Panel: Richard Collins, Éanna Ní Lamhna & Niall Hatch

Reporter: Terry Flanagan

In addition to listening to us on RTÉ Radio One at 22:00 every Monday night, don'tforget that you can also listen back to each of our programmes any time you like at www.rte.ie/mooney. There, you will find an extensive archive of past broadcasts, conveniently split into different topics and segments.

Tonight’s programme features a discussion about tattoos, this history of which can be traced back many millennia. During our discussion, Richard Collins mentions his encounter with the man who sported the oldest known tattoos that still survive: Ötzi the Iceman, who died more than 5,000 years ago and became entombed in ice.

With that in mind, our suggested listen from the Mooney Goes Wild archives this week is a segment we first broadcast in April 2024, in which Richard tells us more about getting up close and personal with Ötzi himself in a museum in the Italian Alps.

To listen to this programme from the Mooney Goes Wild archives, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/22381851-richard-gets-up-close-and-personal-with-otzi-the-i/

La Fête du Mimosa

This week, Niall happens to be speaking to us from Mandelieu-La Napoule in the Côte d'Azur. This picturesque town, which lies just to the west of Cannes, is known as the Mimosa Capital of France. This is not a reference to the popular cocktail (equal parts Champagne and orange juice, in case you’re interested), but rather to the striking tree from which the name of the vibrantly coloured drink is derived.

Native to southern Australia, the Mimosa, known to botanists as Acacia dealbata, is a fast-growing evergreen tree which thrives in dry, sunny climes and has been widely planted in the south of France. The fine-leaved plant was a particular favourite of Queen Victoria of Britain, who was a regular visitor to the region, and the hills around Mandelieu-La Napoule are particularly well suited to it: it thrives there in abundance.

For most of the year, at least from a distance, the Mimosa pretty much looks like any other tree. In February, however, it bursts into bloom, transforming it and its landscape into a riot of glorious yellow. The lemon-hued blossoms seem to cover almost every nook and cranny of the tree’s canopy, gilding the hillsides and filling the air with a heady, almond-like perfume.

This blaze of colour is short-lived, which is why the inhabitants of Mandelieu-La Napoule make the most of it while they can. Mid-February is the time for La Fête du Mimosa (the town’s annual Mimosa festival), when parades, celebrations and even a beauty pageant are held over the course of five fun-filled days in honour of the region’s most eye-catching plant.

For more information about the Mimosa tree, visit https://www.french-gardens.com/plants/mimosa.php

For more information about La Fête du Mimosa, visit https://www.mandelieu-tourisme.com/2024/09/05/fete-du-mimosa/

Knock, knock. Who’s there? The Green Woodpecker!

It’s not just the trees which catch the eye in the South of France: many of the birds are very striking too, even giving the Mimosa a run for its money in the colour stakes. One of the most prominent at this time of year, both visually and aurally, is the Green Woodpecker, a species which, though common and widespread across most of Europe, including Britain, is absent from Ireland.

A larger, more vocal cousin of the black-and-white Great Spotted Woodpecker which has successfully colonised Ireland in recent years, Green Woodpeckers are, well, predominantly green, with yellow rumps, black face-masks, red crowns and, in the males, red facial stripes that somewhat resemble moustaches. Unlike most European woodpecker species, they spend a lot of their time on the ground, feeding on wood ants.

While Green Woodpeckers do communicate in typical woodpecker fashion by "drumming" rapidly on resonant wood, they tend to rely on their voices to a greater degree than most other members of their family. Their loud, startling song rings out from European woodlands at this time of year, sounding for all the world like a mad scientist laughing uncontrollably.

In addition to the Green Woodpecker, on tonight’s programme our panellists chat about some other woodpecker traits and species . . . including one, would you believe, that used to be used to promote a well-known brand of cider.

For more information about Green Woodpeckers, visit https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/birds/green-woodpecker/

Wearing your art on your sleeve: the ink-redible world of animal tattoos

Once considered something of a niche interest, it is interesting to see how tattoos have become ever more mainstream and popular, with a recent survey revealing that 35% of people in Ireland have at least one tattoo.

On last week’s programme, we discussed one particularly famous animal-themed tattoo design, namely that of a Swallow, traditionally a symbol of family, fidelity and home. To continue this theme, on tonight’s programme we take a look at some other animal-themed tattoos (and a few plant-themed ones too, courtesy of Éanna, of course), discussing their meanings and symbolism, as well as what they reveal about general interest in nature.

Richard also tells us about his memorable encounter in a northern Italian museum with Ötzi the Iceman, who was killed high in the Tyrolean Alps over 5,000 years ago and preserved to the modern day in ice, and who was also the bearer of the oldest known surviving tattoos on the planet. In total, his body was adorned with 61 of them!

For more information about animal-themed tattoos and their meanings, visit https://medium.com/@jhaiho17/animal-tattoos-and-their-meanings-31d1b04db602

For more information about Ötzi the Iceman, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi

Do you have an animal- or plant-themed tattoo that you would be willing to tell us about and, depending on whereabouts on your body it happens to be, share a photo of with us? Why did you decide to get it, what does it mean to you and how do other people react to it? You can contact us by emailing mooney@rte.ie.

Pesticides in pet fur pose problems for nesting birds

As any owner of cats or dogs, or indeed any shaggy pets, will know, their beloved companions shed lots of fur. Rather than let this natural resource go to waste, many of us deliberately leave it out in our gardens for birds to collect and use as nest lining. It’s a kind and noble idea . . . but could we inadvertently be doing more harm than good?

A team of researchers from the University of Sussex in the UK believes so. Their new study has discovered that chemicals used for the treatment for pet fleas and ticks are killing the chicks of songbirds in the nest. They are now calling for government urgently to reassess the environmental risk of pesticides used in flea and tick treatments and consider restricting their use.

Dr. Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu is the lead author of the research paper in question, and she joins us on tonight’s programme to tell us more about the risks that pet fur can pose to wild birds.

For more information about this University of Sussex study, visit https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/27/pet-fur-found-in-songbird-nests-contains-high-levels-of-pesticides-study-finds

If it doesn’t walk like a duck and it doesn’t talk like a duck . . . it may still be a duck!

One of Ireland’s scarcest and most elusive breeding birds, the Goosander is not your typical duck. For one, rather than the familiar flat, broad bills one usually associates with ducks, Goosanders have long, narrow beaks with tooth-like serrations along the edges, making them a member of the so-called "sawbill" group of ducks. They nest high off the ground in tree cavities, dive to significant depths to catch fish (most other Irish ducks are largely vegetarian) and prefer remote mountain lakes and streams to coastal estuaries, turloughs and urban ponds. They don’t even quack!

As far as we know, Ireland’s Goosanders breed only in the uplands of Co. Wicklow, where a small population clings on in and around Wicklow Mountains National Park and its environs. The birds generally roost together on a secluded lake for the night, departing shortly after first light each morning to fast-flowing woodland rivers. This means that you have to get up pretty early to stand a good chance of seeing an Irish Goosander.

Well, one man who has proven time and time again that he has no problem getting up early for the benefit of Mooney Goes Wild listeners is our stalwart roving reporter, Terry Flanagan. Eager to see his first ever Goosanders, on a recent morning he travelled to the shores of a secluded Wicklow lake, where he met up before dawn with local naturalist, author and bird-expert Declan Murphy, who managed to show him not one, not two, but no fewer than nineteen of these amazing aquatic birds.

For more information about Goosanders, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/goosander/

For more information about Declan Murphy, his writing and his musings on the natural world, visit https://bsky.app/profile/wicklownature.bsky.social