 And this is John Presley with you on Around the Northwest, just to remind you by the way that on the road between Lifford and the Manor Roundabout just to be careful at the moment there's been a very bad oil spillage and the advice is to take extra care there. Now let's talk nature because Ingus Kennedy of Nature Northwest joins us and is also joining us live on Facebook. Ingus, good afternoon to you. Good afternoon John, how are we doing? Good, good. Now the weather is taking a turn for worse and you know that obviously affects what's out in the round and affects things in nature. But up until about the last week or 10 days it's been a very mild winter overall and evidence of that it can be seen all around us. It can yeah, it's been a very mild autumn and then a very mild winter. I am particularly mild actually the last few weeks up until the recent bit of stormy weather and it's tricked a lot of nature. So it's a lot of the grass is still growing as the farmers will still tell you in a lot of places, especially the further south in the country in the country that you go. And a lot of the flowers are starting to appear a little bit further south of us, perhaps not so much in Donegal but a little bit further south of us. A lot of flowers are starting to appear very early actually and some of the birds are starting to sing. Now at this time of year you get the first few of the brave ones starting anyway and they get the see the longer day the more light availability. But definitely it's pronounced this year. I mean for centuries flowers have been blooming like clockwork and you know just things then come into life around about to May or June and it all looks fantastic. But since the early 1980s it's been revealed that a lot of plants have actually grown out of sync with the seasons. And that's due to climate change. It's due to the plants sort of being tricked into thinking that this is a different time of the year to what it is. Yeah that's it. Because of our climate change, because of our warming plant, it's completely, it's doing exactly as you say, it's tricking these plants. There's been a lot of study of this done in Ireland and a lot more again done in Britain. There's a science or a branch of science called phenology. And phenology is the study of bud burst of when things pop out and when things start to start to grow and when birds start to arrive and that kind of thing. So there's been phenology going on in Ireland for for the last 30 years or so. And this project has been going on in Glenvey National Park and a few other places around around the country. And they study when the birch tree for instance, when its buds burst and when the leaves fall off then in the autumn time they record this in various different places. And they're seeing that the growing season is just increasing and increasing the whole time. And in Britain what they have found is that the average flowering day is normally or well used to be the end of April. So when most flowers will have will have popped up right across the whole season, it's the end of April is when the average flowering time is. And that's now the beginning of April. So it's shifted by a whole month. And a lot of our flowers are starting to pop up earlier. And that gives us a bit of joy and a bit of hope with this time of year because February can still be a dark and stormy month. But it's not so good for the rest of nature because an awful lot of bugs come out specifically to feed on certain plants and certain flowers. And then an awful lot of birds will nest specifically to feed on those bugs. So it starts throwing off balances in the ecosystem. Yeah, and if the buds are coming out too early, then the harsh weather hits and they can be destroyed. Yeah, completely. So if we get some very cold frost in the next few days now, any little bugs that are out will be gone. And any little leaves that come out because when leaves start to come out in the next few weeks, they're that beautiful light, light green. And we'll talk more about that now as spring rolls on. But they're very vulnerable at that stage. Whereas a little bit later in the year, they're a bit tougher. So that first stage is when they're at the most vulnerable. But one thing that has started to come out now, and for anybody that's looking on Facebook, I'm just holding up a few of the little catkins. The little catkins, or a recently be told kittens they're called in in France are like little fluffy tails. And they are the male flowers of the hazel tree. And a lot of trees will flower before their leaves come out. And we don't think of trees like hazel trees having big showy flowers. And they're not particularly showy flowers, but they have those very, very beautiful bright yellow catkins. And all those catkins are full of pollen. And if you see one of those trees now on your walk, stop and have a little look, because in amongst those catkins, you will find some tiny, tiny red flowers. They're a deep scarlet color. And they're the size of a little match head. Think of those little red match heads that you see. And they're that kind of size, and they are there ready to receive the pollen, which will be wind blown, but they don't have to rely on bees, these guys. And those little flowers will turn into this year's crop of hazelnut, if it doesn't get too cold, if they don't get hammered by frost in the next few weeks. It was all dependent on on the weather so much depends on the weather and their climate. Yeah, very much so. And unfortunately, and climate change, of course, such a big topic at the moment and fuel costs and fuel heating and people feeling the pressures economically at the moment with all sorts of inflations. But one of the talks is, is the carbon taxes. What do we do about it? How do we tackle this climate change? How do we change behavior? And do we change our carbon taxes or not? And one thing that's for sure, I don't have the right answers for that. But one thing that's for sure is the climate is changing. And we do need to change our habits dramatically. We need to put in a huge amount of effort to do this, because we can see this, this change that's happening already. The phenology, the studying of that bud burst has shown that both in Britain and here, that it's knocking an awful lot of our nature out of the sink. Something else is synonymous with this time of the year is frog spawn. And the, you know, it starts to become a more common place. And I was just reading that the, the common frog is actually the only species of frog found here in Ireland. I thought we had different species of frogs, because you see different colors and obviously different sizes. But there's just the one. Just the one, they're amazing little creatures. And they've an amazing life cycle, the frogs. We've three different species of amphibians that are native to Ireland. And an amphibian, people often get confused with what an amphibian is, and they mix it up with reptiles. Reptiles are different, different types of animal, a different class of animal to amphibians. Amphibians are cold blooded, much like reptiles, but they've the ability to live in both water and land. And in fact, the word amphibian comes from amphibious. It's two Greek words, amphibious, which means living twice or the ability to live twice, because they have a unique little way of living that when they're young, when they're in their larval stage, that frog spawn, it turns into the little tadpoles. And then they turn into a very different kind of animal that is able to come up onto land, even though it still needs to be damp. But yet we've only the one species of frog, even though they vary in size, of course, depending on their age, and they can very much vary in color. And can they can vary in color because they can change their color to suit? They can slowly, but surely they can change their color to the kind of the kind of habitat that they're on. They're amazing little creatures. They don't fully mature until they're around about three years old. So you'll often see so the frogs will grow to six or seven centimeters, people will be familiar with them. But you'll see half size frogs, which are last year's frogs. And then you'll see little fellas in another few weeks, you'll see little fellas the size of your thumbnail by kind of April or May or so. And that's the brand new frogs that have just emerged from from their tadpole phase. So they can live to be three years and more. Yes. Well, three years, they're sexually mature. So that's when they start to breed. But frogs can live for six, seven years on average and sometimes even more, sometimes 10 or 12 years, which is kind of amazing for such a small creature. And they're hugely important. They're really important. It's bad for the frog now. They're really important food source for all sorts of different animals, lots of different birds, some of the mammals as well. But then also they play a big role for us because they eat a vast amount of pests, a vast amount of midges and other other little bugs that come out of water, come out of damp places. And we think and we know we've a lot of midges we would have an awful lot more if it wasn't for creatures like frogs, exerting their pest control for us. So they're breeding around now. And this so it'll be a bit early yet to expect to see any frog spawn. For us a little bit early and it'd be interesting to see if any listeners spotted any as yet. I'm already down in Cork and further down the country they've been spotted. In fact, if you go on to and any sightings like this you ever see, record them on Biodiversity Island. Biodiversity Island is a wonderful website and you can easily pop your records on there. And already they've had thousands of records so far this year. And the top three that they've had are are Robbins and frogs and well at least the top two they've had a huge amount of frogs already starting to record it down south of the country. Cork, Waterford places like that, where the spring comes around about two weeks earlier than it does for us. You'd expect to start seeing them by the middle of February for us. What happens is that the males will wake up and they will start to head from their slumber for the wintertime and they will start to head to the same pool that they bred in last year and for years and years they think it's by scent that they're able to find this and drivers in particular will notice this at night time they'll suddenly be but three, four, five nights or so where there'll be loads and loads of frogs crossing the road, crossing the ditches, crossing everywhere just trying to make a beeline to that pool where they were where the waiting females will have arrived there and the males will then arrive they'll croak and croak away calling the females and they'll try and breed with them. And just explain the cycle to me it goes from the spawn into tadpoles and then the tadpoles grow until about when? And the tadpoles grow then takes them around about 10 weeks so it's an amazing little cycle so once they've been hibernating pretty much or in a torpor all winter long underneath piles of logs piles of sticks that kind of thing because we often talk about having messy bits in your garden it's one of the many many reasons that you should because those frogs might still be asleep under those messy bits in your garden right now and when they wake up they've one thing in their mind and they make the way to that to that pool you'll you'll hear if you get to those pools just for the couple of weeks it's an amazing sound but it only lasts a few days really and you'll hear the males calling calling calling calling and then they will attempt to breed with the females the females will lay at least two thousand eggs the frog spawn and the males then fertilize those immediately at the same time and then all the males all the females they scatter they distribute and they go out about the damp parts in our gardens the damp parts in our forests in our fields and they eat up the bugs for us but meanwhile those little eggs and that's one of the things that makes amphibious creatures amazing a little bit different because they're the egg is effectively an embryo it's a free formed embryo that is living in the water and it starts off this tiny little egg and has to develop utterly on its own and develops into the little tadpole creature of course that we know with the little with the little tail and it becomes carnivorous it will eat other bugs that are in their midgy larvae things like that they've even been known to feed on tadpoles other tadpoles if there isn't enough food and after about 10 weeks but that can that can be slower and considerably slower if the weather is cold if we get a cold spring but after about 10 maybe 12 weeks or so those tiny little froglets will emerge the tails will start to shrink back into the body and the front legs first common in the back legs and then they hop out size your thumbnail and they'll start to spread around and we're used to seeing them hopping around but they're they're good swimmers as well really good swimmers really good swimmers so again one of those things for that amphibious nature is that they have gills under the water so that stage when they're that little free free formed embryo swimming around the place they have gills that the ability to to take oxygen out of the water a bit like fish but then once they emerge out of the land they developed very basic little lungs and they're able to breathe they're a little bit like we can but they can also take air in through their skin they can take oxygen in through their skin and so they'll be in damp places and we think of frogs in pools all the time over the next few weeks they will be but they're not necessarily in pools the rest of the time they are in damp places in wet places and but they'll be scattered all over the countryside and it's one of the problems that things like frogs have things like nutes have which look like tiny little lizards but they're actually water creatures or damp creatures as well is that we drain so many areas and in our kind of quest to try and drain out and clear up our gardens or clear up our fields and not leave those little damp areas we're wiping out these creatures and we're wiping out their habitats basically and then of course we're wiping out their ability to be able to eat those pests for us Texas says could you please ask Ingus why crows circle around in hundreds these days in the one place Crows are very social creatures and at this time of year they're already starting to think of the breeding season like quite a few of the birds actually quite often younger birds in particular last year or the year before his generation will be the ones that'll be starting to sing now and starting to try and practice their their breeding rituals I suppose and crows are no different they'll communicate with each other all year round oftentimes in the evening time where there's big flocks of crows you'll hear them it can be very dramatic can be thousands of them gathering together and they believe that they're exchanging information about where dangers were where good feeding grounds were but also at this time of year of course they're starting to form their bonds as well and they're starting to pair up with their partners they're starting to rebuild nests that they've used in the past so it's an optimistic sign I think when you see that because and watch out you'll start by if you're looking for the crows you'll start spotting them with little twigs in there in their beaks from now on and that's them starting to get ready for spring which we're all looking forward what about birds smaller birds in our gardens how is that at the moment I mean you know we're still not out of the woods with you know in terms of harsh weather and possible snow and frost so what is all the numbers been like this year yeah well those numbers have been good the Irish bird watch Ireland garden survey did very well there's a lot of participants actually took partners which was great and I haven't seen the final results from them but the numbers of visiting birds are still high so you look at the birds that your bird feeder hopefully most people listening now are feeding birds leaving out some peanuts and some other food for the bird and you'll get great rewards by all the chaff inches and the blue tits and the great tits and whatnot that come but a lot of those birds in particular the little chaff inches which have the little white wing bars they'll have come from possibly different countries altogether they'll come from quite far away to hang out in your garden and to feed in your garden and they're not pairing up quite yet but anybody that's really been watching them over the last week or two might start noticing now that the colours on a lot of those small birds are starting to become a bit more brilliant and in the next few weeks the fighting that they'll have they're always little tussles for the food of the bird feeders or wherever you see them in your garden but the fighting will become a little bit stronger a little bit more pronounced as they also the hormones start to kick in and they start to think of pairing up but at the moment they're still very much in survival mode and they have to be don't be kidded by the song trust that's singing at the moment the blue tits have started singing most of the other birds haven't as yet and of course our migrants haven't arrived as yet very soon the swallows the willow warblers will be making their way back up across Africa to head up towards us but at the moment it's still winter time for those birds okay brilliant well more information online at your website wealth of information at naturenorthwest.ie Ingus Kennedy as always thanks so much for joining appreciate it thanks very much John do you currently have vacancies that need urgently filled have you tried various ways to find new thanks Ingus thanks Amil all right sure we'll uh you didn't come on the screen there in the end didn't didn't have time to set it up actually um I see Porek's name up there so uh I'll get that get that sort of for next time so uh you had mentioned before about um maybe doing a little video or beforehand to promote only a second when we say all job listings will be available online