Silence of the corn bunting

SILENCE, the movie by Cork-born film-maker Pat Collins, is in the cinemas at present.

Filmed in the west of Ireland, it celebrates the few places still free of man-made sounds.

The stars of the piece are birds. Curlews whimbrels and snipe sing and drum as the camera pans lovingly over Lough Hyne, Mullaghmore and Tory. Landscape, it proclaims, offers more than a visual experience; there’s an aural one as well.