Sean Ronayne

This is Countrywide on RTE Radio 1.

Songtrot handle.

See?

Bits of cracked snail around it.

It's not a whole lot.

Sometimes you see them and there's little fragments of...

brown-lipped snail everywhere.

I actually sound recorded a soundtrack cracking a snail off a rock finally after five years of trying to capture it.

I didn't find it, it found me, you know.

So it found one of my microphones that was lying in ambush under the grass and just so happened to start cracking its snails next to the rock which was touching my microphone.

These little nuanced details are the things that bring these birds to life, you know, because this is a part of who they are.

This is how they feed themselves.

This is their little niche, if you will, you know.

Well, the way I look at it, when you get to know a neighbour of yours, you're much more likely to help them in times of need as opposed to the stranger at the end of the street.

And, you know, if we look at birds as our neighbours or people on the street, they're definitely in need of help now.

Yeah, so I collected all of these sounds to showcase the beauty and the wonder and the intricate details that lie behind them all.

We have over 200 regularly occurring species in Ireland.

And each one of them has a story to tell.

And I really believe that when you dig into these stories and listen to those unusual details, that's when you fall in love with them, you know?

As we're standing here now, I can see passing gannets, which is our largest seabird.