Niall Hatch

Exactly right.

We punch well above our weight when it comes to bird species here in this country.

For a relatively small country, we have almost 500 bird species have been recorded here.

Many of those are very rare and they're sort of like the prize for birdwatchers going out to try and find them.

But things change with the seasons as well.

This is a particularly beautiful time of year to do it because of all the birdsong.

People find it very relaxing, very meditative.

And we're finding people of all ages coming to birdwatching.

I think, especially since COVID, there has been a big increase.

I think that a lot of people came to appreciate the mental and physical health benefits of being immersed in nature, particularly in birdsong and birdwatching during COVID.

And it's maintained.

Very much so.

So we're seeing lots more family memberships to Birdwatch Ireland.

We're seeing a lot more college students taking an interest, setting up societies and groups and asking us to go and help in the disparate walks and also doing survey work too.

There's quite a lot of young people thinking now of careers in nature, conservation or surveying.

So we're training them up in survey skills and there's lots of volunteer surveys Birdwatch Ireland runs that people can do.

We're finding more and more people in their teens and twenties now doing that compared to previously.

Yep, it's very good.

It's by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and it helps to identify bird song and also bird photographs too.

So it's absolutely excellent.