On the box: Bird’s-eye viewing the new reality TV
A leading ornithologist said the huge popularity of RTÉ Radio’s Mooney Show Nestwatch, coupled with the sale of bird boxes complete with webcams in the supermarket Aldi, has sparked the new trend.
Eric Dempsey, from birdsireland.com, said the footage has opened people’s eyes to the heroics of birds like blue-tits and swallows in trying to feed a nest full of starving chicks.
He said: “It’s compulsive viewing. People have been telling me they are just glued to the goings-on in the nest.
“It’s incredible to watch what is going on inside in the nest. It is real life and death. It’s given people a great awareness of the struggle of these birds.
“The Mooney Show has given the nest webcam enormous exposure and people all over the country have them now.”
He said Aldi helped to spark the trend by selling bird boxes with in-built cameras. “When they went on sale in Aldi, everyone started buying them. It has become huge over the past year or so.”
Mr Dempsey, the author of The Complete Guide to Ireland’s Birds, said the cameras give a remarkable insight into some off the more bizarre goings-on inside nests.
“My father-in-law saw a sparrow arriving into a swallow’s nest one evening recently. There were five swallow chicks in there and he just settled into the nest despite the best attempts of the two adult swallows to get rid of it.
“It was settling in for the night but it eventually moved on. It was very unusual. He could have recently left the nest himself and heard the begging calls of the swallows and felt more comfortable in a nest with other chicks than out in the big bad world.”
He said schools all over the country have also become captivated by the nesting activities. “One school I went to had the webcam set up and it was beamed into a television in the school corridor.”
