By popular demand - another chance to hear some of the highlights from this year's epic International Dawn Chorus broadcast!

The Dawn Chorus has become a radio phenomenon in Ireland.  Every spring, for more than two decades now, Derek Mooney and his Mooney Goes Wild team on RTÉ Radio 1 have broadcast the sounds of early morning birdsong into homes across the country.  Following on from the huge success of the multi-award winning European Dawn Chorus programme in 2016 (which scooped the Rose D'Or for European Radio Event Of The Year and national PPI Radio Award for Innovation), RTÉ once more teamed up with broadcasters and bird experts across Europe and beyond to bring listeners the exquisite sound and expert analysis of this beautiful birdsong.

Clockwise from top left: some of the birds heard in the Dawn Chorus this year: Austrian Nightingales, Indian Peacocks, Irish Corncrakes and Spanish Flamingoes!  Image of Nightingale: Leander Khil; image of Corncrake: Colum Clarke/BirdWatch Ireland

In the early hours of International Dawn Chorus Day this year, on May 7th, a radio audience reaching across three continents were able to listen in to the songs of the birds in twenty-one different locations, spanning six time zones over twelve countries, as we traversed every latitude and longitude from India to Iceland, following the wave of light as it revealed this ornithological opera!  We heard birds both exotic and local, and different sounds that were new to our audience, as well as some familiar favourites, as we travelled to every kind of habitat and through every temperature, from the searing heat of India to the near-zero climes of Finland.

Thanks to our colleagues in the European Broadcasting Union, All India Radio and BirdLife International, we were able to listen to the Dawn Chorus in India, Finland, Lithuania, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Iceland.  The programme was broadcast across Canada, most of Europe and to almost half a billion listeners in India!

Clockwise from top left: members of the Dawn Chorus teams in Ireland (St. Anne's Park, Raheny - RTÉ), Spain (Odiel Marshes - RTVE), India (Soor Sarovar Bird Sanctuary - All India Radio) and Lithuania (Zuvintas Lake - LRT)

To find out more about Dawn Chorus 2017, click here.  You can find out a bit more about some of those countries taking part by clicking here, and if you'd like to view some of the photos and videos from this year's event, then why not visit our Flickr page! 

You can listen back to or download each hour of the programme by clicking on the links at the top of this page (underneath the videos), or you can listen back to the full six-hour broadcast here. 

In addition this year, to mark the Dawn Chorus, a special concert was broadcast live from the Radio Centre in the hour preceding the Dawn Chorus.  You can listen back to the Dawn Chorus concert by clicking here.