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NEWSLETTER: December 2022
Update from the Project Team
By now I hope everyone has received a calendar and a copy of the midterm report.
Farmer payments have been processed. Once again there has been an increase in Pollinator Points and payments this year compared to previous years. Thank you to all farmers taking action to help pollinators. It truly is wonderful to see.
Thank you to all the participant farmers even if you are not taking action for pollinators, yet. The successes of the project would not be happening if we did not have the contributions of each of the 40 participants.
I would also like to thank the operational group for their continued support.
Thank you to Andrew Bergin who spoke about his experience of the Protecting Farmland Pollinator’s EIP Project at the National EIP Conference organised by the National Rural Network.
Happy Christmas everyone and best wishes for 2023!

Plant to Spot
Hedgerow fruits
How many plants are in fruit in your hedgerows? Please share a list of fruits you have in one of your hedgerows. These fruits were once flowers. Thanks to all the farmers taking action to help pollinators, these flowers were pollinated and are now providing food for the birds and us. Who doesn’t love blackberry picking!
Pollinator to Spot
The normal lifecycle of most Irish bumblebees ends when the workers and males die off and the newly mated queens hibernate through the colder winter months. Occasionally at this time of year, you can still see some bumblebee queens fattening up for hibernation. If you spot any queen bumblebees that you’re able to identify, it’s very useful to let us know what plant it was feeding on.

Please submit your sightings to the National Biodiversity Data Centre here: https://records.biodiversityireland.ie/record/bumblebees.
 
Additional information
Another fantastic blog was written by Ruth Wilson How far do pollinators travel? You can access the blog here.

10th January 2023 8pm How to rehabilitate an intensive farm but remain productive with Kildare farmer Colm Flynn. Register here. More information on Colm’s Farm here.

Identifying Ireland’s common farmland hoverflies. You can access this free course at: https://learn.biodiversityireland.ie/.

The new issue of Biodiversity Ireland is out.

The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan have produced a new flyer on orchards. Orchards are perfect habitats for pollinators and brilliant for biodiversity. Find out more here.
 
What you can do this month
Plant some trees.
Native trees are perfect for our native pollinators but there are lots of other species that are great too. Fruit trees are great habitats for pollinators and brilliant for biodiversity.
Have a look at the Winter Seasonal Actions for Pollinators Poster for more ideas: https://pollinators.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Winter-farmland-actions-for-pollinators.pdf.
 
Farmer Moth Monitoring EIP
The Farmer Moth Monitoring EIP is coming to an end. Thank you to all the participants. I think it has been a very successful project. The Project Report is in the post and can be accessed here.
Contact details
Phone: +353 (0) 51 306240
Email: eip@biodiversityireland.ie
Twitter: @BioDataCentre
Facebook: Biodiversity Data Centre
 
Protecting Farmland Pollinators is an EIP (European Innovation Partnership) project being administered by the National Biodiversity Data Centre. The Project is funded by the EU Recovery Instrument Funding under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2022.
Is tionscadal EIP (Comhpháirtíocht Nuálaíochta Eorpach) é an Protecting Farmland Pollinators atá á riaradh ag National Biodiversity Data Centre. Tá an Tionscadal maoinithe ag Maoiniú Ionstraim Téarnaimh an AE faoin gClár um Fhorbairt Tuaithe 2014-2022.
Aspects of the Project are subject to change in response to participant feedback and project monitoring.
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