine Institute recently hosted a Birdwatch Ireland training workshop for the winter Irish Wetland Bird Survey (I-WeBS).

The event was attended by 65 people and was used as a mechanism to introduce attendees to I-WeBS with a view to attracting prospective surveyors to the programme.

The workshop comprised lectures at the Marine Institute headquarters in Rinville, Oranmore and fieldwork on the surrounding shoreline of Galway Bay.

Welcoming attendees to the event, Francis O’Beirn of the Marine Institute said: “The Marine Institute is located adjacent to the inner Galway Bay Special Protection Area which is an extremely important bird site.

“The I-WeBS programme is a National monitoring programme to count over-wintering shorebird species and is hugely important to the management of this and other Natura sites in Ireland.

“Furthermore, these important data are also used by the Marine Institute in their advisory role to the Department of Agriculture and Marine.”

Birdwatch Ireland said it was delighted with the “record attendance at the event highlighting the public appetite to support biodiversity”.

Birdwatch Ireland is seeking volunteers to participate in its Irish Wetland Bird Survey, which informs waterbird conservation and management in Ireland.

Individuals with a telescope and good bird identification skills are encouraged to volunteer, as there are a number of vacant sites.

There are currently over 500 Irish Wetland Bird Survey volunteers who have contributed to a substantial gathering of data since it was established in 1994.

Many of the vacant sites are small and close together, meaning one person could easily fill several of these gaps in a few short hours, it says.

Some areas which have teams of counters often need an extra pair of experienced eyes.

The 2023/24 season will be the 30th year of the Irish Wetland Bird Survey.

Survey leaders are also keen to know if waterbirds are using a location in an area that is not currently part of its monitoring network so they can add it as a new subsite.

Anyone interested in joining a count team or helping out at other sites is asked to email Niamh at [email protected].