Curlews and Sandwich Terns raise chicks on the islands scattered across this glittering lough.
Silent waters, rich woodlands, and scenic rolling hills. The network of islands here are a hoard of hidden treasures, providing vital, protected nesting areas for vulnerable wading birds. The RSPB’s first nature reserve in Northern Ireland – and our most westerly reserve – is Lower Lough Erne.
We spoke to Ken Moore, who has been a Breeding Wader Monitoring Officer for nine years. Ken explains why protecting Lower Lough Erne is important.
Breeding Wader Monitoring Officer
Ken’s time is spent out on the lough, surveying for the area’s wading birds.
We do counts on these birds, like breeding Oystercatchers, Curlews and Snipe. We watch the behaviour, try to find where they're breeding follow them up when they have chicks, try to ascertain whether they managed to get any young to the stage of fledging.”
The lake, so huge you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s part of the open sea, is surrounded by rolling hills and dense woodlands. The warrior Queen Méabh is said to have visited this lake, but now its most common visitors are wading birds: Curlews, Lapwings, Snipe, Oystercatchers, Common Sandpipers, Dunlins and Redshanks.
Four of the islands here are designated as Areas of Special Scientific Interest to safeguard precious ground-nesting wading birds and seabirds, including Sandwich Terns. This is a national-level legal protection, which aims to prevent the sites from damaging management or development, and to keep them in good condition for the species that depend on them.
The entire nature reserve boasts 70% of the breeding Redshank in Northern Ireland. It’s also a freshwater breeding site for Sandwich Terns, and a stronghold for the Marsh Fritillary butterfly and Irish Hare.
Lower Lough Erne is also an incredible site for breeding Curlews.
In fact, the story of Lower Lough Erne is really a story of the Curlew. It's the third largest freshwater lake in the UK, and a third of Northern Ireland’s Curlew population can be found here. Between 2019 and 2024, we restored the habitat here to make it ideal for Curlews: removing trees and shrubs, improving the wet grassland, and putting up fences to deter predators. The results were striking, with an increase to 55 pairs, up from 42 pairs in 2024. And what’s good for Curlews benefits other species, too.
We spoke to Fionnbarr Cross, who is an Assistant Warden at Lower Lough Erne. Fionnbarr explains why protecting Lower Lough Erne is important.
Assistant Warden at Lower Lough Erne
Fionnbarr works on the RSPB nature reserve, year-round, protecting and restoring habitats for its key species.
One of my first jobs was producing habitat for Lapwings. Manipulating the habitats very, very slightly with just a strimmer. Strimming for Lapwings is very dirty, repetitive, laborious work. And, we started doing that on an experimental basis. We'd spent maybe two days creating this patch of habitat, a Lapwing turned up almost immediately. During the first breeding survey, we found Lapwings on nests in patches that we had created. And you realise that is amazing. That's what I want to be doing.”
The UK holds roughly a quarter of the Curlew’s global breeding population, so together, we need to treasure these nesting sites in Northern Ireland. Their small and rapidly declining numbers put this wader as one of the UK's highest conservation priority bird species.
Yet, the best breeding sites for Curlews haven’t been afforded the same level of protections as some of our other threatened species.
At the RSPB, we know from our work to save the best places for nature that our strongest legal protections, like Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), can make a real difference. They can prevent damaging planning and development and attract funding to enhance these habitats. That’s why we’re calling on the Northern Ireland Executive to designate Lower Lough Erne as an SPA.
One of the best moments was when Curlews nested and managed to hatch out chicks on Trasna Island, which the RSPB has done a lot of work on. It’s not too late. There’s still hope for species. I’ve seen in the time that I’ve been there, an increase in pair numbers. I’ve seen breeding success. I’ve seen fledglings getting away.” - Ken
We want this landscape to sustain populations of breeding wading birds on a level of those last seen in the 1980s. We want to see healthy populations of Sandwich Terns and Marsh Fritillary butterflies, too. And we want to know that the precious species here have the highest levels of protection possible. This isn’t work we can do alone.
We work with landowners, contractors, graziers and other environmental organisations to look after the habitats that matter most for wildlife. And a big part of this is showing how practical changes on the ground can make a difference to wildlife. We work closely with farmers to show how making even small changes can bring big benefits to wildlife.
I'm in contact with one landowner; he keeps me informed when the birds have come to his fields. And it gives me hope that there are people like him that are still enthusiastic about the birds and willing to do something to help them. If you provide the right situation for the birds, they will respond. They will make a comeback.” - Ken
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