Nature On One: Talking Birds (Bank Holiday Monday, May 4th 2026 at midday)
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on the 4th of May, which is Bank Holiday Monday, Jim Wilson and Sean Ronayne, who's well known for recording birds. You may remember he came to prominence when RT broadcast that documentary about his ambition to record every species of bird on the island of Ireland. At any rate, they go for a walk on Cuscony Marsh Nature Reserve in Cove. And his latest project is to eavesdrop on the bird life in Cuscony Marsh. And during the programme, he talks about the fact that he has recorded birds there that he's never seen and never encountered. But by virtue of the fact that he's got this technology that he can record, he now knows what's in the woodland. This programme will be broadcast on the 4th of May as part of our Nature on One series.
Jim Wilson and Sean Rename for a walk at Cuscony Marsh Nature Reserve.
Yeah, and of course the beauty about these long-term recordings is that if we come back again in 10 years time, you can literally do a survey of the overall population of birds in the same place by comparing recordings from 10 years ago to today.
Yeah, exactly. yeah and like there'll be so many changes and you know some birds will be lost but we'd have to imagine that we will have gained some birds too like for example let's let's look at great spotted woodpecker a species new to cuscany a bird that i never would have even dreamed of hearing or seeing here when i was a little boy but now they're breeding here now they're breeding in in the in the woods and have you recorded them Oh yeah, so they're regular visitors to the area where the microphone is.
Really?
Yeah, they have this high-pitched kind of pick call and then of course they drum, so that's the display. So both the male and the female drum. The female tends to drum as she's entering the territory to announce her arrival and the male drums more for territoriality for other males. Do they have the same technique of drumming? So, no they don't. The male tends to drum faster than the female. So the female has a slower drum rate. But individual woodpeckers have different tastes for resonance. So one woodpecker might like more of a bassy tree and other woodpeckers might prefer a more high pitched sounding tree. I made up a compilation I can give it to you. I made up a compilation of different woodpeckers drumming from different sites in Ireland and they all have different favourite resonances and outputs.
Let's have a listen to that.
That's mad. So it's like as if they've got their own drum kit. And they have a preference for big drums, small drums, whatever. So really, you've had some great surprises. And to be honest, I wouldn't have known there was a Yellow Broad Warbler here only for the recording. And the brambling, I haven't seen brambling here in years. And yet there they were.
The thing is, either have I, I didn't see those birds. I never witnessed them in life. I didn't hear them in life. I didn't see them in life. That's the beauty of this. So it's an extra tool, you know, because nobody's going to stand in the Cuskinny Nature Reserve for 24 hours a day for a full calendar year, are they? So this is going to pick up and add additional layers of inflammation that we didn't have access to before this kind of technology, you know. Technology can also be very rewarding and I think this is a great tool for us to have now.
So that's at 12 noon on the 4th of May.
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