Panel: Richard Collins, Ken Whelan & Niall Hatch

In addition to listening to us on RTÉ Radio One at 22:00 every Monday night, don't forget 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 look ahead to a special documentary that our good friend, fisheries scientist Dr Ken Whelan, is making about mayflies as part of our Nature On One series.

To help you get to know a bit more about these vitally important insects and the crucial role they play in sustaining the populations of many of our native fish species, our suggestion from the Mooney Goes Wild archives this week is a segment which we first broadcast in February of last year.

In this clip, Ken gives us an update on his project to monitor these ephemeral invertebrates and on efforts to ensure that their populations can grow and thrive once more at key strongholds, including Lough Carra in Co. Mayo.

To listen to this segment from the Mooney Goes Wild archives, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22355468/

Looking forward to Ken Whelan’s upcoming documentary about mayflies

There is much more to mayflies than might meet the eye. These seasonally emerging insects represent a crucial element of our ecosystem, providing food for other insects, for birds and, most importantly of all, for a great many of our native fish species. They are also fascinating creatures in their own right, with a complex lifecycle that is largely hidden from human eyes.

Mayflies have long been a source of wonder and fascination for our fisheries scientist Dr Ken Whelan, so much so that he even did his PhD on their biology and is now making a special programme for us all about these amazing invertebrates.

On tonight’s edition of Mooney Goes Wild, Ken, Richard and Derek look forward to this upcoming Nature On One documentary, which will be broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 at 15:00 on Bank Holiday Monday 4th August as part of our Nature on One series. They also discuss the lives of these truly important insects and talk about the impacts that climate change is having on their lifecycle and, as a direct consequence, on the fortunes of many of our freshwater fish.

For more information about mayflies and the consequences of climate change both for them and for the fish that eat them, visit https://www.irelandonthefly.com/p/trout-in-hot-water-ken-whelan-on

For more information about Ken Whelan and his work, visit https://www.kenwhelan.info/

Anglers urged to report sightings of Pacific Pink Salmon in Irish rivers

Native to the waters of the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans, Pink Salmon are not supposed to be present in Ireland. However, as a result of deliberate stocking programmes undertaken in north-western Russia during the second half of the 20th century, this invasive species has been spreading in the North Atlantic. In recent years, these fish have reached Ireland, and fisheries experts believe that they could pose a threat to the survival of our native Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout.

We happen to have our very own fisheries expert on our panel for tonight’s programme, in the very distinguished form of Dr Ken Whelan, who edited a booklet on Pink Salmon for the Atlantic Salmon Trust in 2022. What better opportunity, therefore, to discuss the impacts that these alien invasive fish are having on Irish aquatic ecosystems?

As we discuss, anglers are being requested to keep an eye out for these non-native salmon and to report any sightings of the fish, alive or dead, to Inland Fisheries Ireland. These salmon are blue-green to steel blue on the back, with silver sides and a white underbelly, and have diagnostic large black oval spots on the tail.

For more information about Pacific Pink Salmon and the threats they pose to our native fish, visit https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0605/1516882-fish-sightings/ and https://atlanticsalmontrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AST-Blue-Book-Emerging-Threats-2022.pdf

For more information on how to identify Pacific Pink Salmon and to report your sightings to Inland Fisheries Ireland, visit https://www.fisheriesireland.ie/news/press-releases/ifi-issues-alert-over-pacific-pink-salmon-in-irish-rivers-in-2025

Living Among the Puffins on Skellig Michael

Lying almost 12 kilometres off Co. Kerry’s Iveragh Peninsula, the remote island of Skellig Michael – nó Sceilg Mhichíl as Gaeilge – is a truly magical place. Designated by UNESCO in 1996 as a World Heritage Site, its ancient monastic settlement, with those iconic beehive huts, is famous around the globe . . . even more so since its starring role in the most recent Star Wars film trilogy.

The monks (and the jedis) may be long gone from the island, but it still teams with life. Each summer, it hosts vast numbers of breeding seabirds, including everybody’s favourite, the Puffin. Ever since he was a small child, our own Niall Hatch dreamed of visiting this magical isle, and two weeks ago he had the opportunity finally to do so and to enjoy the unforgettable experience of climbing the 620 steps to the monastery and being surrounded by seabirds in one of the most scenic and dramatic locations on Earth.

While he was there, Niall took the opportunity to record an interview for tonight’s programme with Catherine Merrigan, an OPW Guide who has been living and working on Skellig Michael for the past 25 summers, about the avian life of this very special island. An expert on Puffins, Catherine has even written a book about them from her truly unique perspective, entitled Living Among the Puffins on Skellig Michael.

For more information about Skellig Michael and how to visit it, see https://heritageireland.ie/places-to-visit/sceilg-mhichil/

For more information about Catherine Merrigan’s wonderful book Living Among the Puffins on Skellig Michael and to purchase a copy, visit https://dinglebookshop.com/products/9798675091249

Cuckoo singing three notes: what’s going on?

We recently reported on a male Cuckoo that was in the habit of adding an extra note into its song: instead of singing "cuck-oo", it was singing "cuck-oo-oo". This prompted listener Pierce Ryan to get in touch with us to proffer his own theory, as well as to make a comparison with the voice of a small warbler called the Chiffchaff, another Irish bird that is named after the song it sings. On tonight’s programme, we investigate.

Amongst his many other talents, panellist Ken Whelan happens to have a very unusual party trick: he can imitate the song of the Cuckoo so accurately that even the Cuckoos themselves are fooled by it. We ask him to perform both the usual two-note and the atypical three-note versions of the song, so that you can hear what we mean.

As we discover, though uncommon, this three-note variant of the Cuckoo’s song does sometimes occur. The reasons for it are not fully understood, but because it is most often heard in conjunction with the altogether different 'bubbling’ call of the female, it seems to be related to the proximity of the opposite sex.

For more information about Cuckoos, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/cuckoo/

Sumer is icumen in

We all know what the song of the Cuckoo sounds like today, but we also know that the songs of many birds can change gradually over time. The dawn chorus of 2025 may well sound very different to that of hundreds of years ago. Do the Cuckoos of today still sound the same as the Cuckoos of the past?

Well, yes, they do . . . but how can we know that for sure? A ancient musical composition holds the key. Dating back to around 1250, Sumer is icumen in is the second-earliest surviving non-religious song in the English language, and the earliest that is complete and polyphonic . . . and it features a vocal recreation of the unmistakable song of the Cuckoo, sounding just like it does today.

On tonight’s programme, we speak to Ian Pittaway, an accomplished singer and an expert in early music, about the origins of this ancient song, which features six independent voices. We also get to hear Ian’s remarkable rendition of the piece, for which he recorded himself singing all six of those overlapping vocal lines: a true sound of a long-bygone era and quite possibly the most unusual song you will hear on the radio all week.

For more information about Ian Pittaway and the song Sumer is icumen in, visit https://earlymusicmuse.com/sumer-is-icumen-in-perspice-christicola/

Listen back to the programme any time you like

We absolutely love to hear from you, our loyal listeners, and really appreciate when you get in touch with your wildlife sightings, questions and feedback. One of the Mooney Goes Wild fans who contacted us over the past week is Declan Hughes, who told us that he absolutely loves to listen to the programme, but that its late timeslot on Monday nights means that he sometimes struggles to stay awake during it.

If you are similarly afflicted and find yourself dozing off during the broadcast of the programme, please don’t forget that you can listen back, any time you like, both on the programme’s website and on the free RTÉ Radio Player app. This makes it very easy to listen back to us, for example, while you are on the bus or in your car, doing the dishes or mowing the lawn: whenever and wherever you like.

What’s more, our website features an amazing archive of past programmes for you to dip into whenever you wish. We’ve been on air for 30 years, so there’s a pretty significant back catalogue there for nature-lovers to enjoy.

To listen back to previous episodes of Mooney Goes Wild, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/mooney/episodes/

To download the RTÉ Radio Player for smartphones and tablets, visit https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thisisaim.rteradio&hl=en_IE&pli=1 (Android) or https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/rt%C3%A9-radio-player/id470493202 (Apple iOS)

To get in touch with the programme yourself, simply email mooney@rte.ie