Irish Examiner view: 'Dawn Chorus' an opportunity to savour

RTÉ's 'Dawn Chorus' highlights the wonderful diversity of Irish birds, such as robins, sparrows and warblers. 

The annual avian extravaganza that is RTÉ’s Dawn Chorus gives the public an opportunity to savour the beauty and vibrancy of our native birdlife.

This year’s event, last Saturday was no different, highlighting yet again the wonderful diversity of Irish birds: Robins, sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, wood pigeons, wrens, and warblers. So too the songs of our seabirds — gannets, puffins, kittiwakes, razorbills, terns, cormorants, and godwits.

But if there was a single birdsong that will delight us more than all of the above, it would be the song of the corncrake.

Thanks to new environmental initiatives, this migrating bird, which was once seen in every parish in Ireland before being confined to select areas of the western and north-western seaboards, is making something of a comeback.

Although the Irish corncrake population was decimated by as much as 96% since the 1970s, numbers have stabilised recently to the point where there are between 150 and 200 nesting pairs. That these birds are still with us is a near miracle, but thankfully it is still a unique element in our native birdscape.