‘Total immersive obsession’: meet the man on a mission to record every bird in Ireland
Written by Sean O’Hagan from the Guardian
The ornithologist Seán Ronayne’s all-consuming quest has made him an unlikely celebrity in Cork, and his passion for nature is raising awareness about the seriousness of Ireland’s ecological crisis
One of Seán Ronayne’s earliest memories is walking in the countryside near his home with his father. “I cried a lot as a child and I was hyperactive,” he says, “When I was three or four years old, my dad would take me out to calm me down. In the woods, he’d mimic the sound of the birds and ask me what they were. Looking back, I was trained to be an ornithologist almost from the pram. That’s really where it all started.”
As he grew older, Ronayne, who was something of a solitary child, would spend a lot of time at his kitchen window in Cobh, County Cork, peering through binoculars at the birds feeding in his garden and writing down their names in a notebook. At 14, he could identify most of the birds he saw by the sounds they made.
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Written by Sean O’Hagan from the Guardian
The ornithologist Seán Ronayne’s all-consuming quest has made him an unlikely celebrity in Cork, and his passion for nature is raising awareness about the seriousness of Ireland’s ecological crisis
One of Seán Ronayne’s earliest memories is walking in the countryside near his home with his father. “I cried a lot as a child and I was hyperactive,” he says, “When I was three or four years old, my dad would take me out to calm me down. In the woods, he’d mimic the sound of the birds and ask me what they were. Looking back, I was trained to be an ornithologist almost from the pram. That’s really where it all started.”
As he grew older, Ronayne, who was something of a solitary child, would spend a lot of time at his kitchen window in Cobh, County Cork, peering through binoculars at the birds feeding in his garden and writing down their names in a notebook. At 14, he could identify most of the birds he saw by the sounds they made.
Continue reading...
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. Support the Guardian – it only takes a minute. Thank you.
