Mooney Goes Wild - Monday August 31st 2026
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This is Mooney Goes Wild on RTE Radio 1.
Yes, a wonderful hour of nature ahead of you now until 11 o'clock right here on RTE Radio 1. In studio, Niall Hatch and Richard Collins. Keep your heads down, boys, keep your heads down.
Stop the pigeon! Stop the pigeon! Stop the pigeon!
Do you remember that cartoon? That's the sig tune for a cartoon that was on TV back in the 1970s, Dick Dastardly and Mutley. Isn't that what it was called? It was called Dastardly and Mutley in Their Flying Machines. That's a total blast from the past. Absolutely. And I hadn't thought about that in years. And it's a spin-off of another programme called Wacky Races. And it was one of those weird Hanna-Barbera cartoons. So you remember Mutley the dog was always laughing in this breathy kind of way and Dick Dastardly was always kind of... Yeah, they're trying to stop Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering messages. Oh, I would never have remembered. I was just looking for a song with pigeons in it because I want to talk about pigeons.
But they were actually trying to stop... They were trying to stop this homing pigeon called Yankee Doodle Pigeon from bringing messages. He had a little satchel around him when he was flying. And they, in various inept ways, in their biplanes were trying to catch him. It was... And then, yeah, Wacky Racers and Penelope Pitstop and calling... Help, help. It's coming back to me. God, you do that very well.
Do you remember that cartoon, Richard, do you? No, but one comes to mind and it's called Poisoning Pigeons in the Park by Tom Lehrer. Oh, that was Tom Lehrer. That was the song. Yeah, well, that would be a perfect song for this, you know, because we're all about killing off things we don't like. They can't be talking
about poisoning pigeons in the park. Anyway, that's the only thing that comes to mind. All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when you're poisoning pigeons in the park.
That's how it goes. They're the lyrics.
I remember it well. Anyway, I have a question about pigeons and so has one of our listeners. But the other day I was coming out of my estate and I saw a wood pigeon struggling with what looked like a branch. It wasn't a branch. It was just a very large twig. And it's August. And last week you were saying, Richard, it's all over for the birds. Christmas dinner's been eaten and they're letting it all hang out and they're taking it easy. But not for pigeons. Pigeons, in particular wood pigeons, they keep at it. Another brood. But how many do they have, I'm
wondering? They only produce one or two eggs. You have to breed often to get enough young through. So you breed repeatedly. So bird pigeons have a much more extended kind of loose attitude to breeding. And the street pigeon, the ones that you see all over the place, they breed even in December and January. You see them under bridges and all sorts of things. So it's
not seasonal when it comes to the pigeon family.
Well, it's seasonable up to a point, but you stretch the edges of it, shall we say. You get them breeding very early. March, you often see one pigeon's nest, and then you often see one rather late. I think you would be able to either confirm or flatly deny this now.
Oh, 100% confirmed, Farbjörn, for me to go into anything you might say, Richard. No, you're absolutely spot on. Just stop plumosing each other. That's fantastic, isn't he? No, the thing with pigeons, wood pigeons particularly, they do have a much longer breeding season than most other Irish birds. As you mentioned there, the feral pigeon or the street pigeon, Richard, they have a very long nesting season. And the collared dove, another member of the pigeon family, they have no nesting season at all. They nest all year round, provided the weather is good enough. Obviously, if it's extremely cold and it's pouring rain, they may forego it for a few months. But if you have a mild balmy winter, they'll nest all the way through.
So wood pigeons, as you said, Richard, they can go all the way through from February and March. easily through to early November if the conditions are right.
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