- Lough Neagh is the largest freshwater lake in the UK. It covers 395km2 or 2.7% of Northern Ireland’s surface area. It supports around 100,000 wintering waterbirds,
- Northern Ireland holds species found nowhere else in the UK, including the Irish Hare and Pollan; Irish Damselfly, Irish Whitebeam, Cryptic Wood White Butterfly
- Northern Ireland holds several important seabird colonies. Rathlin Island has the largest colony.
- The columnar Irish Yew is found in many churchyards all over the UK. All these trees are cuttings originating from two trees found on the cliffs in County Fermanagh in 1780.
- Like the Irish Hare the Irish Stoat does not turn white in winter.
- A Successful Reintroduction: Red Kites were reintroduced to Northern Ireland in 2008, there are now 24 breeding pairs.
Wildlife Tour Guiding
Recent surveys have shown that visitors have more and more interest in specialist tours and in the natural environment. Discover how your business can specialise in wildlife tour guiding opportunities!
The great outdoors is truly great in Northern Ireland. Visitors can enjoy a ramble on the sprawling grounds of Hillsborough Castle & Gardens, or head to the coast to experience the awe-inspiring sea-spray that dashes against the Giant’s Causeway. The exhilaration isn’t all physical, though. Northern Ireland is alive with history and the natural world too. Try star-gazing at OM Dark Sky Park and Observatory, deer spotting at Gosford Forest Park or travel through underground caves and see the stalactites and stalagmites at Marble Arch Caves. Nature is on display here in a way that’s sure to inspire.
How to get a bit of nature into your tours
All tourist guides use some of the natural world in their tours, it is impossible not to do otherwise as it will catch the eye of your guests at certain times of the year. Whether it is the burst of the yellow flowers of the Gorse in Spring or the chattering of Swallows in the summertime or a Pheasant in the stubble fields in the Autumn there is always some wildlife, tree or flower that is easy to spot and will lead to the telling of some good stories or some interesting facts to inspire or amaze your guests.
There is no need to have a PhD in wildlife identification to be able to recognise a few species you see all the time. If you see a tree or flower regularly on your tours then you have to be able to talk about it and be able to say more than just one thing about it. It will impress your guests no end if you can!
Hear the ideas of Jonathan: Scottish Tourist Guide & Wildlife Specialist
“I became a Wildlife Guide in 1995. I started working towards my Scottish Tourist Guides Association (STGA) regional qualifications (Green Badge) in 2006 and set up my own guiding company Red Kite Tours.
I then became an accredited STGA trainer. In 2008 I was appointed a tutor on the Blue Badge course, teaching the natural history section of the course, which I still do. Around this time, I also started running wildlife CPD events for existing Blue Badge guides and these proved to be very popular. I began training as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide myself in 2013 and qualified in 2014. I am still working both as a Scottish Tourist Guide and Trainer and Wildlife Guide today. My favourite species group is Dragonflies and although I have tried twice I have still to see the Irish Dragonfly.
When running my introduction to wildlife training courses I thought about the five most common trees, birds, flowers, fungi, insects, birds and mammals I would see on a regular basis from a moving coach or on a walking tour. Have a think about this and see if you could come up with five (or more, or less). Even the humble Feral Pigeon has an interesting story to tell. If you see something regularly but don’t know what it is then there are lots of online places where you can get species identified either by people of automatically. If you can get a picture of a common species then you can get it identified
Once you have a list start doing some research on the species you find try to answer to some these questions about them.
- Is there any folklore associated with them?
- Any good stories about them?
- Were there any uses they were put to? (plants!)
- What is the distribution of them in NI? (widespread/ localised all over Europe/ US)
- Are their numbers increasing or declining? Are they under threat?
- Are there any fascinating facts about them that you think your guests would find interesting?
- Do they have names in Irish Gaelic/ Ulster Scots? Is there a story behind the name?
- Do their scientific names tell a story about them?
Once you have done this you will have a good amount of material to weave into a story. How you want to tell the story and what you want to include and leave out is of course up to you, but you should follow the Must Tell/ Should Tell/ Could Tell protocol.
Running a wildlife business, alongside mainstream guiding
I do a mix of more general tours and some exclusively wildlife tours. The ratio of the two really depends on what I am offered over the winter as I like to get my tours in the diary very early in the year.
Initially I thought I would start off as an independent guide but as my career developed, I found that working a sub-contractor for a few long-term clients suited me best. I do have a website but I haven’t really promoted it that hard as my connections got me the work more than my online presence.
I am sure a more social media savvy operator could get much more interest but I decided that I had enough work without having to commit more time to self-promotion when I could get others to do that…”
How to get a lot of nature into your tours
You may have such an interest in nature that you want to exclusively do wildlife tours. Firstly, you need to find out of there is a market there to provide enough income to you to make it viable. There is a growing market for wildlife tours and the UK market is booming for staycations.
Must Tells
Some Statistics
- Northern Ireland’s surface area equals 14,130 km2
- With 650km of coastline, the sea loughs, estuaries and marine environment are a significant component of Northern Ireland’s biodiversity.
- Northern Ireland’s landscape is dominated by agricultural land, which makes up around 75% of the total area.
- Enclosed farmland covers about 44% of Northern Ireland, about 90% of this is improved grassland.
- Semi-natural grassland, a threatened habitat, covers 18.5% of the land area.
- There are internationally significant areas of blanket bog and large inland and coastal water bodies.
- Peaty soils cover almost 15% (2064 km2) including most of the uplands. Of this total area, 1650 km2 consists of either semi-natural blanket bog, lowland raised bog or fen vegetation each with a high biodiversity value.
- Woodland cover is 4.3% of land area. 0.04% of the land area comprises ancient woodland
- Areas of Special Scientific Interest (ASSIs) cover 7% of its total area; this figure incorporates Lough Neagh.
- Marine Protected Area increasedfrom 269km2 in 2009/10 to 2,566km2 in 2016/17
Protected Sites
Things to Consider
- How you would describe the plant/ tree/animal to someone who may not know what it is. Going through this will make you look closely at the species and identify its key features so you can quickly and accurately describe what it looks like.
- If you are doing a route regularly and you see the same species at several locations but in the first few sites there are more important things to talk about, you can give a brief description of the species what it is and say you will talk about it later on (but do remember to mention it before the tour ends!).
- Static species such as trees and flowers can be part of your tour planning. If you know you get stuck in traffic and there is a particular tree or flower you are likely to see, then having a few minutes of something different to talk about will keep your guests entertained and engaged.
- Every guest has different interests and most are receptive to being told things they knew nothing about or perhaps had never thought about. Nature is something with a universal appeal.