Dawn Chorus - RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ lyric fm | Sunday, May 3rd 2026 | 00:00 - 07:00
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What is the significance of International Dawn Chorus Day?
Don't forget on Sunday, 3rd of May from midnight on Saturday, if you like, for seven hours live, the Dawn Chorus live from Cuskinny Marsh Nature Reserve in Cove. Same place where we've been broadcasting from for years. Niall Hatch, you'll be there with Jim Wilson.
I will. I'm really looking forward to it. It is the highlight of my year and Cuskinny Marsh is a great place to do it. It's a bird watcher on a nature reserve and we're very proud every year to host this broadcast and to be the home base for it. And the nature reserve itself, the beauty of it, it's not a particularly big place. It's not a particularly fancy place. The bird life there, while it's wonderful, it's not particularly unique or anything like that. It's what you have a mix of different habitats very close to each other. So we put up the microphones at different spots within a relatively small space. We have lots of different types of birds. So on the night, you'll hear us going between all the different types of microphones in the woodland and the farmland and over the stream.
And we're listening for the first birds to start singing.
How does Cuskinny Marsh enhance the Dawn Chorus experience?
And it's because of that mix of habitats we have so many of them. And it's just wonderful.
So what have you got? You've got woodland, you've got lagoon, you've got reed beds, you've got farmland. You're surrounded by farmland.
Farmland there, yeah, that's right. And also then you have the foreshore. The foreshore. It's the middle of Cork Harbour. So with all of those different habitats around and checking those microphones very carefully, we pick up a wide range of different species. And you never know quite what it's going to be. It's different every year. And every year, I'm sure you're the same, Derek, we always have this little moment of panic. Are the birds going to fail us? Are they going to let us down?
What types of habitats contribute to bird diversity in Cuskinny Marsh?
But they never do. Regardless of the weather, you know, we might suffer from that, but the birds will still... I find they're singing rather late at the moment. Or maybe I'm just getting up a little bit later.
That could be it.
But even between now and actually that first weekend in May, there will be a difference in the daylight.
Yeah, the dawn will be earlier. It goes by a quarter of an hour a week. So, I mean, it's only dawn at five, but by the end of the month.
And there is always the odd bird that sings throughout the night because of light pollution or for a little bit of disturbance or whatever reason, we don't know. But birds always do sing through the night.
And we've detected in the past things like otters, we presume, startling things. You hear all sorts of... Sedge warblers and stuff. Sedge warblers. You might hear a moorhen suddenly cackle because it's been spooked by something. We hear waders migrating in very memorably.
How do weather conditions affect bird songs during the Dawn Chorus?
In recent times, we had a curlew flying over. We had all sorts of birds like that. And with light pollution, you will hear birds sometimes, particularly wrens and robins, that will sing even during the night. And cuckoos will too sometimes.
They will. All during the night. And, of course, corn crakes if you're in the right area.
Yeah, so no corn crickets in Cuscony Marsh, but elsewhere in the country there will be. And obviously we're hoping the people around the country will let us hear their own recordings. Can you believe it's next Saturday, Sunday morning? That's what it is.
Time flies. The 2nd of May into the 3rd of May. So midnight, you know yourself, I have to be careful how I say this, but pretty much midnight on Saturday through for seven hours until 7am on Sunday morning, the 3rd of May for the Dawn Chorus. And we do want to hear from you.
What unique bird species might be heard during the broadcast?
So if you just keep an eye on the website, we'll give you some details and you can send us WhatsApp recordings. Zainab will be in studio with me, as will Terry and Richard throughout the night. We'll also have the company of our colleagues on RT Radio Lyric FM providing wonderful music to accompany the birdsong. And again, we'll be going to the National Broadcasting Service in Finland, YLE. They'll be in a woodland about 70 kilometres or so from Helsinki and they'll hope to bring us those wonderful bitterns, which we heard calling booming, should I say, last year.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the significance of International Dawn Chorus Day?
0:00–0:50
2
How does Cuskinny Marsh enhance the Dawn Chorus experience?
0:50–1:20
3
What types of habitats contribute to bird diversity in Cuskinny Marsh?
1:20–1:59
4
How do weather conditions affect bird songs during the Dawn Chorus?
1:59–2:38
5
What unique bird species might be heard during the broadcast?
2:38–3:37
6
How can listeners participate in the Dawn Chorus event?
3:37–3:46