Nature's orchestra is at its full-throated, scintillating best on clear spring mornings. Most people are asleep or going about their business, however, and miss the magic. Not so Ernie Lyons, a dapper songwriter, recording engineer and producer, who has forged a highly successful and unusual career out of taping the "sounds of the wilderness".
Ernie, a northside Dubliner by birth, lives with his wife Elizabeth and children, Darragh (13) and Ciara (11), in a refurbished and extended cottage on the edge of a conifer forest at Glenisland, about eight miles from Castlebar, Co Mayo.
Living so close to the forest amongst mountains and valleys is ideal for a man who is at his happiest when holding his microphone out to nature. The resulting sounds are mixed on a recording desk in Ernie's home before being put on CD for Ashmore Willow Music in Canada. After that, it is the task of wizard Canadian-based producer Sam Reid to compose a suitable instrumental accompaniment for the recordings.
The Ernie/Sam alliance, first forged in the 1990s when Ernie lived in Canada, is a winning one. Together they brought out a memorable series called Sanctuary, which has sold extremely well, particularly in the United States and Canada.
The many birds and animals recorded by Ernie on his portable DAT machine, both here and in Canada, include blackbirds, thrushes, pigeons, wolves and crickets.
He can be also be spotted, earphones on head and parabolic microphone dish (to magnify the sound) in hand beside languid streams, capturing the soothing sound of inland water. He spends time beside the Atlantic, too, mostly in Achill, to capture the beat of the waves as they tumble on isolated shorelines.
Once, he risked being hit by lightning to record a thunderstorm, and the resulting soundtrack was both moody and dramatic.
Born and raised in Marino, Dublin, Ernie emigrated to Canada in the 1960s to make his living there as a musician. He jumped at the chance of doing wildlife recordings and spent years in the wilderness, dodging bears and "huge, bloodthirsty mosquitoes".
A former school pal, Colm Rapple, the well-known financial journalist, who has a holiday home at Burren, Castlebar, introduced Ernie to Co Mayo and, like Colm, Ernie was smitten.
The Lyons family used the Glenisland cottage as a holiday home for years before moving there full-time recently. Elizabeth was born in Holland, but has lived most of her life in Canada.
"One morning, I awoke to hear the cuckoo singing on a tree outside", Ernie says. "All I had to do was poke my microphone out through the window."
Much to his regret, Ernie has been unable to record frogs in Ireland. "There are tons of them around, but they are just not calling," he says.
Another disappointment is that he has been unable so far to record the distinctive sound of the corncrake, which is an endangered species.
"I hear corncrake numbers in Donegal, particularly, are improving," he says. "Hopefully, I'll be packing my gear and heading north next June in anticipation of what I'm told is a beautiful performance."