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Chapter 1: What significance does the Summer Solstice hold for wildlife?
This is Mooney Goes Wild on RTE Radio 1. Yes, you're listening to Mooney Goes Wild and a wonderful hour of nature lies ahead of us tonight. Yesterday, as you know, was the longest day of the year, June 21st. And didn't we notice it? That lovely stretch of light into the late evening. It's a real moment in the natural calendar, a quiet turning point. that's been marked for generations.
And even today, you can still feel a trace of it, the sense of summer at its very height, all around us, in studio, all around me, Eanna Ní Leona, Richard Collins and Niall Hatch. I'm sure, Eanna, you've got something to say about the longest day of the year?
Yeah, it was the longest day and the shortest night. In fact, it was very little complete and utter darkness. Mind you, it's difficult in Dublin with streetlights. But still, for it to be around 10 o'clock before sunset and then four o'clock when it's dawn and you have light after sunset and light before dawn. So the shortest night and the longest day. It's great.
Chapter 2: How do plants and animals respond to long daylight hours?
And then, of course, my mother-in-law always used to say the next day, the days are all getting shorter again and the winter's coming.
She's right. It's all downhill from here, isn't it?
Goodness sacred, let no one hear you. It doesn't get even middling bad until we get the equinox, which is next September. So we have three months of wonderful light.
Do plants and animals like it as much as we do, do you think?
They love it indeed. I mean, so many things are stimulated by light. The pineal gland in their head is stimulated by the length of light. And similarly with plants. Some plants need long days, light and short nights. They'll flower.
And all these purple flowers that we get at the end of the summer, like we see them in gardens like asters and dahlias and out on the salt marshes where you have sea lavender and sea aster. Sheets are purple.
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Chapter 3: What impact does continuous daylight have on wildlife in the Arctic?
They depend on long days and short nights to get them going. So it really does have a big influence on the world of nature.
Yes, we were hooked on the light. The old megalithic tomb builders built alignments for various seasons and so on. So light was extremely important to them, of course. Light determines harvests and determines survival, as it did then anyway. So let there be light. And it's one of the opening lines in the Bible, remember?
Yeah, the rhythms and biological patterns of all of nature depend on the light, including us humans. It has a big impact on us too. So, you know, if you find yourself perhaps up above the Arctic Circle during the summer, I know you're up in northern Norway recently.
I was in Tromso and there they're getting pretty much 24 hours of daylight. The sun literally doesn't set at all. This is... kind of midnight sun, which lasts there from, I think it's May to July.
Chapter 4: How does the longest day affect bird behavior and breeding?
So for weeks on end, it never gets dark. So while we're talking about the longest day here in Tromso in northern Norway, it's not just a day, it's more like two months of one very long day.
I remember, it must have been 10 years or so ago, Richard, that you and I were up in Arctic Norway, up in Vardo, really far north. And it was midsummer and it was amazing. We went out at midnight and the birds were all singing and we'd think about the dawn chorus. But when there's no dawn, what do the birds do?
It makes a lot of sense for them to breed there, though, because of the birds that feed on insects, like birds like willow warblers, they were abundant there. They have this very short window of abundant food where they don't even have to really bother sleeping. They feed their chicks, get it over and done with, and they can rest later.
So it's quite a different sort of production cycle for them raising their chicks. But it must take its toll on certain wildlife. If you're a nocturnal animal, it must be quite difficult for you. So it kind of shortens their window. But then, of course, they get the benefits during the winter months. So it's kind of swings and roundabouts for a lot of our wildlife, I think.
Chapter 5: What challenges do nocturnal animals face during the longest day?
We were to look into that, actually. I wondered if they slept at all. I mean, the turns up, they were going full belt. That's right. Bin light. I think, why don't they go to do this 24 hours a day and day in, day out? I mean, there would be nothing left for the poor old turn if he behaved like that. And we worked to look into it, but I never did.
But is this actually true, Richard? Because isn't the Arctic town the one that migrates to the Arctic and the Antarctic? Yes. So, I mean, it seems to be afraid of the dark. It seems to be forever in places where there's light. So, you know, they must have evolved. You might know how or how it works, but obviously it does work because if they needed darkness...
Chapter 6: How do ancient cultures celebrate the Summer Solstice?
Why are they going from the Arctic to the Antarctic?
It's an amazing thing. The Arctic is the most remarkable. 25,000 miles a year sort of thing, flights. I mean, this is just a little fella. He's only the weight of a thrush or something. And there he is. My God, what a performance. But we needed to research this. And I thought you would, being a young man, you would be much better able to research this than me.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of changing daylight patterns for ecosystems?
Challenge accepted.
I'll get straight on it, Richard.
What are your thoughts?