Birdsong is one of the most joyous things in life, and we are coming up to National Dawn Chorus Day, which is Sunday May 11th. So we learn from Wings, the organ of Birdwatch Ireland or the Irish Wildbird Conservancy. (Why two names?) Anyway, the title alone of National Dawn Chorus Day is enough to lift the spirit. And more: the bird organisation will be associated with Derek Mooney's team of Mooney Goes Wild on One on that Day. Derek, accompanied by Jim Wilson of the bird crowd will record a dawn chorus at 4 am at Currabinny Wood, Carrigaline, County Cork, and you can hear it on the Mooney show at 2 pm that very day on RTE.
You may hear the chorus elsewhere yourself. Other similar events of early rising are being organised around the country. You might note, that of those listed in the Wings magazine, the only other 4 am show will be at Killiney Hill car park. Some places are happy with 7.30 or even 10 am. The breaking dawn, Wings assures us, extracts from birds a virtuoso performance. They may, prosaically, be simply marking out their territory, or looking for a mate, but we like to think of it as a burst of joie de vivre.
In the magazine, Oran O'Sullivan tells us where, in woodlands, various species are most usually to be found, including in "dead trees ironically bristling with life". With this goes a brilliant series of colour photographs by Richard Mills. You could take this new calendar event as an extension of Bealtaine, and a bit of light relief from the same. For Maire Mac Neill in her book The Feast of Lughnasa tells us that this was an anxious time - the cattle often had to be moved to summer pasture: booleying. And this is not a custom as far removed from city life as you might think. A house in the Dublin 6 area near the Dodder, according to the deeds, was originally called The Booleys: cattle from inner city farms spent the summer along its banks.