Old buildings such as Baltinglass Abbey provide a perfect roosting site for bats and barn owls. Bats are very skilful hunters, using a technique called echolocation to catch insects. This means they make high-pitched sounds and listen to the echoes that bounce back to them. They can catch prey at high speeds in the dark. Ireland’s smallest bat, the soprano pipistrelle, weighs about the same as a one-euro coin and is found in this area.
Barn owls are known as farmer’s friends because they hunt mice and rats. Unfortunately, they are endangered in Ireland. Jackdaws, a type of crow, nest in the wall of the abbey near the entrance. Jackdaws are very intelligent birds and, like humans, they can turn more grey as they get older.
The walls of the abbey also host a range of lichens and plants including mosses. Lichens come in many different shapes and are usually a sign of clean air. Mosses tend to grow in damp areas out of direct sunlight, and that is why in the northern hemisphere there are usually more mosses on the north side of walls and trees than on the south side.
Can you see the 900-year-old carving of a frog at the base of a column in the abbey? Recent research has found evidence that some frogs may be descendants from a group that survived the last ice age. Beside the abbey is the River Slaney Park, where you might see a beautiful kingfisher.
Citizen Science
You can use the CrowdWater app to record flow levels and pollution in the River Slaney at Baltinglass.