wildlife biologist
MCS TY Biodiversity Project
This year again, Millstreet Tidy Town Association are very proud to working with the Transition
Year students of Millstreet Community School. Under the instruction of our Wildlife Biologist, Tony Keneally, and being co-ordinated by teachers Bernie McAuliffe and Mary Fitzgerald the Transition Years are undertaking studies of local birds. There is to be a presentation about the Barn Owl and Kestrel on Monday, 20th March 2017 @ Millstreet Community School @ 8pm. All are welcome. It will be a great evening and lots of info for young and old. For more information please see their Facebook page www.facebook.com/MCS-TY-Biodiversity-Project-1828147300766474/?hc_ref=SEARCH
Millstreet Community School
Once again this year our resident Wildlife Biologist Tony Keneally is continuing his Bio Diversity work with the Transition Years of Millstreet Community School. We are very lucky to have Tony to help us in this regard. Not only is very beneficial to us in our National Tidy Town campaign each year, the students are benefitting from Tony’s knowledge and expertise. They are continuing work that was started years previous on habitats surrounding the school and also this year there will be a Bio Diversity Information night held by the Transition Year Students in the Millstreet Secondary school on 30th March. Details of this are to follow at a later date. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Tony and Derry Morley and all the staff at Millstreet Community School with whom this project could not continue.
New Wildflower Area in Millstreet Park
Millstreet Tidy Town are delighted to announce that Denis and all his hard workers at FÁS have completed all the Wild Flower Areas in the Town Park. All 3 beds have been sprayed in preparation for planting in April/May. This is an ongoing project as part of our work with Wildlife Biologist, Tony Keneally. The Wild Flower Areas will be a beautiful addition to the Town Park. Our greatest thanks to Denis and the lads and all their tireless work.
Garden Bird Nest Box
Would you like a Free garden bird nest box?
Millstreet Tidy Towns is actively involved in conserving and enhancing wildlife in the Millstreet area and we have recently had a Biodiversity Action Plan produced for Millstreet. As part of this plan we have made 20 garden bird nest boxes and we are now looking for suitable homes within Millstreet for each box. The nest boxes were made by Millstreet Mens Shed and they are of a very high quality.
The boxes are suitable for Blue Tit and Great Tit which readily use nest boxes. The boxes can be placed on the wall of a building or on the trunk of a tree. Suitable homes would include houses that have a garden with some amount of cover including shrubs, hedging and trees. Houses with cats as pets are not suitable. Boxes will be fitted by Millstreet Tidy Towns/Mens Shed.
By taking a box you are providing a safe and secure nest site for our garden birds and helping in their conservation, as well as enjoying watching the birds use your nest box.In return,we would ask that you complete a once yearly survey detailing the type and number of birds using the birdbox.
If you are interested in taking a box please contact us here and leave your name, address and contact number and we will be in touch with you. Deadline for applications is Thursday, 24th of March. All applications will be vetted for suitability of location by Tony Keneally our Wildlife Biologist.
List of ways to contact us: www.millstreettidytown.ie
www.facebook.com/millstreettidytown
Millstreet BNS visit from Wildlife Biologist
Millstreet Tidy Town Association are delighted to be working with Wildlife Biologist, Tony Keneally this year. Last week he paid a visit to 3rd Class of Millstreet Boys National SChool. Here is how they got on:
“The children were taking part in the Winter Garden Bird Survey run by Birdwatch Ireland. A feeding station with 2 peanut feeders was placed in the lawn outside the window of 3rd class. The kids have to record the different species of birds they see on or around the feeder. At the end of the week they fill in a form recording the highest number of each species seen during the week.
The survey runs from December – February and is a great way of raising awareness of the different species of garden birds, as well as being a valuable source of information for Birdwatch Ireland who can monitor the trends in bird numbers based on results submitted by schools and individuals.
I visited the school twice, once to give them posters and identification tips on the birds they were likely to see. My second visit was to check the progress and see how the kids were getting on.
At the start the kids knew 1 or 2 species whereas on my second visit they can identify at least 6 different species of bird and know about another 8 species. So overall it has suceeded in raising awareness and the kids have learnt to recognise different species.
Welcome to 2016
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Happy New Year to Everybody. Apologies for the lack of communication for last number of weeks. This is now to end. Back to regular updates and posts. I can here all the shouts of joy from here. So what better way to start a New Year than to reflect on the achievements of the previous year. There is so much to choose from. Well we had a very successful Anti Litter Challenge campaign this last year. We have an eye on first place for 2016. Then there is also the various projects that Tony Keneally, Wildlife Biologist has been heavily involved in with both the National and Secondary Schools. Also brilliant results in the National Tidy Town for this past year, only narrowly missing out on a Bronze Medal. Millstreet won a Pride of Place award in October. New Water Butts were placed throughout the Town, as were hanging baskets and Nest boxes. Let’s not forget about the new Footpaths. These are only a few of the amazing accomplishments achieved by volunteers, FÁS workers, Council Workers and many more. All kindly giving up their time and energy to make our town a wonderful place to live. So what are the hopes for 2016. Well aim high is what I think. Anyone fancy volunteering email, tweet, Facebook, there no shortage of ways to communicate your interest to us. There is always plenty of work to be done. So as we begin to see a stretch starting to creep back into the evening and the rain has finally stopped, I found a nice little New Year’s quote that kind of sums up the feeling really.
“Be More Awesome Than Last Year”
Tidy Town Results
Millstreet Tidy Town are very proud to announce that this afternoon in The Helix in Dublin, it was announced that Millstreet received 302 points in the annual Tidy Town competition for 2015. This is an increase of 5 points on last years results. This is a huge achievement. So may thanks to all in all involved, big and small efforts made a lot of difference. Whilst we bask in the glow of this brilliant result, we must also bear in mind that we have plenty more work to do to prepare for next year. Only 20 points behind the overall winner Listowel, in our category. These points are precious and hard to achieve. Also we were only 1 point off receiving a bronze medal. So just think of what one small thing that you may have done that could have contributed to gaining that extra point. We are capable of most definitely achieving a Silver medal next year. So get the thinking caps on. New volunteers are always welcome, just send us an email, pm on Facebook or tweet if you like. Remember Tidy Town is all year, not just for the Summer. Congratulations to all involved. 2015 Adjudicator Results
Boys National School Talks
Mr Tony Keneally, Wildlife Biologist, this morning visited the Boys National School in Millstreet. Tony gave talks to all classes in the school today about Millstreet and Ireland and the surrounding wildlife. He even brought some visual aids, as seen in the photograph on the right. I was informed that there were also tadpoles and newts which I am sure the boys enjoyed seeing up close. There are many habitats in our area. The River, Clara Mountain, there are also ponds up at Alps. We would sincerely like to thank Tony Keneally for taking the time to visit the Boys School today.
Presentation of Bio Diversity Project
Millstreet Tidy Town Association are very proud to announce that tonight we were presented with the winning Bio Diversity Project from the Transition Year Students of Millstreet Community School. It was a very hard decision to come to as all six projects presented to Tony Keneally were of the highest standard and we would like to thank all the students that took part in this project. This Bio Diversity study was undertaken by Aisling Dennehy, Ava Barry, Áine McAuliffe, Jennifer Corcoran, Chloé Collins & Megan Ring. The Bio Diversity Project is of the Woodland area next to the Millstreet Community School. They were mentored by Wildlife Biologist, Tony Keneally and supported by Mr Derry Morley and teachers Ms Fitzgerald and Ms McAuliffe of the Millstreet Community School. This will be a fantastic addition to this years submission to the Tidy Town application, every point that we can gain is an achievement. We hope that with the continued support of the Millstreet Community School and the wider community as a whole that this project will continue in the future. Well done girls