Panel: Éanna Ní Lamhna & 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 an interview with Dr Seán McCormack of London’s Ealing Wildlife Group. Seán has appeared on the programme many times before, keeping us updated on the Ealing Beaver Project and its remarkable work to return a population of Eurasian Beavers to the UK capital.

With that in mind, our suggestion from the Mooney Goes Wild archives this week is a special documentary that Seán made about this incredibly successful reintroduction project as part of our Nature on One series. First broadcast in October 2024, it will give you all the background you need about the return of these hugely beneficial rodents to London after an absence of over 400 years.

To listen to this documentary from the Mooney Goes Wild archives, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22372818/

Where have all the insects gone?

One of our listeners, Breda Kelly, wrote to us recently about her garden in Ballinteer, Dublin 16. She has lilies, agapanthus, roses and wild flowers . . . but apparently a total lack of bees. Indeed, she has not seen a single one this year, and writes that all other insects are "as rare as hen’s teeth" in her garden; even the housefly is nowhere to be seen. She has never used chemical sprays and wonders what could be going on.

As our panellists discuss, it’s impossible to know for sure why insects seem to be absent from Breda’s garden, at least without knowing more about local circumstances. That said, we do know that insect numbers in general are on the decrease across Ireland, with habitat loss, pollution, climate change, invasive alien species and disturbance all playing a role.

Éanna’s suggestion that Breda could perhaps try planting different flowers in her garden is a very good one. We know, for example, that lavender in particular is extremely attractive to all manner of pollinating insects and that it is quite easy to grow, so it may well be worth a try.

For more information about insects in Ireland, visit https://biodiversityireland.ie/taxonomic-groups/insects/

This is the time of year when wasp behaviour tends to change . . . and we are more likely to get stung

While Breda may be lacking insects around her home, Niall tells us that he has the opposite problem at the moment: Common Wasps are nesting in a cavity below the front door of his house, coming and going in a near-constant stream all day long. On a recent visit to the Global Birdfair in England, he also encountered huge numbers of wasps and witnessed several unfortunate people being stung.

Wasp behaviour will generally change in the latter half of the summer. While the young in the nest are still in their larval state, they secrete a sugary liquid that feeds the worker wasps, who are their older sisters and fly out from the nest to collect insects and other meat to feed to their younger siblings. Once the young pupate, however, the sugary liquid flows no more, which is why the adult wasps suddenly switch from being obsessed with protein to being obsessed with sweet substances. Often, this is nectar from flowers . . . however, as most of us know all too well, it can also often be the jam, soft drinks or sugar-bowl at your picnic or garden barbecue.

For more information about Ireland’s seven social wasp species, visit https://biodiversityireland.ie/launch-of-the-new-social-wasp-online-identification-course/

"Wonder reptile" fossil challenges ideas about how and when feathers evolved

Today, feathers are the exclusive preserve of birds. We know that many of the birds’ now-extinct dinosaur forebears also sported feathers, as did many species of pterosaur, and the fossil record has long indicated that feathers first evolved around 170 million years ago.

However, a recent development has turned much of what scientists believed about the origin of feathers on its head. An international team of researchers, including palaeontologists from University College Cork, have discovered a new species of fossil reptile from the Triassic period – namely, the 247-million-year old Mirasaura grauvogeli – that had a large crest made of complex plume-like structures, long before modern-type feathers, and indeed dinosaurs, evolved. This dramatic breakthrough shakes our view of the evolution of skin and feathers in reptiles.

On tonight’s programme, we are delighted to speak with Prof. Maria McNamara and Dr Valentina Rossi from UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences about this amazing fossil discovery in the area we know today as southern France, what the crests looked like and may have been used for and what this development means for our understanding of how modern birds came to have feathers.

For more information about this ground-breaking discovery, visit https://www.ucc.ie/en/mariamcnamara/news/a-new-triassic-wonder-reptile-challenges-ideas-of-skin-and-feather-evolution.html

For more information about a special exhibition of Irish dinosaurs and other amazing fossils at UCC during Science Week in November, visit https://www.ucc.ie/en/sefs/science-week/cork-fossil-expo.html

Ealing Wildlife Group: an update

While at the Global Birdfair in Rutland, England last month, Niall was delighted to bump into a good friend of ours here at Mooney Goes Wild, in the form of Dr Seán McCormack. Originally from Ireland, Seán currently lives in the London Borough of Ealing, where he works as a vet and set up the Ealing Wildlife Group.

Never one to pass up an opportunity, Niall was keen to chat to Seán about the Ealing Beaver Project at the wonderfully named Paradise Fields, which is a firm favourite with us here on the programme and a wonderful example of how returning an "ecosystem engineer" species to its former haunts can reap huge dividends in terms of wildlife populations and habitat restoration.

Seán also told Niall about some of the spectacular birds of prey that are now nesting in Ealing, including a pair of "gay icon" Peregrine Falcons nesting on Ealing Hospital and salacious news about a Barn Owl thruple!

For more information about the Ealing Wildlife Group, visit https://ealingwildlifegroup.com/

For more information about the Ealing Beaver Project, visit https://theealingbeaverproject.com/

For more information about Dr Seán McCormack and his work, visit https://linktr.ee/thatvetsean

Forgotten Forests: Twelve Thousand Years of British and Irish Woodlands

The forests of Britain and Ireland not only fuelled their indigenous populations, but also the Romans, Anglo Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Over the centuries, the countryside has changed beyond recognition and many forests have been destroyed – but clues to their existence remain.

On tonight’s programme, Éanna chats to biologist Jonathan Mullard, who has been examining these clues. He is the author of a recently published a book entitled Forgotten Forests: Twelve Thousand Years of British and Irish Woodlands, in which he retraces the story of the lost forests of these islands. Essentially, it is a detective story, tracking the rise and fall of our once-mighty forests.

For more information about Forgotten Forests: Twelve Thousand Years of British and Irish Woodlands, visit https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/forgotten-forests-twelve-thousand-years-of-british-and-irish-woodlands-jonathan-mullard