The disappearance of the famous starling murmuration that once saw thousands of birds swoop on a Belfast bridge could be linked to nearby renovations.
Conservationists fear new LED lighting as well as rising leisure activity at Albert Bridge drove the endangered creatures away.
But we can reveal officials didn’t spare them a thought as they OKed developments in the area that ramped up light pollution.
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The irony of starling designs on new lampposts at £210,000 Ravenhill Rest Gardens that may have helped drive them from their home wasn’t lost on Belfast ecologist Conor McKinney.
He told Belfast Live: “It’s like a memorial - it’s tragic. To be honest I would rather have the real thing.
“When the planning application happened the developers were very much aware there were starlings roosting in the bridge behind us. This is something that is symbolic to Belfast.
“I have seen a lot of people who maybe don’t have conservation of wildlife as their primary interest but certainly took time to sit and watch the starlings around them.
“This public realm is obviously very close to where the starlings were roosting but isn’t it a tragedy the birds the pillars are actually symbolising are no longer here.
“Anecdotally we heard accounts last year that the murmuration was beginning to collapse. Whenever I came up I’d seen that there was a substantial decline in numbers. My concerns and anxieties have been compounded by coming this year.
“This murmuration used to number in its thousands, if not tens of thousands of birds. Now we are lucky if we see 20 or 30 birds utilising the bridge - they should still be here and they’re not. The last time I saw a properly healthy murmuration was 2020 and in that time three things have changed.
“LED lights have been put into lanterns on the bridge, public realm work has introduced a new source of light pollution and we have also started seeing new recreational activities happen on the river which are potentially disturbing birds at the site as well.
“None of those things had an assessment on what they might lead to in terms of the starlings roosting under the bridge,” added Conor.
“The question needs to be asked, if we have priority species or species of conservation concern here and they are not being protected through the various planning processes and various licensing condition processes - how is it we are meant to be protecting these species and leading to a recovery in nature?”
Starlings [Sturnus vulgaris] are a red listed species because their numbers have declined so much in recent decades. They are also on the Northern Ireland Priority Species list, which means they require conservation action because of their importance. The small birds gather in a murmuration to keep warm and safe.
Conor added: “They like to keep warm at night and they roost communally in confined spaces where they share body heat - that aids their survival. They also do murmurations to avoid predators.
“You could argue climatic issues like temperature conditions during a winter might be enough to pull the birds away from that murmuration early. But that’s not the case. This is the second year that this has happened.
“It’s not particularly cold now and we are also getting huge murmuration videos from the south of England where it’s much warmer so we believe something else is acting here. Starlings do not like the illumination of their roost sites at night - it has caused roost desertion in places like America."
He has called on authorities to "look at" the light pollution that has been introduced at Albert Bridge in a bid to entice the birds back as well as identifying new sites of nature conservation importance in the new development plan for the city.
“We are seeing a gradual chipping away of our biodiversity,” he added. “We need to be much better at identifying where our locally important wildlife sites are and ensuring they are appropriately protected. The starlings are an example of how that may not have occurred.”
Titanic Green Party NI representative, Gillian Hamilton, says she’s sad about their disappearance.
She added: “I’ve grown up in East Belfast, lived here, worked here all my life and I remember the starlings - the beautiful sight of that. It was so iconic and it is sad.
“The Green Party are really interested in wildlife sites being identified across the city so things like this don’t happen again but also that they are given greater protection and identified in the licensing and development process.”
Peter Cush worked at Northern Ireland Environment Agency for decades, specialising in urban biodiversity. He says any new development should consider birds and wildlife but history shows that hasn’t always been the case.
Peter said: “I remember as a schoolboy coming the centre of [Belfast] late on a December evening and there would have been at least five/ten thousand starlings... all over City Hall. The council at the time were kind of fighting a war against the starlings so what they decided to do was net some of the buildings and put in bird spikes.
“Eventually the starlings moved out from the centre of the town and went to the Queen’s Bridge. That roost persisted right through to the millennium [when] there was a fashion for big fireworks displays to welcome in the new year.
“I was down at one of them and the place was thronged. The firework display was going off and suddenly, what people thought were bats started to drop out of the sky. In actual fact they were starlings - a lot of them dead - a lot of them were then trampled by the crowd.”
Peter believes the “starlings who were in the Queen’s Bridge had been totally freaked out by the firework display”.
“They high tailed out of there and moved to the Albert Bridge,” he added. “This roost has been here for at least 20 years and I took it for granted.”
A friend’s wish to see a murmuration prompted him to go and “suss out” Belfast’s earlier this year.
“I came down here fully expecting to see what I had seen for the previous 20 years, which was thousands of birds flying about - I didn’t see any that night,” he explained. “Basically the large numbers in the murmuration are now gone.
“There might be all sorts of reasons - but the point I want to make is that these sites should be valued.
“In any planning application or development that’s taking place - consultation should be taking place and specialists should be brought in and asked what the likely impacts developments could be having on bird populations and other important wildlife.”
We asked the Department for Infrastructure whether the starlings were considered in any assessments they did before installing new and brighter LED lighting in and around Albert Bridge.
A DfI spokesperson said: “The lighting on Albert Bridge, Belfast was upgraded in December 2019 as part of the Belfast Rapid Transit scheme.
“As part of the development of the BRT Citi Route scheme, an Environmental Scoping Assessment was completed in 2015.
“As the street lighting works in this area involved the replacement of lighting on a previously lit road no associated environmental impact was identified.”
The Department for Communities installed strip lighting around grass at Ravenhill Rest Gardens as part of a £210,000 public realm scheme started in March 2021.
Documents show they carried out a bat survey as directed by NIEA, which found “it is unlikely to be any particular significance or importance to bats”.
NIEA also highlighted how the River Lagan is a priority habitat and urged DfC to check for nesting birds in vegetation they planned to remove but said their list of requests was just a starting point and shouldn’t be viewed as exhaustive.
We asked Department for Communities why they didn’t look at the impact the scheme might have on amber listed starlings.
A spokesperson said: “The Department plays an important role in regenerating our towns and cities by delivering physical schemes, known as Public Realm and Environmental Improvement schemes.
“All schemes fully adhere to a set planning process established by the planning authority.”
Video: Harry Bateman
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