'Birds in Our Locality' Project

Because of our involvement in environmental and wildlife projects over the years, Scoil Éanna was selected by the Galway Education Centre and Galway County Council to become one of 15 schools participating in a Heritage Council-funded countywide 'Birds Project'.

We were really excited by this as Scoil Éanna is probably the closest school to a seashore in Ireland thereby enjoying daily visits by many of the most famous sea-birds of Ireland.
The nearby harbour with its many fishing boats is a great source of food for these flying creatures who just love lobsters, crabs and mackerel.
We can also see them swoop down into the water to catch fish. Very exciting!

There are also a number of very old and very large trees in the school's grounds planted years ago by the monks that used to live in the nearby monastery.

'Galway Bay' in the classroom
Before we tell you about our Birds Project, we would like to introduce you briefly to our beautiful marine aquarium that is located in the classroom of Ranga 1 & 2.
It is full of wildlife that we ourselves obtained from our seashore. By feeding the marine animals daily, regularly cleaning the tank and observing the going-ons inside, we have come to appreciate the wonderful and huge sea world that exists on our doorstep.
The aquarium was installed many years ago by Leo Hallissey from the Letterfrack primary school. According to Brendan Smith from the Galway Education Centre who came to visit us, it is one of the oldest functioning seawater aquaria in Ireland. Isn't that great!

Bird Table in Our Garden

The Birds Project began when Dr. Daire Ó hUallachain from the National University of Ireland Galway, came to the school and helped us set up a bird table in our school garden. We promised to keep it stocked with food to attract birds that we could then study at close quarters.

Daire gave us an interesting talk of the life cycle of birds, on how they fly and on what they eat. He also helped us to identify the many different types of birds that can be found in Roundstone and the different types of neighbourhoods or 'habitats' that they live in. For instance, some birds such as gulls prefer to live near the seahore as they like to eat fish whilst other birds such as robins like gardens as their favourite food is worms and insects.

A Seashore Habitat

Seagulls and other seabirds such as Heron and Oystercatchers like this type of local seashore habitat.

Imagine all the many shellfish, crabs and little fish that live here amongst the rockpools, seaweeds and seawater!


A Garden Habitat
Robins, Blackbirds, Thrushes and Blue Tits love living near gardens and fields. For the flowers and plants in the gardens and fields attract insects such as butterflies and bees and the ground underneath is the home to beetles and worms.
In other words- Food!
The trees found here also provide safe places for these birds to build their nests where their eggs are hatched.

Conversations with the Birdwatcher!

We, the pupils of Ranga 1 & 2, decided to observe the comings and goings of birds in Roundstone over the course of the year. We observed birds as we played outside in the school grounds, when we travelled to school, when we visited friends houses and when we were at home.
Of course, we had many questions to ask and fascinating stories to tell as a result.
So each pupil wrote letters to our new friend, the 'Birdwatcher'.
Every month and most weeks, we wrote to him asking him about the names of birds that we saw and that we described to him, telling him tales of incidents involving birds and getting as much information as we could about the flying creatures of Roundstone.
The Birdwatcher was so good- he answered every letter that was sent to him. In the process, we have learnt so much.
We say to him, "Go raibh míle maith agat!"