An artificial island is being created to accommodate the burgeoning bird community in the nature reserve in Booterstown, Co Dublin.
The reserve had difficulty providing nesting space for all its feathered visitors, so excess fill from drainage and water works being installed by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on the Rock Road is being used to create the artificial island and an informal viewing mound for the public.
The effort is a collaboration between An Taisce and the council.
During consultations with the local community, Paddy Barry, resident engineer on the council's Rock Road project, was made aware of the overcrowding problems in the Booterstown Marsh.
An Taisce and the council submitted a proposal to the Department of the Environment in order to obtain a licence to carry out the works.
The Booterstown nature reserve, initially created by the construction of a railway line in the 1830s, was made suitable for agricultural use from the 1870s by way of a water regulation system. That system was abandoned in the 1950s, and the area developed into a natural haven for a variety of bird life.
In the 1970s it was leased by An Taisce, under whose management it remains.
Two oil spills in the 1980s accelerated the deoxygenation of the mud in the reserve and led to a decrease in the number of birds visiting the area. A decision was taken in 2000 to open the flap valves, allowing the free flow of salt water into the marsh, and this trend has been reversed.
Maurice Bryan, who sits on the reserve's board of management, said, "Though the mud may look bare and neglected it is, in fact, a larder packed with food for the birds, especially in the winter when the migrants return."