ERIC DEMPSEY

EOIN BUTLER talks to broadcaster, author and ‘twitcher’ Eric Dempey.

EOIN BUTLERtalks to broadcaster, author and 'twitcher' Eric Dempey.

Bird watching . . . What's the point?It's impossible for me really to put into words the buzz I get from it. Taking an interest in birds, in their arrivals and departures, is a primitive instinct within us. Thousands of years ago, the arrival of the first swallow of the spring would have meant that better times were coming. Even today, the first swallow and the first cuckoo of the year are always noted in the letters page of The Irish Times.

But why not cow watching or sheep watching?Well, birds are wildlife. And as wildlife goes, they're probably the most accessible form. If you were looking for foxes or badgers you'd have to get up in the middle of the night, put on camouflage, stay down wind of them, and so on. With birds you just put up a bird feeder in your garden and they come to you. You can pursue that interest to whatever level you like – from the lay person who feeds them in their garden, to the ornithologist who studies them, to the artist who paints them, to the person like myself who does a bit of everything.

We're in the National Botanic Gardens this morning. What birds might we expect to come across here?The birds we'd see here – the chaffinch, the blackbird, the starling – they're all Scandinavian birds. But we could also come across a species of bird that's never been seen in Ireland or even Europe before. If that doesn't excite you, if that doesn't just make you think 'Wow!' then there probably isn't much more I can do to convince you.

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Are birds that were in my garden last summer the same ones that will return?Absolutely. The swallow that nested in your garden last summer is probably in South Africa right now. In a couple of months he'll fly over the Kalahari desert, up the Gulf of Guinea, across the Sahara desert, around the Atlas mountains and into Spain. He will then fly 900km across open ocean and make his way, not just to your county, or your parish, but to the very same garden he nested in last year. In fact, if the house has been in your family for generations, he'll likely be the direct descendant of the swallows that were there when your grandfather was a child.

What's the longest migration undertaken by any bird?It's interesting. Until recently, it was assumed that birds island-hopped. That is, that they stopped off regularly along the way to get food. But the old tags we used weighed about 20g, so it was like having a millstone around the bird's neck. But satellite tagging is now so light that, last year, a Bar-Tailed Godwit was clocked flying 11,600km from Alaska to New Zealand. That was nonstop – there's nowhere to come down. It took her 12 days. That a bird is capable of doing that . . . I dunno, it just blows my mind.

  • Eric Dempsey is author of Complete Guide to Ireland's Birdsand the recently published Finding Birds in Ireland(Gill Macmillan, €29.99)