Another Life: Why do whales and dolphins end up stranded on our beaches?Scientists have found that stray magnetic fields can steer them off courseSat Aug 16 2014 - 01:00
Eye on Nature: The shifting sand, shingle and stones beneath our feetThere is a wealth of geology on apparently humdrum Irish beaches where beauty and variety can be found in the quartz, jasper and flint pebbles that aboundSat Aug 09 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: An invisible chorus above my windowA beginners’ brood of swallows has emerged from the woodshedSat Aug 02 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: The ‘perfect’ supermarket tomato, designed by computerTry a home-grown version for flavour that pushes months of commercial lookalikes safely out of mindSat Jul 26 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Notions of landscape liable to produce divergent opinionsThe Wild Atlantic Way offers soothing views of an infinite horizon, while driving very slowly and never checking the mirrorSat Jul 19 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: By-the-wind sailors bring beach visitors to their kneesAs jellyfish and their kin move up the research agenda, their role in the global ecosystem is becoming clearerSat Jul 05 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Brown hares move in on Ireland’s sweet grasslandsZoologists at Quercus, Queen’s University Belfast’s ecological research unit, are deeply concerned about the spread of the brown hare and its threat to the Irish hareSat Jun 28 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Searching for sunfish where jellyfish gatherClimate change and the drift of jellyfish may explain a recent surge in sightings of nature’s biggest bony fishSat Jun 21 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: What can you do about the march of the millipedes?Eye on Nature gets several pleas for advice each year, some from bungalow-dwellers whose pebble-dashed gables are blackened at night by slowly undulating hordes of ‘Tachypodoiulus niger’Sat Jun 14 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: A seasonal love affair with trees, flowers and the green gift of growthWe’re slowly rediscovering Ireland’s native botanical heritageSat Jun 07 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Why Ethna and I are confirmed islomaniacsWe’ve been people for whom, as Lawrence Durrell put it, ‘the mere knowledge that they are on an island fills them with an indescribable intoxication’Sat May 31 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: The struggle against the strangler in our midstRhododendron is popularly enjoyed as a beautiful ‘wild’ flowering shrub. But in fact it’s a troublesome terrestrial invaderSat May 24 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Our stoats are a rare link to an ancient ecosystemThe animals have been around so long in Ireland that you’d think there’s nothing left to know about them – but so many questions remain unansweredSat May 17 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Is there a purpose to animal play, or is it just wild fun?For the evolutionary biologist, play needs a point, a useful role in natural selectionSat May 10 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Aerial mating and breast to breast battlesInfrared cameras in swifts’ nests are providing a different kind of peep showSat May 03 2014 - 01:00
It’s a willow, but what kind is hard to sayWillows were among the first plants to colonise the postglacial landscape in IrelandSat Apr 26 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Seals thrive where tangle nets offer easy and meaty takeawaysBut the same nets also snare and drown seals, especially inexperienced juvenilesSat Apr 19 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Evolutionary trick that has other birds working for the cuckooScience calls it ‘brood parasitism’. The naturalist and ornithologist Gilbert White, with more feeling, called it ‘a monstrous outrage on maternal affection’Sat Apr 12 2014 - 01:00
How would your area score in the conservation ratings?Four ecologists have spent six years compiling the first national survey of the Republic’s remaining semi-natural grassland, published by the National Parks and Wildlife ServiceSat Apr 05 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Like Sunday morning in Temple Bar – ‘marine vomit’ and other visitorsSome creatures of the seabed are so unattractive they might almost have been designed to offend the human aestheticSat Mar 22 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: St Patrick and the puzzle of Ireland’s snakesThere is no climatic reason why at least one species shouldn’t flourish here – but references to our lack of snakes date back to as long ago as the third centurySat Mar 15 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: I can’t stand spiders. Are we born that way or is it cultural conditioning?Finding out about insects, so rich in the unexpected, has definitely improved some of my attitudesSat Mar 08 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: Citizen science puts dots on Ireland’s wildlife mapHave all the house mice fled Connemara? Or the harbour seals Co Louth? The All-Ireland Mammal Atlas is charting nature’s progressSat Mar 01 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: How much would you pay to save the hairy wood ant?Lots of people are rightly keen to help conserve whales, pandas or elephants. It’s a trickier issue when you ask about the value of less appealing types of wildlifeSat Feb 22 2014 - 01:00
Another Life: What does whiteness tell us about wildlife?Natural selection should keep only changes that improve survival. But how, in the evolution of swans from small dinosaurs, did the four northern swan species go white while those in the southern hemisphere sprout some dark feathers and the native swan in Australia is mostly black?Sat Feb 15 2014 - 01:00
