Panel: Richard Collins and Niall Hatch
Reports: Terry Flanagan, Éanna Ní Lamhna, Eric Dempsey and Jim Wilson
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.
Given that we have been celebrating the Mooney Goes Wild Great Big Garden Birdwatch all day on RTÉ Radio One, you won’t be surprised to learn that tonight’s programme is all about Ireland’s garden birds.
With that in mind, our suggested listen from the extensive Mooney Goes Wild archives is a segment that we first broadcast in April 2017, in which our good friend Jim Wilson explains how you can create an oasis for birds in your own back garden.
To listen to this segment from the Mooney Goes Wild archives, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/21163343/
The Great Big Garden Birdwatch – Bank Holiday Monday 2nd February
We know that lots of our Mooney Goes Wild listeners love to watch the birds that visit their gardens, with many of you providing food and water for them each winter. If you are one of those people, or if you have ever considered taking care of them during the coldest period of the year, we hope you have enjoyed the extensive coverage of our Great Big Garden Birdwatch today across the schedule on RTÉ Radio 1.
The highlight of this very special day was undoubtedly our Nature On One Garden Bird Special, which was broadcast at 12 noon, featuring Derek Mooney in conversation with our garden bird experts Jim Wilson and Niall Hatch in Jim’s sunroom at his house in Cobh, Co. Cork. There, they had a lot of fun discussing the comings and goings of the various different birds visiting Jim’s bird tables and bird feeders.
If you missed it (or if you didn’t miss it but would like to hear it again), you can listen back to the entire programme below:
You can also watch this accompanying video, synchronised with the programme audio and letting you see exactly what Derek, Jim and Niall were seeing, expertly filmed by cameraman Dónal Glackin – all in slow-motion, no less!
Watch the live-streamed video feed from Jim’s garden, 24 hours a day, at https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/mooney/2026/0119/1553982-the-great-big-garden-birdwatch-live-stream/
BirdWatch Ireland’s Irish Garden Bird Survey: it’s not too late to take part!
Throughout today’s Great Big Garden Birdwatch programming on RTÉ Radio 1, we have been encouraging you, our loyal listeners, to submit your garden bird records to BirdWatch Ireland’s Irish Garden Bird Survey, which runs until the end of February and is Ireland’s longest-running citizen science initiative.
So, while you are enjoying watching our feathered friends as they flock to your garden, you can also make a valuable contribution towards monitoring their conservation status and ensuring that they can have a bright future. It’s easy, it’s fun... but, be warned, it’s extremely addictive!
For more information about BirdWatch Ireland’s Irish Garden Bird Survey and to submit your own records, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/our-work/surveys-research/research-surveys/irish-garden-bird-survey/
Firecrest in Richard’s garden
All this talk of garden birds leads Richard Collins to reminisce about one of the most unexpected birds that he ever encountered in his garden. Richard is a licenced bird-ringer, and he used to catch birds in his garden using a very special, fine-meshed mist nest so that he could weigh and measure them, affix tiny metal rings to their legs, each bearing a unique code, and let them go again. If they happened to be found again, either alive or dead, the code on the ring would allow ornithologists to recognise each bird and to calculate how long they had lived and where they had come from.
One day, as Richard recounts on tonight’s programme, he thought he had caught a Goldcrest, a very common and very tiny resident Irish bird: our smallest, in fact. Instead, he was delighted to discover that it was in fact the closely related and more boldly patterned Firecrest, a rare accidental visitor to our shores which, in tandem with the Goldcrest, is the holder of the record for the most diminutive bird in Europe.
For more information about Firecrests, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/firecrest/.
How long do birds live?
All of this talk of bird-ringing leads on to a discussion between Richard and Niall about longevity in birds. For example, did you know what, while small garden birds such as Robins and Blue Tits can generally only expect to make it to the age of 2 or 3, some lucky seabirds, such as the Manx Shearwater and the Fulmar, can make it to the grand old age of 80, or possibly even 100!
Interestingly, although the lifespans of different bird species may differ dramatically, the general pattern is that, at least broadly speaking, the females lay roughly the same quantity of eggs during the course of their lives. They have different breeding strategies and different rates of infant mortality, but ultimately just two offspring out of dozens need to survive to adulthood to replace their parents and ensure that population numbers remain stable.
For more information about how long your garden birds typically live, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/how-long-do-your-garden-birds-live/
The importance of biological recording and the do’s and don’ts of nestboxes
In honour of today’s Great Big Garden Birdwatch, we dispatched our roving reporter Terry Flanagan to visit no less illustrious a garden than that of our own Éanna Ní Lamhna in Terenure, Dublin. They chat about Éanna’s time working as a wildlife recorder in An Foras Forbatha and the importance of "citizen science" projects, such as BirdWatch Ireland’s Irish Garden Bird Survey, in gathering vital data to assess wildlife populations and inform conservation policies.
Éanna also tells us how wildlife recording has changed over the past five decades, as well as what happened to all of the biological data that she accumulated herself in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In addition, she and Terry discuss the upcoming bird nesting season, where best to situate nestboxes and how to clean them out in advance of this year’s breeding season.
For more information about nestboxes for birds, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/irelands-birds-birdwatch-ireland/garden-birds/nestboxes/
What on Earth is "biophilia"?
"Biophilia", which translates as "the love of life, is a word that is increasingly being used to describe the innate tendency of humans to connect with nature. It has been recognised officially since the 1960s, but in reality it is as old as our species itself... and probably even older.
In the modern world, there is an increasing appreciation of the role that immersion in the natural world plays in the maintenance and improvement of both mental and physical health. In a nutshell, nature’s presence is good for the soul.
This may be a recent revelation for many scientists and physicians, but it is something that nature-enthusiasts, and particularly birdwatchers, have known all their lives, as naturalist, broadcaster, author and wildlife photographer Eric Dempsey explains in a special reflection he recorded for tonight’s programme as he watched the birds coming and going from his garden feeders.
For more information about the concept of biophilia, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis
For more information about Eric Dempsey and his work, visit https://birdsireland.com/
Jim Wilson’s garden birds
One man who has been central – instrumental, indeed – to our Great Big Garden Birdwatch celebrations today is our man in Cobh, Co. Cork, Jim Wilson. Over the years, Jim has spoken extensively on our programme about garden birds, is streaming live video footage of the avian visitors to his bird table and feeders for us at this very moment and even, almost four decades ago, first came up with the idea for BirdWatch Ireland’s annual Irish Garden Bird Survey.
On tonight’s programme, Jim reports for us from his home in Cobh about the perennial poll-topper in BirdWatch Ireland’s survey each winter, namely the Robin: undoubtedly, Ireland’s best-loved bird. He also introduces us to his neighbour, retired naval officer Richie Ryan, who has become famous on social media for his charming videos of wild Robins feeding from his hand.
Richie Ryan is a retired naval officer, originally from Borris in County Carlow but settled in Cobh. He has a great love of nature and for many years now he has been feeding some of the local robins from his hand. This video was taken during covid and ended up getting over 70,000 views!
For more information about Robins, visit https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/robin/
To see Jim Wilson’s Guide to Garden Birds, which he has written specially for Mooney Goes Wild, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/mooney/generic/2020/1116/1178558-jim-wilsons-guide-to-garden-birds/