 North West and I'll talk nature and some of the things associated with good weather and all the things besides any Angus good afternoon to you Good afternoon John lovely day Great day again, and good to see it to just to remind people as well that we're streaming this as well online If anybody wants to have a look now the good weather is bringing more of us out to the beach And what that comes a few things that we supposedly need to be aware of because we've heard a lot in the last week about the jellyfish and also about a little Jellyfish can be hard but sometimes but also there's a really sneaky fellow that lies in the sand and he gave you give you a right bit of a sting Yeah, there is the the weaver fish. It's called and It's one of those things when we venture into into nature's world or outside of our own comfort zone I suppose we're venturing into the world of other characters that have been living there in some cases for Millions of years depending on the type of species and getting on with their business very well until we come along And we've a fish they bury themselves onto the sand waiting for their prey. They're very small little fish But right on the sand at low tide, so it's only at the lowest tides that you'll come across them Why do they hide in the sand? What can what kind of prey? I mean, they're not they're not after our feet So why do they hide in there? What are they looking for? Yeah, well the oceans remarkable the amount of stuff that's in the ocean that we can't see the mental life the ocean Holds so we all know how important the tropical rainforest is for oxygen for instance And you can ask any child or any school they'll tell you rainforests and trees give us oxygen But only half of the oxygen comes from the rainforest the other half comes from a little more than half actually comes from plankton In the sea and plankton is the general word for small stuff in the sea really some plankton are plants and they photosynthesize They capture carbon and give us oxygen and some plankton Then our tiny little creatures that that prey on other plankton and of course that the basis for the food chains all around the sea So they keep the seas healthy and some of these little creatures little tiny shrimps and whatnot would fall prey to the weaver fish okay, and You can pack a right punch and you can get you know nasty enough sting and there's you know better swelling What's the advice if you do get just done by a weaver and you don't know because they're They're they're so well a camouflage and you don't know what happened and how you got jabbed or how you got stung Yeah, if you're going in that thing to remember is it's only really at low tide and quite often only at the very lowest tides And every every two weeks with with the new moons and the full moons We get a bigger range of tide higher high tides and lower low tides and they call those that the spring tides do it spring at all That's an old Scandinavian word for sprung and to rise So it's it's the biggest tides the highest highs and the lowest lows So if you're heading out into the beach and it's a very low tide and around Donegal That's normally around about lunchtime if it's low tide around about lunchtime You know you're near a full moon or a new moon always in Donegal on our coast And and that's where you might come across the weaver fish If ever I was going in or I was going in with children I'd ask them to just kick their feet a little bit stomp their feet a wee bit as they go in because the weaver fish It's just underneath the surface of the sand But it'll feel those vibrations and it'll scuttle off because it does not want to get stamped on And if you do end up stamping on it yet, they have little Little spines in their fin at the back and some of those spines hold a bit of poison Which if they go into into your the soldier fortune, you'll know all about it You feel they give you goodbye and a bit like a jellyfish or warm water is good if you do get a sting as hard as you can bear There's not a huge amount you can do about it as hard as you can bear I've been stoned by weaver fish myself and I remember So it's a hot as hot water as you can bear it will go down after a couple of hours It's very unusual for people to have any more than a sore reaction to it So it's the kind of thing you keep in mind come out of the water I am but try and find whatever local premises nearby and get us hot water as you can and that some say that draws out The poison perhaps that's true. Perhaps that's not but certainly that extra heat helps ease the pain In your foot, but after a couple of hours, it'll be gone and you won't know any more So make a bit of not make a bit of noise as you've witnessed. It's just a little tight and make a make a Make a bit of make your presence felt and make your presence I know so to remember the first they're not on all beaches by any means see we'll get them in some beaches around Donegal and but majority beaches don't have weaver fish and the lifeguards It's well worth asking if there are lifeguards there and all the lifeguards are there seven days a week at the moment It's a great service on all of the the blue flag beaches and some of the other ones as well And ask them talk to them about it and they'll tell you if there was weaver fish in that area I'm not but it is a low tide pink. It's pretty unlucky if you stand them So don't let it put you off get into the sea get out and enjoy it somewhere is passing by and we finally got warm weather So get out and enjoy the nature Something else that shouldn't put us off is jellyfish, but it often does but they they're only caught Really a major cause for concern when you see big concentrations of them And there's been talking last week or two about Portuguese Manowar I think if one of these is spotted off the coast, it's like there's a national alert Yeah, there's I think don't they call it silly season for news this time of year I suppose there's not a huge amount perhaps in the headlines and some of the some of the media outlets like to grab these headlines and make Them dramatic and yet we get lots of different types of jellyfish always have we always will perhaps they're increasing in numbers That might be the case all right and there's a few different reasons why that might be so But the thing to remember is one of the most common jellyfish the moon jellyfish has those kind of purpley pink rings on them for purpley pink Rings and other than that they're see-true. They can't sting you at all. It's they're completely harmless So if you see them, they look a bit weird. They look very beautiful and they're in the water But they've no brain. They've no heart They're just they're incredible these things that these jellyfish evolved over 300 million years ago And they're still sharing the sea with us now and while we're sharing the sea with them I suppose they've been here so long and so they are incredible creatures and they're their food source for a lot of different things Especially when the smaller and but the purple ones which is the most common don't sting it whatsoever And the ones that look a bit like the spokes of a wheel or a compass wheel the compass jellyfish Which is the brown lines coming out from the centerpiece The spokes of a bicycle wheel perhaps and they can give you a mild sting all right, but again, it's nothing That wouldn't be able to put you off, you know Okay All right, let's turn to birds and there's the common craze in the news today because two of them have successfully hatched two chicks Rewetted people and they haven't said where these are I don't know somewhere, but it's it's great news because they haven't read in Ireland for years Years and years yet. They were Hundreds of years yes, and since they're since they were breeding here now there was two Chicks hatched last year for the first time. There was a pair in midlands and in and rewashed bogs as you say and they attempted and to To have a couple of chicks or tempted to have a family for a couple of years wasn't successful last year It was the chicks got predated. They think this year if that's great again to hear that there's two pairs There were something that was native to here and like so many different things They they were under ferocious pressure as humans expanded as we drain the bogs to turn some in for our Agriculture sometimes for fuel and and bogs are often in the news these days People get very emotional about turf cutting and the rest of it, but no matter what way you slice it or dice it It's it's bad for the air. It's bad for the environment It's bad for the planet and it's bad for nature might be good for your household builds But that's that's all that's good for unfortunately. So a lot of these rewetting projects are going on and not just in the midlands But in in in Dunningall as well and where they rewet the bogs They bring the water table back up and it acts then as a bug again It's able to capture carbon act as flood control But also the unique biodiversity the unique nature that lives on bogs is able to come back and these cranes are showing the The success of that program. Yeah, absolutely and in general At the moment, I suppose there's a lot of small birds and leaving the nests and you know making their way So keep an eye out for them Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because the cranes are of course the opposite. They're huge and sometimes people call herons cranes and herons are the big gray Characters with a big long beak and you'll see them standing very very still the sides of rivers Whereas the cranes are even bigger than that again And they're much lighter in color. Whereas this time of year are hedgerows Any little wild bits that pushes the shrubs around us and you'll hear the birds you'll hear them cheap cheap Cheeping they've stopped singing so much, but there's a huge amount of baby birds There's more birds now of course than any time of year And they're relying on those hedgerows for shelter. I am first because they're juvenile birds. They're only trying to figure it out Um, and they're relying on for food That's where they'll get the most amount of insects Which is what they're eating and caterpillars and in some cases little berries and whatnot But also you've got to remember the parent birds at this time of year The parent birds are changing their whole suit of feathers So they're molting all of their feathers so they're not able to fly nearly as well as normal So again, it's the reason why those hedgerows are so important for them But if you do find the baby birds if you find something that's just really really Reason to come out of a nest leave it alone because mum and dad are watching you But they won't come over to uh to it as long as you're there if you have a cash Lock up the cash cats or disaster that they they wipe out huge amounts of birds handy for other things But they wipe out huge amounts of birds But leave leave the the baby bird alone If it's somewhere you think it'll get damaged you could scoop it up and pop it under a hedge But don't move it far because mum or dad are watching and they'll feed them for about two weeks After they come out of the nest until they're they're independent Okay, you think you're doing good and you look around and you don't see mammy or daddy And you want to take you know take it home and nurse it and give it hot milk or whatever But really just you know Move it into safety and leave it Yet because they've an amazing ability a lot of the small birds They if a cash or a human and cutting a hedge or somebody interferes with their their home Even before they can fly they burst they tend to burst out of their nest But they can do if they're disturbed a bit too early So sometimes you will come across birds this time you're hopping around on the ground They can't fly at all But it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them though And mom and dad is still feeding them and we'll try and coax them back into shelter and you'll hear mom or dad sometimes If you ever see mom or dad, we were watching this and of course that was doing last week We were watching a pied wag tail the ones the black and white birds the little wagging tail on them And you could see it calling calling calling trying to lure its chicks out of the nest It had food in its mouth So it was trying to tempt them to do that first jump and then as I say they feed them for that couple of weeks And after that they're on their own I already see lots of young coltits and robins and blue tits in particular in my garden The coltits and blue tits gone up to the feeders and they don't look like their parent birds for that first few weeks They tend to be much more Browny greeny type colors much more camouflaged the robin for instance doesn't have a red breast for the first few weeks It has a speckled front. So it looks like a mini thrush And then come autumn time it'll develop that red breast and start looking for its own territory Well, it's got nothing to do with birds, but it's called cuckoo spittle Well, that's all I've ever heard of called growing up and you see it sitting on the top of the leaves and plants and stuff and And it's it's got nothing to do with the cuckoo No Yeah, and it's quite late actually this year But we've had a very damp and very cold spring and early summer So there might be a reason why those are so late normally you'll start seeing those from the end very pull onwards And that's that little balls of or little little blobs of white foam And you'll see on the wildflowers on the plants around about in your garden when you're out and about for a walk You'll see them all over the place all over the country And they usually emerge as the cuckoos are arriving So people used to associate the two I suppose And hence it's called cuckoo spittle and I sometimes laugh with the school groups that I'm with Saying that the cuckoos might evict other people's children and take over a home and get Mom and dad to feed them from another family, but they're not so rude that they'd spit No, they're not that no So it's not their spit at all, of course It's the a little bug called frog hopper and the frog hopper Eats the sap of the plant most bugs are attacking plants some bugs that are attacking them and so on But the big big danger for plants apart from humans, of course is is bugs is insects loads of insects We're trying to eat different types of plants. So the easy way at the sap they don't seem to injure the plants too much So it's not something you have to worry about if it's on on a flower that you like But then they blow out these bubbles these frothy bubbles and when they're very small And and they cover themselves those bubbles perfect for the bit of heat That's supposed to be coming and also perfect to trick that baby robin That's looking around for its food to eat it wants to eat hundreds of bugs a day So the cuckoo spit bug needs no head of hide So they're going to be normal part of our ecosystem and no way harm us No, yeah, now there's there's been some headlines in some of the british magazines and british papers And they were getting worried about it. There is a bacteria on continental europe It's not an issue in argon whatsoever There's a bacteria that can damage plants and it's sometimes found in cuckoo spit Or they believe it can be transferred from cuckoo spit to cuckoo spit And that that hasn't never been detected in britain certainly never in ireland But there was it must have been another slow news day There was big warnings about it and it's a pity that kind of thing It does make people look but in a negative way and it put negative association Whereas those bugs they're completely harmless and when children go fishing in them with their finger And they find these tiny little green characters with these with these two little tiny black eyes Walking slowly around the fingers. They love them and then when those bugs get a bit bigger They'll get about not quite a centimeter long and they go a bit browner And then they don't need to produce those bubbles anymore because they can hop the frog hopper They can hop many many times their own body height. I am and that's the way of escaping, but they're no they're no danger They're not a danger to plants. They're certainly not a danger to us. So A caller asks did we have at one time yellow wagtails in dunagall and memories of staying in back in the 80s Yeah, so there's there's three different wagtails that we have well four actually There's white on the and the pides that they're quite similar to each other But then there is one that you'll often get down in the rivers and that they're very specific to riversides And in fact in remelting the town i'm living in and we have them there and we have them in a lot of rivers I was up in glenn evan waterfall last week and there was some of them there as well They're called gray wagtails the gray the top half the body is gray the bottom half is yellow bright bright yellow And and you see you'll often see them in the rivers But if you're not looking into the river if you're walking past with the headphones in or you're busy thinking about whatever If you're not looking around for the nature you won't notice them because they're right there beside you Flipping around and then there is also a bird called the yellow wagtail, which is yellow all over there They're unusual. I've seen them in the midlands in the lakes in the midlands That's the only place i've ever seen them. There isn't a huge number them. I haven't seen them in dunagall But look into the rivers always stop whenever you pull up in a town anywhere else Put your head over the wall and look into a river Because there's there's dippers in there. There's kingfishers. There's wagtails There's birds that that you won't find Literally a few meters inland from from the from the river of the watercourse Well, we're melt we're melting a good place for that down on the king for sure Uh, finally in because i want to ask you about something that looks like a strawberry But i don't think that it is it's it's like an orange strawberry and i see these going in the white And an awful lot of them. Have you any of you are there? Yeah, and there's are they quite big quite bushy so it was tallest or stuff About the same size as a strawberry. Maybe not a particularly big strawberry, but Around about the same size your average strawberry Yeah, because you guys there's a few different plants that it could be so we do a vile strawberries Which which will be very small very small strawberries They look just like the strawberry but but they're very small and there's another character called the barren strawberry So people will often think they've escaped out of a garden But they're they're native plants that they're growing here quite happily in our woodlands and our ditches and in the slightly damper places And they have that strawberry shape of a leaf which a lot of people recognize and the strawberry looking flower Um after the barren ones don't produce strawberries the little wild strawberries the irish native wild strawberries produce tiny little strawberries But there's another character called the salmon berry and i wonder is the salmon berry that you're thinking of because they They grow in stalky bushes and they've got very uh, they've got soft little thorns on them And and they can go quite tall these bushes, but it's tall as myself and they have this orange berry looks like a strawberry looks like a raspberry Uh, I wouldn't eat it. I wouldn't you know leave it alone, but they're sadly they're an invasive species They've been brought in from somewhere else They were planted in people's gardens and then birds eat those berries and they pass the seeds around the place much Like they do for normal strawberries or raspberries Um, so if you do see any of that and it has those orange raspberries on chop it out remove it And be aware if you do pull it out You'll be able to pull them out of the ground reasonably easily or maybe with a bit of a spade They'll come out But out of their roots will come more little suckers and more bushes will come So you'll have to pull those teas those roots out of the garden or out of the ground as well if you come across them They're reasonably easy to do if they haven't got Got a very strong hold, you know It has been a sort of a rougher areas that i've seen them and they do look like something that you know Just would have spread uh, you know didn't didn't sit in there To the space All right, then. Well, there we'll leave it. Thanks as always Vegas Uh, thanks