A Wild Irish Year

As we retreat indoors and turn up the heat, our resident wildlife must remain outdoors, braving the harsh weather ahead. Those who can prepare, do, before retreating to the relative comfort of their Winter refuge. Others must struggle on and adapt to the harsh conditions ahead, when food is scarce and the weather develops a mean streak/bares its teeth. In this final episode we will take a look at Ireland’s smallest mammal, the Pygmy Shrew. These little warriors must struggle on throughout the winter, feeding around the clock. We follow a fisherman as he departs the unpredictable Donegal coast for a 12-hour shift and meet a farmer who spends his winter preparing his farm for the year ahead. And as Spring beckons, a sound echoes through the woods of Wicklow, not heard in Ireland for several hundred years, the drumming of Woodpeckers is a welcome indication that Winter is finally drawing to a close, with the promise of Spring stretching out ahead.

Autumn is a season of change, migration and frantic activity in the natural world. As days shorten, it’s fight or flight time. The animals who travel must prepare for the journey ahead and those that stay must build up food reserves to see them through to the following spring. We visit a woodland to reveal the autumn palette in all its glory. Stunning fungi emerge from rotting vegetation, deciduous trees put on a dazzling display of colour and our native red squirrel scamper through, stockpiling for the months ahead. We meet a family of lively badgers who make the most of the milder Autumn nights to fatten up. We take a look at our night sky and why Autumn is the best time of year to take a closer look at our tiny corner of this universe. As a change sweeps across the landscape our presenters will be right there following the wildlife as they migrate, adapt and prepare to batten down the hatches and ensure their survival.

Summertime and the living is easy, so the famous lyrics claim, but not quite so for the natural world. As human family routines relax and the focus moves to holidays, the natural world cannot afford such luxuries and it pushes into overdrive. From nesting birds to hatching insects, feeding whales to playful cubs – the summer season is all about the next generation. In episode 2, Eoin shares his love of Bees as he reveals the complex process of honey making in his beehives. Tara brings us the story of the Curlew and its catastrophic decline in the Irish countryside, while Rob brings us his personal favourite Irish animals, lizards – both those with and without legs! We meet a sheep shearing family who travel the farms of Ireland getting their sheep ready for the summer ahead and a whale watcher who wandered onto the Dingle Peninsula 25 years ago and hasn’t left since.

What better way to open the series than with Spring, the season of new beginnings, time to dust off the cobwebs and get outside again. As the countryside sheds its winter coat, the arrival of spring is heralded right across the island and our presenters will reveal the best our newly green countryside has to offer. From the glorious haze of a bluebell filled woodland, to the deafening dawn chorus of an April morning. From the mass gatherings of seals on our offshore islands to the gentle awakening of our humble garden snail, and from the arrival of our tiny migrants all the way from Africa to the first hatch of insects on our midland lakes, this episode will highlight the abundance of new life emerging all around us. Along the way we will explore our ancient seasonal traditions with the fire celebration of Bealtaine and meet people whose work is determined by the natural seasonal cycle. As the days lengthen and temperatures rise, nature springs into action.