An Interview with Dean McDonnell

A Wild Bird Acoustics interview with Dean Mc Donnell, an Irish birder and field recorder based in Co. Louth, Ireland. During the course of the interview, we discuss birding in the areas Dean has been recording at and he shares some wonderful audio of a wide range of species from the past few years...

00:00 Introduction to Wild Bird Acoustics

00:50 Interview with Special Guest: Dean McDonnell

01:29 Dean's Journey into Birding

02:29 Exploring Birding Habits and Techniques

08:29 The challenges of Sound Recording in Louth

09:53 The Fascination of Field Recording

11:04 Dean's Recording Equipment

12:45 Birding Locations and Habitats

39:19 Discussing the Sounds of Spring and Summer

41:04 The Intricacies of Birdsong

41:30 The song of Common Cuckoo's

42:59 Alarming birds and Sparrowhawk

45:14 The Sounds of the flood meadow and Eurasian Teal 

54:24 The Unique sound of Hoverfly's!

01:12:02 The Song of the Skylark

01:18:20  Echolocation of the Soprano Pipistrelle

01:22:42 The Melody of the Song Thrush

Transcript

 You're all very welcome to wild bird acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound.  

Now welcome back to wild bird acoustics, everybody.  We have a very special episode for you this week. And once again, we will be conducting an interview with a very special guest on this occasion all the way from Ireland. And it was delightful to be able to have a good chat with Dean McDonnell during the week. 

And it was an incredibly interesting interview on, I think you will all enjoy that. 

So without any further ado, we'll get straight into the interview and I'll get back to you at the end of this.  I hope you all enjoy this tremendously. This is an interview. With Mr. Dean McDonnell. 





 Now you're all very welcome to wild bird acoustics. And I'm delighted to introduce a very special guest all the way from Ireland. 

 Mr. Dean McDonald.  

Dean, you're very, very welcome. Thanks very much, Alan.  Thanks for inviting me on. No, not at all. Now, first of all, you're from Ireland. Where are you from originally? 

Uh, so I'm from county loads, um, kind of middle of loud, not far from Rd  and, uh, I was living in Monaghan for a couple of years, but I'm, I'm back in the, back in the homestead.  Okay. So you're, you're back in loud now at the moment. Back in county loud, yeah. Very good. And how did you first get into boarding as a pastime?

When did that happen?  Eh, that only happened during the lockdown, so in 2020.  Eh, but I was always into nature as a, as a, as a young lad, you know. I, I grew up in the countryside on the grounds of an old estate.  Um, so loads of mature trees, oaks and scots pine and all that kind of stuff. So  my grandparents used to feed the birds all the time.

So there was loads of, loads of activity. But, uh, it's only really in the last couple of years that I  started learning the bird names and different calls and songs. And so, yeah, I'm totally, totally newcomer to all this, to be honest. Okay.  So, generally speaking, is it, how's your seasonal boarding in Ireland?

Do you tend to change your kind of boarding habits as the seasons change or?  Not really. No, no, not really. No, I kind of go to the same sites. Um. 12 months of the year, to be honest with you, you know, um, I don't get out as often as I, as I should, which is why I kind of got into knock Megan,  uh, putting out sound recorders.

Cause, cause I'm so busy, I can go and collect them and kind of analyze areas, different habitats and kind of  learn more about birds and, uh, soundscapes. And  yeah, so  that's kind of one of the reasons why I got into sound recording as well, especially passive recording. Cause just, cause I'm so busy, I don't have an awful lot of time to get out, to get outboarding, you know. 

Okay, so where exactly is your knock mid site?  So it's just, it's just here at my house. Um, I have trialed places, different places around Mon and  some remote places, but by nature I'm, I'm quite lazy, Alan. Um, so if it's, if it's behind my house, I'll go out and I'll get the SD card and I'll study it and  yeah.

So it's, it's just in my back garden. So I'm in mid-low, so I'm about, oh, 12 kilometers from the coast on Dock Bay. Okay.  So I, I find it's a nice location. For a knock make because obviously when you record close to the. Very near the coast, you get all the activity when the tides come in and out, and the waders and gulls lift, and it's kind of a nightmare analyzing the recordings, you know.

Yeah, it could be a bit of a godsend just being back further, but I know there's a huge amount of waders in Dundalk Bay and that kind of thing, so. Oh, a massive amount, yeah. Yeah, it'd be just oyster catchers all the time. Yeah. And do you get to the coast quite a lot, generally speaking? Oh, I do, yeah, yeah, so I go to all the Haunts and Louds, you know, Lurgan Green and,  uh, The Spirit Store and Clatterhead and Annie Gass in Salterstown.

So I'd go to them,  maybe once on the weekends. Just kind of do a loop and  then, well, did you, did you start field recording then sort of during the pandemic or, yeah, so, um,  I got a grant from Calvin arts office, so I kind of do a lot of like, like sound arty stuff and  kind of max MSP and I kind of create a little installations and stuff.

So I got a grant from Calvin arts to map during a reef forest park,  which is in county Calvin and it's, uh, you know, a quail ship forest park.  So I started leaving out recorders and. I kind of came across videos, I think you're Matt, is it George Vlad? Is that his name? Yeah, that's right, yeah. Yeah, the drop rigs and uh, so I was trying, actually trying to record some long eared owls. 

Okay. And that was actually one of the ways I got into Knockmate because I started picking up weird calls at night  and I actually knew a very experienced birder. I'm sure you know him, Brian McCluskey. I do, yeah. Yeah, he's from Carrot Macross.  Brian, what's, what are these sounds I'm getting at night?  And he was like, oh, well, for a start, that's common scoter. 

And I was like, I've never, I've never, never even heard that word. So, uh, that's how I got into the Knockmig group because, uh, Jerry O'Neill from Dundalk,  uh, he records Knockmig. He recorded them on that same night. So he was, he was.  It's static that I got them in, in Kingscourt and he got them in the dock an hour apart.

So it could have been the same flock, you know, so yeah, quite possibly, you never know, you never know. Yeah. So that's kind of how, how it all started happening for me. So an arts grant kind of, and lockdown sort of spurred me into it, to be honest, you know,  yeah. And that's what piqued your interest was generally just looking at stuff on YouTube or was it just other borders locally? 

Uh, no, like I'm big into like music that has field recordings, you know.  So, um, like the early nineties stuff, the Orb, KLF, uh, Brian Eno,  uh, all these ambient sort of electronic artists incorporated loads of field recording.  So, um, that's, that was another reason why I've been interested. Yeah. And what kind of equipment generally do you use? 

Uh, so I've a couple of different recorders. So I've a Roland RO7, a little handy recorder.  And it has a little plug in, plug in power slot for external microphones.  So it's got some clippy EM272s,  the omni directional microphones. And, uh,  so I use them mostly. And I've got, I've got a couple of microphones from LOM.

I don't know if you've ever, ever heard of LOM. Yeah, the UCs, is it? I haven't used them personally. I, I use the The, um, the same as yourself, he was a clippy EMS, 272 is an awful lot, they're brilliant. The clippies are great. Um, I think they use the same microphone capsule. Um, but the lamb stuff is very nice.

It's a nice form factor. Like, uh, the micro Uzis are tiny, like little tiny lavalier mics. Um, they're great for like, kind of like drop rigs and, and that kind of stuff. And they're really sensitive.  And then I have a zoom F6 as well for like some 32 bit recordings.  Uh, and then I use the zoom F six a lot for hydrophone recordings  and contact mics and all that kind of stuff.

And I'd also have a song meter, um, which I use for passive recording and some audio mods. So loads, loads of different stuff. Yeah. Quite similar to most people. I'd imagine. How do you find the zoom F six since you got it? It's, it's amazing. It's brilliant. Really good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to worry about setting your levels and all that.

Um,  well,  people say that, but you can still clip the microphone, you know? Yeah, you can. So you need to be careful with that. But it's, oh, it's an amazing recorder because Yeah. I, I got one last spring. My old Moran 6, 6, 1 died last spring. It got a bit wet. Oh, nice. It just never came back. So I got one last spring and I've been very impressed with it.

It's, it's, it's quite sturdy as well. Very sturdy. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's excellent. So it's, it's. Been a real kind of,  it's happy days since I got that. I'm very, very happy with it. And I'm enjoying the 32 bit as well. Oh, it's amazing.  Are there any particular challenges to sound recording in your, how is like sound pollution and stuff and loud? 

Um, yeah, it's, it can, it's pretty bad, you know, there's a lot of big roads going through loud, you know, so I don't live too far away from the N2, which would be the main Dublin to kind of Derrick road. Yeah. Quite busy, quite busy. Yeah. And it's about two and a half, three kilometers away. But if I stand outside here now, it's, it'll sound like it's only a hundred meters away, you know,  it's very busy.

Yeah. And then around on dock,  there's loads of busier, it's, it's really hard to escape to noise pollution and like, you know, it is on the East coast and it links a lot of areas, you know. Yeah. Um, but I find you can find it places where there's a bit of. Acoustic shadowing and it's, and it's, you don't really hear the noise and stuff. 

Um, cause I actually, I worked as, as an acoustic, acoustic engineer for one year.  Okay. Not too long. So I kind of  learned to realize how you can kind of get away from noise pollution a wee bit and sort of put your recorders behind big hills and.  All that kind of stuff you can kind of, yeah, it's, it's very, um, for anybody who's listening, they're just wondering where I generally try and place mine close to the ground or I have one on a rooftop actually, but it's kind of a split roof so I can kind of tuck it in and it kind of keeps it away from a lot of noise, but it's actually in a quiet, quiet area.

So it's, it's not too bad. The main noise I got there is to see,  Oh, that's not, that's a nice sound. Yeah, it is. It can be, but if it was actually, if it's quite windy, it's surprisingly, um, surprisingly noisy sometimes to say. Yeah. So the white noise. So the white noise.  Yeah, exactly.  But, um, yeah, you mentioned Longyeardale there, uh, are there any other kind of groups of species you're particularly interested in, in general, when you're recording? 

Um, not particularly, no. I kind of just try and record what I can. You know, I know some people have lists and, you know, they're trying to tick off certain boards, but.  I just kind of, I don't really have the time for that. So I kind of let the birds come to me if that, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it does.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, not particularly like I, I, I like the warblers, you know, like, um, some of the stranger species in Ireland, like a grasshopper warbler and the garden warbler. Um, just amazing, amazing songs. They have, you know, yeah. And I,  even the white throat as well. And  I see Sean Renee is doing great stuff at the minute with the white throat mimicry and it's, uh, they're just fascinating birds, you know?

Yeah. It's incredible. The stuff he's actually, he's put together, especially some of the African stuff he's picked up. Oh, absolutely. Quite amazing. Where do you have to go for garden warbler? Where the closest garden warbler to you in Louth?  Oh, it's, it's, it's a good stretch in. Yeah. It's over in Westmead.

Um,  what's the name of the place? Is it Port? It's like a forest park beside a big lake there. What, what is it called?  My mind escapes me, but it's really regular spot. And then there's Cromcastle Estate in County Fermanagh  as well. A few pairs there. Yeah, yeah. I think they're the only two  good locations for them in Ireland.

Um,  which is kind of strange, you know, they've just picked these little pockets, but I think it's because there's loads of  mature woodlands around there and like,  Yeah, I don't know if it's the same in Ireland. They like secondary cover. They're very common here in Sweden, but they like a lot of kind of secondary cover and kind of mature woodlands.

You generally kind of get them the kind of second layer of wood.  Yeah. Then the amazing thing though was black, black caps are everywhere, you know? And  yeah, they've, they've exploded. You think the garden warbler, would, they must be more specialized, like certain very, very particular types of places or habitats?

Yeah, I dunno. It, it just seems that, um, I know there's been a lot of studies done on black caps over the last 20 years. They've apps, I think they've increased  exponentially, especially now in Britain. I think they're one of the commonest species in summer salmon species. Oh. It's the same. And like I had a winter pair.

They're in the garden just feasting on apples. But, um, yeah, they're getting very common. Yeah, but yeah, they're very scarce in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s. It was quite a good bird to pick up in Ireland. So I believe, yeah, they kind of, the 90s, they kind of started to  populate Ireland really, wasn't it? Yeah, exactly.

And garden warbler was always scarce. I didn't see my first garden warbler until I was 16, was, on Salty Island. Delighted with it. Oh, great salty, very good. Yeah, great spot.  Do you do a lot of um, national birding? Do you get out of Loudoun further afield very often? It's mostly the northeast for me.  So Cavan, Monaghan, Loud.

Mead,  um, would be kind of my usual haunts.  Uh, but I've only really been birding for three or four years. So I kind of wanted to get a grips on the locality and common birds.  Which I think I have a good grasp on now. So yeah, definitely, I'm going to start branching out. Uh, maybe going to Salty Island, Rattling Island.

Those kinds of places, you know, um, cause  I haven't, I haven't recorded like either or any of those kind of species, which are kind of,  you know,  stuck in one particular place, spot in Ireland, you know,  yeah, they're probably quite difficult to get. I'd imagine Ireland, I think Sean Rennan had a, had charted time actually recording that species.

Oh yeah. I think he went to Rathlin, didn't he, to get them? Yeah, I think so. He got them in the Harbor, I think in the middle of winter in the end, but it was quite difficult for him. He had to make a few trips, I think. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. See, that, that would destroy me.  Yeah. Moving long ways for a single bird.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I have a couple of friends who would be like twitchers and  I think it would kill me if I went to West Cork and I didn't see it and had to drive six hours back.  It's not for me either. I don't do any twitching really. I'm kind of like, you know, just trying to, I like to get out into certain habitats at certain times of the year and just see what kind of comes along and gets, gets in front of me and gets in front of the microphones.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think where I live as well, a bit more inland, like, and especially in Monaghan, Calvin, there's not that many borders kind of checking out the lakes and there's just some excellent wetland habitats around there. And there's, they're just totally not watched at all. Yep. Um,  so yeah, that's what I'm trying to do.

Put, stick out a few recorders where I can and, you know, hopefully  find something a bit rare. Yeah. I follow Brian McCluskey on Twitter and I know he's been doing a little bit in the winters now and he's turned up some nice boards around the Midlands on the lakes. Like I said, probably not a paper looking around, so God knows what pops in there.

I know. Yeah. Yeah. Brian's great. He, he was one of the lads who kind of spurred me on and taught me a lot of things about board watching and you know, scopes and cameras and all that kind of stuff because  I'm quite into photography as well. So we're like getting good images of, you know, words and that as well. 

So the plans for this year are, are seabirds or have you any other projects? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to try and get out to the coast. Um, cause I, I just, I don't get, get out there often enough. Um,  you know, especially waiters and stuff like that. I wouldn't be, I find a lot of waiters quite similar, you know, like, like Dunlin, Curley Sandpiper stuff, you know, it's where you're, you start honing your skills a bit better. 

Um, but plans for the year. Yeah. Hopefully get out to some of the islands, like, you know, maybe Inishbuffin during migration or Rathlin or Salty, you know, um, just trying to branch myself out a bit more. Uh, if I get time,  uh, also I, uh, there's a, there's a, uh, a raised bog, not too far away from me called RD bog and they're starting to kind of map, map that bog at the minute cause it's been totally under watched and looked. 

So I have a couple of recorders out there, um, you know, hopefully I'll pick up.  Pick up some unusual things. Yeah. Has that bog been caught and recycled or? Oh, big time, yeah. It's, it's, it was heavily cut over the years. You know, it's quite, it's quite degraded.  Okay. But there, there's pockets of really good habitat there as well, you know.

Yeah. You wouldn't know what you get there either in places. It's, it's amazing how quickly birds can recolonize. Yeah. Well, I was, I remember talking to, I don't know if you know, uh, Peter, Peter Phillips. I do, yeah. Yeah. He, I think he, he was telling me that the nightjar used to breed. In there. Okay. Which is probably a long, long time ago, but. 

You know, there is these pockets that are totally under watched and under recorded. So  I think now there's a, there's a wave of, um, citizen science and biodiversity awareness in Ireland, which wasn't there before.  So I think people are going out now and starting to investigate the localities. And  yeah, I was at the Scottish Ornithology Slub, um, meeting.

In November, it was an excellent talk there. And a guy just went out and monitored acoustically at night for night chair and other words, and in areas where they hadn't been seen in years on years, I think he picked up six pairs. Wow. You just wouldn't know what's out there. You know, absolutely not. No, totally.

Some great habitat in Scotland as well. It's so vast, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Just the highlands. There's nobody up there either. So no,  but it's a very useful tool just to be record at night and just leave out recorders just to get a snapshot of what's going on, you know, you can move them around and stuff and see what's what's in the area.

Uh, absolutely. And I find some of the best recordings I've ever gotten are passive recordings, you know, because you're not there. The human presence isn't there. You're not disturbing the birds and stuff. You know, you get some pristine. Uh, recordings and then I find it as well. It's like collecting a little present for yourself.

You know, it's like, Ooh, what's, what's, what mysteries lie in this, uh, recording, you know? Yeah. I don't usually, usually nothing.  Yeah, sometimes, but it's really, you know, it's always exciting when you kind of do collect audio from somewhere you've never put a recorder before. It's really nice to get through.

And if you do get something, it's always a bit special. Oh, completely. Yeah. That's, that's how I got obsessed with it. You know, it's, it's all about the mystery, you know. Yeah, what's going on? Yeah, totally.  So, your Nockmig station, as you said, is kind of right over your house. And I think most of your, the Nockmig recordings you have sent me are probably from there. 

Um, so we'll run through a few of those now. Um, the first one I will play is Common Ring Plover.  Um, and we'll just have a listen to that now. 

Quite a nice clear recording, that one.  Yeah, like I think I picked the common ring plover because  I think I've only recorded them two or three times out here, you know, um,  but it's, I think I love even golden plover. It's, it's such a evocative sound. Like, you know, it's carries for so far as well.  And it's just, that's one of the things that blew my mind as well.

Cause you see loads of. Common Ring Plover on the coast and on dock.  And then you're like, you realize, Oh, they're actually flying this far inland.  Um, which is amazing, you know?  But they must be extremely rare inland by day, are they? To find one sort of on one of the legs or? Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

Yeah. So.  It, it, it's very interesting to know that they're, they're kind of flying around as far inland, you  know, but it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's one of my favorite calls I picked up. It's just, it pierces through the night like golden blovers as well. It's very kind of, yeah. It's a lovely plaintiff called a golden plover.

It is. Yeah. And another scarce species in land that you've sent me a recording of is common scouter. We mentioned already, um,  yeah, yeah. And it's, I know a lot of, a lot of guys in Ireland are really hoping to get this inland. And a lot of places, but it's surprisingly scarce. I think it's not.  It is. Yeah. Is there breeding records in the, in the West?

Some lakes in the West? Yeah, I think there's all records. Certainly a bird seen kind of in breeding season, whether I'm not sure whether breeding has ever been proved, but I'd be surprised maybe somewhere like Locke Ray or one of the lakes kind of somewhere it doesn't have pairs. Yeah. The interesting thing about the common scoter that in Dundalk Bay, I think some of the birdwatchers were telling me they've actually moved away from Dundalk Bay, which is quite unusual.

I think they've been there for.  I don't know, years and years, but they seem to have moved up closer to Dublin and Balbriggan, I think. Yeah.  The wintering, the wintering fox. It might have something to do with food. I think they eat shellfish mostly.  Ah, okay, yeah. I think they actually swallow them whole as well, which is quite remarkable.

Eider do the same thing. They actually eat whole mussels. They just swallow the whole lot. Yeah, and just break it down in their stomach. It's quite incredible. Oh, they don't have pellets or anything like that? They must, I would imagine, yeah. They just expel them somehow. But we play that, um, common score recording now, 

again, that's quite close and quite clear. Yeah. And that's my first ever knock make recording on like  what a species to get,  you know, you mean literally your first recording ever? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it was by total, total mistake trying to record long eared owls, you know, and have you had one since or, yeah, I've picked them up three or four times since.

Yeah.  Yeah, but that's the best recording. I, it was actually recorded  in a forest park, but it was up on a big hill.  Um, so the elevation maybe kind of  made it, and it was, it was quite overcast and raining as well, so I think that pushes the boards down a bit more as well.  So, uh, yeah, it was really nice to get cause the subsequent calls of I've gotten of common school are really distant, you know.

Really distant. Yeah, they can be. It's not the loudest call in the world in general. Anyway, so you do need them to be quite close. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But, um, yeah, that's what spurred the knock make that recording.  What species are most prevalent at your location? Would you say obviously Red Wing probably? 

Um, yeah, Red Wing and obviously in the, in the winter time, but, uh, I have a lot of Local birds, like moorhen, coot,  uh, that just fill up, fill up the recorder, you know, um, although obviously they're not migrating, they're just local birds, um,  so they'd be kind of the most common I pick up, but in terms of migration, yeah, redwing, songfish, loads of golden plover, loads of golden plover, okay, um, which is, yeah, it's, I've, I've seen them around here during the day as well. 

Um,  um, what else Skylark is quite common as well. Okay. Nice. Yeah. Uh, nice, uh, Curlew. I get them 12 months of the year. Yeah. And yeah, you'd imagine that with a golden plover and Curlew, I mean, they, they do feel in inland are quite happy and stubble fields and pastoral kind of thing. Completely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Which,  which is, I didn't actually know. So  that was the amazing thing about knock making. Like he's like, these birds can be found inland as well, you know? Um, cause you see, you just, you just presume, Oh, I see them on the coast all the time, but that was just my, my ignorance.  Yeah. But you just, you always, it doesn't matter wherever you put a recorder, you just learn a lot of stuff straight away.

Oh, totally. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Another wider species now, and I'll play that straight away is Wimbrel. So we'll just run through the recording now. It's another very nice recording, this one. 

That's a lovely call as well, that. Oh, it's beautiful, yeah. And it was a couple of, couple of birds there obviously that flew over. Um,  but yeah, Wimbrel's great. Uh, Wimbrel are a  very strange species for knocknick. I get them like in  two weeks in spring, two weeks in winter, and then that's it. Yeah. They're like, they're very um, they're very good time keepers.

Their, their, their windows for migrating must be very tight.  Yeah, I used to do a lot of bird watching on Bull Island in Dublin and it was the same there. There's kind of a two week period where you'll get hundreds of birds coming through and on a good day you could get 60 or 70, but extremely scarce.

You get a few maybe in late July, August and that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it feels like spring has come when you, when you pick them up on the knock make recorder, I think as well, you know. Yeah. They're beautiful, beautiful birds.  Now, next up is a species I never get in Sweden. It's an absolute mega here in Sweden.

And that's a Barnell  and you've sent a couple, a couple of lovely recordings of Parnell one now. I think this is dated 6th of April. So I'll play that one first. 

Fantastic. Yeah, I was very close. I just flew right over the parabolic, the Parabola. I presume I wasn't there. Yeah. Are they getting more common now or have they kind of increased?  Yeah, I think I, I heard that 2013 was one of their, their best years, uh, for breeding success. Um, they're still very rare and county louds, you know?

Um, yeah.  Uh, but yeah, like I didn't even know I had them around the house until I started recording neg, you know. Um, which is, you know, is another positive to knock me. You can start recording houses in your area, you know, because I've recorded Longyeardale as well. And look, I, like, I didn't know either board existed around here until I put out to knock make recorder, you know, but, um, yeah, they seem to be, they seem to be on the up in Ireland.

I think, I think there's just more awareness of their conservation. You know? Yeah. I don't know if the voles have actually reached a fair North. Yeah. I wouldn't imagine. So yeah, I think, I think I haven't seen any myself, but I think that could be one of the factors as well. Uh,  I mean, even if they, even if the vowels haven't quite made it as far as loud yet, if they're, if they're just expanding up from, I think they started in the Southwest, if they're up into the Midlands, maybe it's going to be a precursor, but a bigger range of the species and maybe hopefully more often.

I know I've heard, I've heard, I don't know if the barren owls would eat these with their white toothed shrews as well. Yeah, they will. I'd say, yeah, I think.  They've quite, they've exploded in Ireland. I think. Okay. Yeah. It's amazing as well. You have another one here at Barnaul. I'll just play that quickly.

I think this is a double call. That's right. Yeah. 

I'd imagine that's, that's a noise that put the fear of God in the people, if they, you know, non borders, if they didn't know what it was. And then you think about all the mythology in Ireland about, you know. Banshees and ghosts and stuff like, I can't really blame people if they're walking home from the pub and they heard that, you know,  and I'm sure there was plenty more barn owls a hundred years ago in Ireland than there is now. 

Yeah, I'd imagine. But yeah, that was recorded just at the back of my house. There's an old farmer shed  and my, the farmer said that he's seen them kind of  perched around the shed,  which makes me wonder where they're looking to nest in the old hay shed. Yeah, prospecting maybe. So I actually got onto.  Loud barn owls, and they put up a barn owl box.

Um, so fingers crossed this year to go in and have a look. Stick a recorder back in. So that's, that's it. Yeah. The jackdaws, jackdaws are probably nice.  Okay. Um, we'll probably move on to some diurnal recordings in a minute. Um,  so what's actually surprised you most in nocturnal capacity, just over your house, just.

The, the general range of species or.  Yeah. The range of species, uh, is, is unbelievable. Like, um, although I find with knock, make, you have to be very patient,  you know, if you stick out recorder for a month,  you might, you might not get much. The picture won't be fully formed. You kind of have to stick with it and record.

12 months. It's not just during spring and autumn.  Um, just, you know, just for hours or who knows what else is flying around, you know, but just, yeah, like all the waiters that like, you know, Dunlin, Common Ring Plover, Golden Plover,  um, Red Shank, Oyster Catcher, um, it just kind of blew me away that there were actually around it, around this neck of the woods, you know. 

Um,  yeah, so it's been totally educational experience, you know, and geese as well.  Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's just the total, the breadth and just the variety and yeah, it's amazing. I've learned so much. That's how, it's pretty much how I've learned birdwatching. It's through knock, make and sound recording. I kind of did it the opposite way around.

I think people get into it through the binoculars and the scopes and the. But I, I did it the other way around. I started recording, then I got to scoping the binoculars. Yeah, but it's, it is extremely helpful to, you know, to know calls. It's, it's, it's amazing. I think a lot of borders actually, if they're good with calls, I would say they pick up most of their birds by call first, rather than actually by sight quite often. 

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I do. If I have a spare moment, I just walk around the house. Maybe I might, I might hear something interesting, you know.  Yep. We'll move on to some of your diurnal. Actually, I have one more question before we move on. Do you, do you actually record after dawn at all?  Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. About two or three hours after dawn.  Okay. I don't, I wouldn't record the whole day. It's just too much stuff going on. Yeah. But yeah, two or three, three hours after dawn, you get some, like if I were a red, red wing,  you get some huge numbers, kind of just an hour or two after dawn,  maybe because they're just, they're just after landing or.

I don't really know but it's always worthwhile just recording a few extra hours after and the song leaders are great as well because you can You set them to three hours after sunrise to stop recording, you know, um, but yeah, I think it's very beneficial, you know, yeah, it's a good time for three people.

I know they're extremely rare in Ireland, but I think you've had a few. Have you? I've had two three papers. Um, I had none last year. I had two in 2022, none last year for some reason. I put, I think, uh, yeah. Is it Paul Kelly and those guys? I don't think they got that much last year. No, I think a lot can depend on the weather in any given autumn. 

I found that in Sweden, if, if I get say excellent weather for, so just say two or three nights in a row, whatever species kind of that coincides with, if you've got a peak migration, say, say it's like late August, I might get a lot of tree pivots, an unusual amount. And that might actually bump the year's figures. 

You know, exceptionally, but like you say, I think you have to collect data for a few years to get a more kind of even overall picture for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I've, I've only recorded two so far, but that was in 22 and I think that the other lads recorded a lot more than me, maybe 12  different recordings and different nights.

Yeah. So, um. Probably in a better position down in the Southeast as well, I'd say. Yeah, they're all recording down in  Tecumseh and Wexford and, uh, Cork and those places. So yeah, they're kind of,  it's just on the edge of Ireland. It's the last place before they  head off into the sea. Yeah, exactly.  So we'll move on to your diurnal recordings that you've sent on to me.

And the first one is a very nice recording. It's labeled Barleyfields, Louth and Sumer.  And, I'll play it first and then we can have a little chat about it. Yeah, 

that's a lovely recording, Dean. Ah, thanks very much, Alan, yeah.  The one species that jumps out at me there, obviously, is Yellowhammer. Hmm, yeah.  Yeah, this is a great area for Yellowhammer. Of course, there's loads of cereal crops, eh, where I live. Um, loud is one of the good  tillage counties in Ireland. Yeah. 

Loud me, Dublin, uh, Waxford, there was loads of yellow hammer.  Um, yeah. But, uh, the thing about the yellow hammer is  I, like, it was a call, I was kind of baked into my memory as a kid. Um,  and I, I didn't actually know what, what bird it was, but  it is just something at the back of my mind that I was like  when I, when I moved, especially when I moved back here, I was like,  it just reminds you of home.

You know, that kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a key, it's a key sound of this area because it's, it's, it's all a lot of tillage and of course they love. And picking away at the grains. Um, I just think it's a lovely song and it's, yeah, it is very, very nice. And like anybody maybe who's listening abroad might not, you realize that the species is actually declining massively in Ireland. 

So it's not as common as it used to be. Like you say, years ago, it would have been a very common sound. Um, but it's quite local now. And they're, they're totally tied to the agriculture as well, you know, um, I presume the reason they've declined is because there's not as many tillage farmers, I presume.

Yeah, I think barley and oats are the two, the two crops they really do well with.  Um, for example, I used to work in Cape Clear and, and in the eighties in Cape Clear, there were, there were one of the most common species on the Ireland, on the islands. Oh, wow. Right. And you know, the population got older.

There are a lot of kids moved away and as a result, there was just no crops planted. Cause you don't see any grain planted down Cape Clear and they've completely disappeared. I think they do okay in parts of Cork, but just on Cape Clear Island itself, they just completely disappeared. It was quite sad.

Yeah. East Cork has plenty of barley and oats and stuff. Um, but yeah, no, it's just totally reminds me of home and it's a fascinating border. I think I met you. I remember you telling us before that they're quite common in Sweden. Extremely. Do you see them everywhere? And it's one of the nicer things I see about when I first started boarding in Sweden, you know, when you come from somewhere like Ireland, everything is kind of, you know,  relative really.

So just to see like hundreds of yellow hammer sitting around in the winter, I'm just, they're everywhere in spring singing. It's just a very, very nice thing to hear. Um, why, why are they so common in Sweden? Uh, do you think, uh, there's an awful lot of grain does the weather here in Sweden in the winter isn't suitable for cattle.

Or sheep. So the result is that most of the farming here is grain farming. Ah, well that makes total sense. Yeah, and therefore I think there's still a lot of yellowhammer. Some things have actually got scarce. Corn bunting is disappearing rapidly here. And heartland bunting is extremely rare now. So, sadly.

So there seems to be more involved than just habitat with that species and not sure maybe. Yeah. I think they, they hunt the, the, a lot of, or, or how do you pronounce? The Or, or, or, Orlan. Orlan. Bunting. Yeah. They, they were hunted extensively, aren't they? Or, yeah, they, well, yeah. I, I know there was delicacy or something.

Yeah. In France there were picked up and, and France. Maybe the problem could be, could lie on, on something like that, that they're being picked up and killed in passage. Or it, it could be something on the wintering grounds. It's very difficult to know really. But they are a migrant species, whereas Yellow Hammer aren't. 

So,  corn bunting again is more difficult to put your finger on. Shame on the corn bunting going extinct in Ireland, isn't it? Yeah, that was terrible. I just felt like nobody was really watching that one that carefully. I think people didn't realize how rare they were. Yeah, I think I heard, Border told me a story, they were like, Oh, we haven't been out to see the corn buntings in a while.

And then they went out and they were just gone. Yeah, they weren't there anymore. Up in Mayo. I was right male. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I saw one in gray stones years ago and little did I, I mean, little did I know when I was looking at it, I was looking at something that I'd never possibly probably never say again, learned.

Wow. You know, and it's got, it's a song is quite strange, but I like it. Yeah. They say it sounds like jangly keys. I don't really get that, but it's a very distinctive noise. They're, they're very rare here in Sweden as well. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They must be a very specialized species. Yeah, I think so.

We'll move on now to another recording of yours, RD Bog. We've already mentioned it. So it's a raised bog in Landon Lowell. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Just outside RD. This is about 90 seconds. Is this a spring or summer recording?  Uh, spring. Okay. We'll play it for us. It's about 90 seconds. Oh, well actually no.

May it was  spring, May of summer. Yeah. I'm moving into summer.  Okay.  We played, I'll play the whole 90 seconds. Cause it's a very nice recording. 

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 

First of all, that's, it seems like a very healthy  kind of evening chorus, I'd say, is it? Eh, no, that's, that's a done. Okay, did I pick up woodcock in there? Yeah. There's woodcock there. Yeah. Yeah. It was very early. I think, um, cause I, that was a song meter. I left out, uh, so it could have been like four or five in the morning. 

Um, I think it was around 5th of May or something. So the dawn chorus was in full, full force, obviously. Yeah. We had, there's woodcock, there's snipe, meadow pippet, and of course the start of the show was the cuckoo. Yeah. It's really nice to hear that. Yeah, they're, they're, they're very scarce in Louths, you know, um, a lot more common in the west of Ireland with all the scrub and marginal land, but  they're, they're, they're quite rare in County Louths, you know,  yeah, it's a lovely recording, but anytime I get to hear them, I'm just blown away, you know, cause it's, it's a sound I didn't grow up with.

I never had any cuckoo around this, this area. So,  yeah, they're quite scarce in Dublin as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that one was very, that was very mobile cuckoo cause I went out to see it and it was just singing and flying constantly and  near the end it lost, it lost its voice near the end as well.

I think  it was like,  I find their nightmare to record actually, cause they just never stopped moving around and they'll move quite a long way in between call bursts, you know, they do, yeah, they don't seem to perish for too long.  No, I think you're better off just been patient with them and just, if you can figure it out,  just one general area that they kind of tend to return to the best thing to do is just leave your gear there and just wait. 

Yeah, but to be honest, I think it's my favorite, my favorite song in Ireland, just the cuckoo. It's just,  it's so simple and it's just so evocative, you know. And it, it travels for travel so far.  Yeah. It's an amazing sound. And then it echoes off trees and hills and mountains. And it's, it's beautiful.  Next.

The next one here I have is birds alarming and sparrowhawk.  Um, we'll play that now and then we'll have a little chat about it. It's also very nice recording. 

Again, very nice. Was that close to a nest or? Um, it was actually a kind of a, a kind of field margin where there's kind of swamp and dead trees. And, um,  yeah, I was, I was, I was trying to see what ducks were in, in, in that area cause there's a lot of teal and stuff and I was trying to figure out if there was maybe shoveler around or whatever, but.

I just picked up that recording. I thought it was really nice. It just crescendos, you know, it starts off like the blue tit and the wren, Oh, something's not right here. Yeah. And then everything gets onto it and then the Sparrowhawk calls and they're like, Oh no.  Yeah. It's a lovely recording. I've never recorded Sparrowhawk.

It's quite difficult to get here. They don't call him much here. Really? Yeah, we have goshawks. That's the problem. Oh, wow. That's not a problem, but when there's goshawks around, um, sparrowhawks become very, very, very quiet. Naturally. Oh, okay. Would a goshawk attack sparrowhawks? Yeah, they do. They predate them heavily.

Oh, they actually predate them? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, they do. They won't put up with them really in their territory.  Um, so it's, yeah, it's a, it's quite an interesting one here in Sweden. You see a lot of sparrowhawk, but you hear none. It's incredible. So they've adapted not to call, is it? Yeah, they're just almost silent.

It's incredible. Okay.  Next one is field margin swamp teal, and also just the nice calls of male teal here. I'll play that now and then we'll discuss it. Where was it? 

Um, right. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.  Ricky Ricky Ricky 

cackle cackle cackle 

What time of the year was that recorded, Ian?  That was recorded  around spring, I think.  Around this time, around this time of the year, I think. Yeah. Okay. When you say field margin, is it actually flooded wetland or yeah, it's, it's kind of a swamp that has, um, a lot of dead trees. It, it looks like something you'd see in, you know, the swamps in Louisiana.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a lovely little piece of habitat. And unfortunately there's actually a road going through it. So, but it's just up the road for me and it's kind of, my grandfather used to take me up there all the time, but.  Yeah, it's a fantastic little piece of habitat and there's a spot of flycatcher up there as well.

Um, I'm pretty sure they nest up there because there's loads of trees with huge holes.  Pretty sure they're nesting in there and yeah, it's full of teal mallard. There's water rail in there as well and more hen coots. It's a fantastic little piece of habitat. Any interesting species there breeding in summer? 

Um, not that I've, uh, well. Water rail, I guess, but they're not, they're not too,  too. Probably more common than people realize. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. But I love  their, their calls used to really scare me when I was younger. I didn't know what to wear. Okay. It's like the pig, the pig squeal is like, what, what is that?

Yeah. What the hell is that? I always presumed it was a farm, a farm animal. You know, cause yeah, understandably, that sounds like somewhere you might get green sandpiper in the spring if you get lucky or maybe in the autumn. Yeah, completely. Yeah. It's, it's, it's quite, it's quite, um, hard to get a good extensive look at it cause it's so wooded.

Um, but it's really unique type of habitat. It's, you don't see too much of that in Ireland. Like, you know, it's, yeah, keep an eye on that one. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay. Doonery forest park in cabin is that next up we'll play it now.  I let these recordings play out pretty much. Um, Even though some of them are two or three minutes long, but they're quite nice.

I don't know. Yeah, it's quite nice just to play the whole thing, I think. And just let them play through. Absolutely. Completely, yeah. 

So this is Dunary Forest Park. 

I don't know if you can see it, but there's a lot of birds in this video. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.  I won't be able to, but I will try. 

Now, I think the star of the show on there is probably Great Spotted Woodpecker. You can hear him drumming there. Yeah, you can hear him drumming in the distance, yeah. That was the first place I've ever seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker.  It was in, uh, Junior Reef Forest Park, yeah.  I was walking one day and I could hear this drumming and this is when I was doing the project with Cavern Arts.

And I was like, that has to be a woodpecker. And then I got onto Brian McCluskey and he was like, yep, that's definitely a woodpecker. So I kind of found out his favourite trees and put a few recordings around where he was drumming. And yeah, fantastic. It's great to see them all over. I have them here at my house now.

Really? Yeah, so they're pretty, just everywhere I think. Yeah, and again, for anybody who's listening maybe who's not familiar with, The status of grey spotted woodpecker in Ireland, it's only recently, recently colonized Ireland. It's, it's really going to the roof now, isn't it? It's expanding rapidly.

Expanding rapidly, yeah.  Anywhere that has a good, mature woodland is  a very good chance there's some woodpeckers, great spot woodpeckers in it. How many pairs roughly do you know about in Loudnow? I wouldn't know. There's definitely a pair up here, up here behind me. I've seen a male and a female and it's been, it's three years I've seen them.

I haven't found where they're breeding but they're definitely, they're definitely breeding. Yeah. Yeah.  The next species is actually one of my favourite species, it's Grasshopper Warbler. And this is recorded in Cavan, I think, is it? County Cavan, yeah.  I'll play that now. 

Another lovely recording.  Yeah, that was recorded in A mullabog in Kent, Calvin. It's a, it's a really, really nice intact raised bog. But, uh, the grasshopper was kind of my bogey bird for a long time  to record.  Yeah. Um, cause there's a couple of random dog bay, but they can be, they move around a lot in year to year, you know, they don't, they don't seem too loyal to their locations out in the dock.

I think  they can turn up pretty much anywhere. Pretty much anywhere. Yeah. And I was kind of, I was really hoping to pick, pick one up, walk around the fields and some scrub or, or, or  wetland edges, but I, I just couldn't come across them, but then I found a good, reliable site there in Calvin for them. So yeah.

Magnificent song. I couldn't believe it when I first heard it was a bird, you know? Yeah. They're amazing. I, I, I've never heard too many in Ireland myself, actually. Um, very few.  It is a nice bird to get anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Calvin, Calvin, County Calvin seems to be a good enough spot for them. You know, it's a lot of wetlands and.

Kind of scrub marginal habitat.  So the next, next recording is actually a very common species, but it's a particularly nice recording and it's a green finch garden roost. So I presume this is in your back garden, isn't it? Yeah. So this was last, this last winter, um, there was a roost of up to maybe 50 birds.

Um,  there's some,  uh, actually cherry laurel, which I kind of, I'm trying to convince my parents to get rid of it. Uh, but it, it seems the green finch like it for, um, roost sites, you know? Um, so I couldn't believe there was. Just a mass of them, but they, unfortunately, they didn't, they didn't come back this year for some reason.

They must have found, they must have found a better roost site.  Okay, I'll play the recording now, it's lovely. Yeah, yeah. So this is Greenfinch, , garden roost. .

 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of work to do. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. 

So that's very nice.  Yeah, quite a boisterous bunch of, um, green Finch there. Um, I always say to people, you know, just never pass anything common, you know, quite often if you're, if you're out sound recording, I often find that maybe I would just kind of, I might just stop and just point my problem or something.

And then later when you go home and edit your recordings, you realize the best recording of the day is maybe that, you know, maybe it was that flock of Greenfinch or a flock of Jackdaw or something simple you weren't really thinking about at the time. Absolutely. I found myself when I first started, I was recording everything.

But now I'm starting to get a bit more, like what you said, as in, oh, house sparrows. I'll just, I'll leave them, you know, and  there's loads of them everywhere. I don't need to record them. So, uh, I think that's when you get more experience into boardwatching, you start avoiding certain species, I think, to get, you know.

Yeah. Sometimes to your detriment. I actually went through my recordings. I think it was the winter before last. And I realized I only had three recordings of house peril, for example. Oh yeah. I only had two or three recordings of, you know, great hit a few. But I just said to myself, Oh yeah, I should have to go down and record these species properly. 

I think it's just because they're everywhere. You just kind of say, Oh, there's always a chance to record them. You know, if it's something rare, it's like, Oh, this is my only chance to record this, you know,  like there was some wax wings there and. Dundalk last week,  and, uh, I was in a mad, cause I've never, I've never seen Waxwings before.

So it was a mad dash to have a look at them. And then in the, in their whole rush of things, I forgot my recorder.  So they were probably quite vocal, of course, were they? They were very vocal. So I was absolutely kicking myself, but, um, uh, hopefully they, they take a spin back to Dundalk before the winter's out.

Bit of time yet. It's still March. You should have another month at least. Yeah.  So the next recording is absolutely fantastic. I love getting something a bit different day and, and this is very different. So this is homing surface or ABC and people are probably wondering what that is. So maybe you could just tell us about this recording before I play it. 

Yeah. So when I was doing the project for Calvin arts, I was walking around doing re with my par parable and I could hear this buzzing sound and I was like,  it sounds, it sounds like a Vuvuzela is, you know, those horns that are blowing the world cup when I was like. I hadn't a clue what it is, so I was walking through the understory and I found a source. 

Um, it was like an elder plant and it was just thousands of hoverflies. Like I'd never seen so many, and, uh, I could, when I was watching them, I could see one was landing on the leaf and just kind of vibrate in their wings.  And, uh, when I, when you focus the parabola in on it, it was just insanely and just real focus sound.

It sounded, when I was wearing my headphones, I was like, this is insane. And then I went home and did a bit of research and yeah, I think if I remember correctly, they're not a hundred percent sure why they do it. Um,  you know, it could be just their.  I don't know, relax, trying to stretch their muscles a bit or something.

I don't know.  I'll play it first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Here we go. So this is a humming surface with a BC. 

That's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it when I, it was so, it was so light. Even without the power bottle, it was incredibly loud. Um, yeah. And I, I remember researching it at the time and it is, it's a common sound in the summertime and woodlands.  Um, but they were all congregating around an elder.

Uh, plant,  and they're just Landing on to leave, uh, I think if I remember correctly, yeah, there were a hypothesizing that maybe it's their attempt to sound like a wasp or something  possibly you can hear it as different pitches as well. You hear this occasional higher pitch that actually seems to be quite kind of of a regular kind of frequency as well.

Yeah, interesting. I don't know enough about hoverflies to kind of, you wouldn't know what's going on there to be honest. Maybe somebody does know, but.  And if anybody does know, drop us a line, get them on, get them on the podcast, Alan, I'll let you know.  Okay. Uh, next one is another fantastic recording. It's very rare species in Ireland and it's quail.

And this comes from Barleyfields in Louth. Whereabouts was it recorded?  Just behind my house. Brilliant. Yeah. Didn't have to go very far. That's absolutely, you must've been delighted with this. I'll play it first and then we'll have a chat about it. 

Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. What time of the year did that turn up?  Um, that was recorded around August.  Okay, that late. I had actually picked up, I, I was pretty convinced it was the same bird in July or June or July. Mm hmm. Um, I actually picked it up on Nocmig. Um. And I was, I was a bit confused as like, am I recording, uh, a quail that's passing over  or is it, is it a local board?

And then I was like, no, it has to be, has to be a local, local board, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it must've stuck around there for about two months. And I,  well, it definitely, I don't know if it bred or anything like, you know. Yeah. I'd imagine if it's still singing in August, perhaps I hadn't attracted a mate, possibly.

I don't know. Yeah, well, that's true actually. Yeah, but I was blown away. I couldn't believe it.  Um, it's a fantastic record for loud. It is. Yeah. And I, I, I stitch a couple of recordings together because I find when they sing, they'll sing and it'll be like three minutes and then they'll sing again.  Yeah, they're very erratic.

Yeah, they're difficult to record and difficult, you know, quite often if they're in big open kind of variety fields, it's difficult to get a recorder close to them. Yeah, well, I was lucky there at the end. He came right up to the fence on the boundary of my house. He's like just right there singing was quite amazing, you know, but a lovely song.

Lovely song. Yeah, it's fantastic noise. I don't hear enough of. I've only ever heard on a handful of occasions. I want to try and get out more into kind of grassland next year, maybe. You for this summer, the male call to do as well. It was really nice. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.  Yeah.  Uh, the next one is a one that makes me homesick and that's curlew at C bank in love. 

Um, we'll play that for us and we'll have a chat about it. It's a lovely recording. This one. 

Yeah, we were talking earlier about, um, sounds to take you straight back to your childhood. And that's the one for me that just takes me straight back to being.  It's basically walking, walking to school in the morning in Dublin and hearing the curlew flying over. Oh, amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's such an evocative call, you know, and, um, I was very lucky.

I recorded that in the middle of, I think it was July and it, it, it, it, it seemed like there was only curlew. On the beach, you know, there was no other board, so it was really crystal clear recording, you know, because usually it's quite, you know, noisy, boisterous, there's gulls and different, different way.

Yeah, usually oyster catchers, any amount of oyster catcher allowed, um, but yeah, no, it's, it's a beautiful recording. And yeah, as you said, like sometimes sounds like that just take you back to your childhood or. Certain place in time in your life, it's a bit like music, you know, if you're listening to a track when you're a teenager and it comes under, I guess, straight back to a certain summer, a fine bird song can do that as well, you know, um, but yeah, it's just, yeah, it's a particularly beautiful sound, like you say, it's just one of those magical kind of sounds of nature, I think  unbelievable on, you know, it's, it's an absolute shame what's happening to the breeding curlew in Ireland, you know, it's, it's, it's, they're not.

Yeah. Just don't have much time left here. I think,  no, I don't. I think it's, it's a catch up game now. And I just hope they haven't left it too late. I think we're going to be looking at a remnant population for years to come. Of just a handful of pairs, I think so as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, um, what coming as, as I'm such a newcomer to board washing, I like,  I kind of didn't understand.

I was like, I see curly everywhere and it seemed quite common and I see them in the bog and Rd and they're calling and when people say they're going extinct, but I'd I didn't actually realize it was actually the breeding species that were  thought of  possibly part of the difficulty in raising awareness as well for people, because, you know, a lot of people in Ireland will actually hear that call all the time.

And therefore you kind of assume everything's fine, but they're actually wintering birds, wintering birds. Yeah. And like Ireland must be a very strategic location for them as a wintering site.  I mean, they. They breed all over  Northern Sweden. They're not a common breed. I mean, it's not a common breed or anywhere, but I mean, there's a lot of pairs in Sweden.

I think there's a massive amount of pairs in Finland  and further east. And we get birds from there in the winter.  And I mean, obviously the ground freezes in Northern Europe and they just can't feed.  Yeah, but there seems to be a steady stream of them streaming in 12 months of the year. I find like, you know, obviously peak there's peak periods of them, but you're always kind of guaranteed to see a couple around on doc, you know, and it must be failed breeders or whatever.

And we're moving around and yeah, Tom Cooney has done an awful lot of work in.  In the round loud now, and also on the bull islands over the years, and he's kind of uncovered a very interesting picture and kind of in summertime where you get kind of second calendar birds and Corley was one of those species.

That actually, you know, spend the summer in quite large numbers  on the East coast of Ireland. So it seems to be a very important site for, you know, kind of second calendar birds who aren't quite a breeding age. You get also black tailed godwit and a few other species, not as well as another one. So it's quite interesting.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tom's quite prolific in Nockmig, isn't he? I've, I've never met him before, but I've seen his track talent and it's quite, quite impressive. You know, he's, yeah, he's done a bit up around, uh, Rockmarshall and. Yeah. It's, it's quite interesting.  Yeah. We'll know we'll move on to another fantastic sound actually.

And that's, uh, I think it'd be familiar to pretty much everybody. And that's a Skylark. And this is song from North where a North marsh. So it's  crossing the spirit store and the docs there in the dock. Oh, no. Well, actually just for the rainbow goal hangs out.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one we play now.

So this is Skylark and I presume this is springtime. Is it? Yeah, springtime. Yeah, we'll play that now. So this is Skylark in song. 

Yeah, fantastic sound that.  Yeah, it's another one of my favorite bird songs, you know, um, which I only heard for the first time, maybe four years ago, you know, it's, they don't, they don't breed around where I live.  They kind of hang along the coast there and they breed along there, but I get loads of Skylark in the wintertime in the stubble fields, you know,  of course, they're not, they're not in song at that time, but. 

Yeah. It's, it's amazing how long to sing for. They can sing for like an hour or two hours. Yeah. It's incredible to watch them just staying up there and just the amount of energy birds put into song in general is quite incredible. When you actually realize when you're sitting there watching them going, this thing is just, it's been  just nonstop, especially Skylark.

Like, you know, when they go to, to go so high up, I often, you often can't see them, you know,  but amazing, amazing songsters.  Absolutely. They're just starting to return here now at the moment. The forest fjords are just starting to appear. They disappear here completely in the winter. Oh, okay. The winters are too harsh.

Yeah. They're one of the first migrants back with wood pigeon and stocked off. So the first year birds just came through on the last few days. So I find it mad that like, you know, there's migrating wood pigeon in Sweden, you know,  obviously because it freezes so hard, they can't survive there. Obviously, you know, yeah, it actually, it completely changed my kind of perception of what a migrant was when I moved here.

So things like Robin, Blackbird, Dunnock. They're all just, you see them pouring over in the autumn. It's incredible. That's amazing. You know, some, like some birds do stay field fair, pretty tough. Get a few of them here in the winter. Um, and some blackbirds, blue tits, woodpeckers and red poles. And that's about it.

A few finches, but basically anything that eats insects just leaves the country. Oh, okay. Fair enough. Yeah. But it was quite a harsh winter in Scandinavia, wasn't it? It was fair. We had a kind of a three week period of, you know, minus 15, 16 this year, which in recent years is unusual. It wasn't so unusual years ago. 

Yeah. Cause there was a big, like waxwing winter in Ireland and UK.  I presume it was the, well, it could, of course, they ran out of berries up there as well, like, yeah, that seems to be cyclic where they, the, the, the berry crop fails for whatever reason, or it's Rowan generally here that they rely on quite a lot and  in years for whatever reason, I think every three or four or five, six years, whatever it is, the, the berry crop isn't good.

And they just, you know, when it's going to happen, cause you'll see them moving through much earlier. Normally the, you kind of have them going to, they'll appear in Stockholm around late October normally, and you'll see them through kind of November, December,  uh, big numbers. And then they just kind of move further south, but if it's going to be an event, they moved to really early this year.

We were seeing them in early October, even late September, got a few.  Um, I was up North and Vasterbottom this year. I had a couple of days where I had two or 3000 moving south. And that was late September. So I knew something was up. Did you get any good recordings? I did. Yeah. Um,  a lot of them are quite distant, but I got, I have a lot of nice recordings from the, from the island up there.

So yeah, it's a lovely, it's a lovely call. It's, it's very kind of pleasant. It's not, it's not remarkable by any stretch of imagination, but it's very pleasant. It's like a little, yeah, it is a little better.  If you get a big flock, it's amazing, you know, it's, it's kind of phasing in and out of each other with all the sounds.

Yeah. It's like a doorbell. It's, it's, it's yeah. If you get more than 50, 60 birds, if you were lucky enough to get them, maybe in Dundalk, you might get a return passage there, you know, on the way back in the spring. Yeah, we have fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah. That's just  trying to get boots boots on the ground.

Lad's looking, you know  Next up we have, what have we got next? Common Swift.  So we have fly calls here. Where was this recorded? Yeah, this is in Carrick Macross, County Mullin. I lived there for a couple of years. Okay, very much a sound of summer I'll play it quickly 

Yeah, very much a sound of summer that one Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I was, I was, I don't know if you heard in that recording, but you can actually hear the,  the, the wings of the board cutting through the, the wind. It's like, like a little formula.  Yeah. Yeah. But there's a good reliable site where the nest and Carrick.

So I just went down one evening and had the parabolic dish and I got some good recordings. Okay.  So another first, I think this is the first mammal. I actually, maybe I played roadie or I'm not sure on the podcast before now, but this is soprano pipistrelle feeding, and this is slowed down. I'd imagine about 20 times, is it?

Yeah. I think it was a 10 or 20 times. Yeah. I think 10 times. Um, if I remember correctly, uh, I think I used audacity to slow it down.  Yep. And if anybody out there has never recorded bats or never tried it, it's, it's quite interesting to actually listen to these things when they're, when they're slowed down, I'll play it for you now.

It's soprano pipistrelle. 

It's an amazing noise. Amazing. Yeah. And that's, that's called a feeding buzz. It's basically like a, the bat kind of honing in. On the, on the insect that's flying as it gets closer and closer to the calls get shorter apart and then it eventually just, it's, it's kind of like a, you know, submarine or whatever, like, well, that's where the, I believe the developed technology for submarine was from bats, you know, echolocation, you know. 

Um, but yeah, bats are fascinating species. Um, the Soprano Pipistrelle, it's only, it's a tricky one as well because it's only about  three or four K higher peak frequency than a common Pipistrelle. Um, so you kind of have to see, you have to study the spectrograms pretty carefully, you know, um, but that was recorded with an audio mat and I find them amazing for recording bats.

Yeah, they're brilliant. They can record up to 384 kilohertz, you know, and yeah, and you can put a filter on them as well. So it,  you know, ignores all the lower frequencies. It's, they're really good. Yeah, I know better now. The first time I tried to record bats, I put the, uh, I recorded for kind of hours  at a stretch and I didn't realize how much actual.

You know, space that actually eats up in your heart, especially with the  sample rate is 384 kilohertz. It's going to use up a lot of space, you know? Yeah. Massive files, but it was incredible to pick up. The only species I picked up in Boston button was it was Northern serotonin, but it sounds very similar to that actually.

Yeah. A lot of them sound quite similar, you know? Um, but I need to get myself a heterodyne recorder. Um, yeah, I think so. Yeah. My thing's an awful lot easier. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But I really, I have to investigate bots more. They're fascinating. Um, yeah, I've only one recording left. We move on to that now in a minute.

I just wanted to ask you, Ashley, you know,  what has it meant to you personally? Just getting out the sound recording. What has it given you?  Um, it's, it's made me a better listener to be honest. Um, you know, um, I noticed things I'm more sort of grounded in my environment.  Um. You know, I find I'm starting to notice noise a lot more,  um, which is kind of a, a blessing and a curse, you know, um, humans are amazing at ignoring noise, you know, it's, I'm sure you've heard of the cocktail party effect. 

So we're at a cocktail party and there's loads of people talking and you can just ignore everybody else and just focus on the person you're talking to, you know, we've got amazing brains, we can filter stuff out, which is probably why the noise problem has gotten so bad, you know. But yeah, I think so at the same time, I think people, they hear more than they realize too.

So for example, the Swift recording we just played there, if you play that to somebody who was a non boarder, they probably recognize the sound straight away. Totally. Totally. And it's like the Yellow Hammer earlier on. I knew that song, but I just didn't know what board it was until a couple of years ago, you know?

Yeah.  I played Common Swift recording to a couple of people in work. It was a couple of years ago and they were like, Oh, that's that sound. That's I said, yeah. If you stick your head out the window right now, you'll hear it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just the sound of the summer in the middle of the city.

You know? Yeah. You hear it a lot in movies as well. Um, cause I used to do a bit of sound design for like animation and stuff. And I'm watching a movie and they're in a city. Yeah. They always have the Swifts in the background.  Well, at least they have the right species. Yeah. Well, yeah, they've, they've gotten that wrong a couple of times.

All right. Yeah. I think it was a David, David Attenborough. They had the wrong.  It wouldn't surprise me it's, it's one of my, uh, yeah, it's sometimes, you know, if you're watching a European movie and there's, you know, American birds in the background, it's, it's funny sometimes, yeah, yeah, that happens all the time.

Sure. They're, they're all using sound sample packs from the USA, you know,  that's it. So the last one actually is, um, song thrush and this is right outside your back, your back window. Absolutely.  Um, I kept this for last cause it's actually one of my favorite songsters. I love, they're coming back now, I'd say in the next week or two here in Sweden.

Um, every year I get out for, you get a kind of a week or 10 day kind of period where they're the earliest migrant back in the woods. So you get that lovely period where they're the only songster kind of really giving it socks in the woods and you can really get some lovely recordings. Yeah. They're usually the first board to start singing in Ireland or in the spring.

Yeah. It's a beautiful song as well.  I'll play it first. Here we go. So this is song thrush and Dean's back garden. 

So that's a wonderful recording, probably a very fitting way to  wrap up the podcast.  Yeah, one of my favorite songsters, you know, and they're, they're up so early, they're always one of the first ones up. So it's, it's, it's, it's quite easy to get some good recordings to song thrush. Yeah. The nice thing about them is they stay in the same place as well.

Yeah. That one was singing outside my window. Waking me up every morning. So  I knew her.  Yeah. They sometimes to go right to the night as well here. I don't know if they do the same there. Maybe it's because it's never, it's never quite dark enough. Is it? And yeah, I think when they arrive, especially for the first couple of weeks, they just sing around the clock at nighttime and they'll be quiet kind of in the middle of the day and possibly for a while.

But they put a lot of energy into when they first arrived. Don't know how to keep going. No, neither do I. Some of these words are incredible. And just from,  you know, thrush nightingale here in Sweden just blows my mind. It's just never stopped singing. It goes on for weeks. Amazing. It just seems like they just don't stop.

They must be absolutely exhausted by the end of it all, you know?  Yeah, it must be, it must be important to their success. Otherwise they wouldn't do it, you know? Yeah. I think they're just completely hard work when they, when they get back onto the breeding site, it's just, that's, that's all they're at. It's just, you know, get a surgery, sing, reproduce.

And that's, that's basically what they're about. Yeah. But it's amazing how tuned in they are to the seasons, you know, it's just  something, something just triggers in their, in their, their brain and they're like, okay, it's time for me to start singing that.  Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's about it. And I just, the last thing that remains is to thank you very much for coming on and sharing all of those wonderful recordings.

It's no problem. Fantastic. Um, just lovely to hear so many nice recordings in an Irish context, some amazing species. And it's very nice to hear some nice soundscapes from Ireland as well. Yeah, absolutely. And if, uh, thanks for inviting me on Alan and you know, if, if  more.  Musicians, uh, borders get out and start recording.

We'll get a fuller picture of the different soundscapes in Ireland, you know, cause there's only enough time in the day and I kind of stick around the Northeast. So it'd be nice if we got some field recorders in the Midlands and the North. So it's been very obvious to me that, you know, you, you know, your local area very well, obviously.

And you know, where those little pockets of habitat are. Quite interesting. And maybe, you know, have, have a little bit of cover and have plenty of birds. And I think most, most areas will have these little pockets where you can get like nice recordings of, you know, Dawn recordings and just a range of species. 

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and unfortunately in Ireland, it is just pockets, you know, it's, um, it's not a big expansive.  Network of habitats, really, you know, no, which is a little bit sad, but hopefully maybe  we'll see what happens in the future, but it would be nice if some of these, you know, muted rewilding kind of projects came to came to happen at some stage in the future, but we'll see what happens fingers crossed. 

Okay, Dan, that's it. Um, once again, thanks a million for coming on. It's been brilliant having you on. No problem, Alan. Thanks for inviting me on. Okay. I wish you all the best for the rest of the podcast. Thanks very much. And hopefully we'll be in touch again at some stage in the future. It's been absolutely brilliant.

Thanks, Dan. No problem, Alan. See you now.  Bye bye. Bye. 

 So there you go, folks. That's an interview with Dean McDonnell  it was fantastic to talk to Dean. And once again, I'd like to thank them for sharing all those wonderful recordings from Ireland. Now we have a lot of listeners in Ireland, probably because I know a lot of recorders in that part of the world. 

And it was very nice just to revisit Arlen's sort of sonically and listened to some of Dean's. Wonderful recordings. And they really did take me back to Arland, particularly some of the coastal stuff like the erasion corridor recordings.  He's incredibly interesting guy. Very very in tune with his local area. 

And although he's only started boarding in the last four or five years, Very very knowledgeable and he really does know his stuff. So once again, I'd like to thank Dan for joining us here at Hoyle bird acoustics. 

 That was quite a long interview on time is ticking by. So I won't waste too much more of your time. And I thank all the listeners once again, for tuning in to wild bird acoustics. Once again, I very much hope you have enjoyed the episode. 

As always we'd be back in a couple of weeks. Arma let's. Thank you all again for listening to us here at wild bird acoustics. Take it easy folks. 

 So that brings us to the end of another episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, and I hope you've enjoyed it. As always, you can find us on YouTube by simply searching for Wild Bird Acoustics. We do have a mailing list also, and if you want to be part of that, folks, you can drop us an email at wildbirdacoustics at gmail.

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We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more from Wild Bird Acoustics. Until then, take it easy folks. And as always, don't be afraid to get out into the field and relax and just listen to the wildlife out there. Maybe even do a little bit of field recording of your own.  We'll talk to you soon folks. Take it easy.

That's all from Wild Bird Acoustics.