Ornithologist Seán Ronayne is on a mission to record the call of every bird species in Ireland – that’s nearly 200 birds. At once inspiring and cautionary, his journey reveals the beauty and importance of sound, and what listening can tell us about the state of our natural world.
SYNOPSIS
Thirty five year-old ornithologist Seán Ronayne from Cobh, Co Cork has an acute ear and a passion for the natural world. After compiling a list of 195 ‘regularly occurring’ bird species in Ireland, he sets out to record each one. But what begins as a recreational personal project transforms into an urgent environmental mission.
Seán’s recordings – many the first of their kind – reveal stark realities of our biodiversity and climate crises, and provide a poetic record of a vanishing, vital part of our world.
Shot over 18 months, Birdsong focuses on Seán’s attempts to capture some of Ireland’s most elusive species and soundscapes in some of the country’s most beautiful and remote locations: the busy seabird colony of Skellig Michael, a native woodland free from road noise in the Burren, the corncrake stronghold of Tory Island, a murmuration of 100,000 starlings in the Midlands, and a solitary nest on a windswept Donegal mountain, belonging to a species on the cusp of extinction.
Seán’s journey illuminates the language of birds – their use of calls, alarms, songs, and incredible moments of mimicry – and sheds light on why Ireland’s ecological health is considered the worst in Europe, despite its reputation as the Emerald Isle.
Along the way, we get to know Seán, who was recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. With the support of his girlfriend Alba, he learns to appreciate his singular focus and hypersensitivity to sound, and to overcome his social anxieties to share his findings with the world.
