Summer plight of the honeybee is not music to the earsANOTHER LIFE: SOME EDDY IN the strange contortions of the jet stream has been sending the worst of this summer’s rain through…Sat Jul 14 2012 - 01:00
When we found our thrill picking bilberries on a hillANOTHER LIFE: THE RIDGE ABOVE US is an undistinguished lump of a hill, a long claw of Mweelrea Mountain about 300m highSat Jul 07 2012 - 01:00
Shining a light on the secret life of the Irish badgerANOTHER LIFE: IT’S A COUPLE OF YEARS since, nipping out to measure the rain after breakfast, I met a badger in the garden, late…Sat Jun 30 2012 - 01:00
No gardener wants to hear the patter of these tiny feetANOTHER LIFE: THE FIRST BROWN RAT I ever watched was dining at our bird table on a sunny morningSat Jun 23 2012 - 01:00
A jaw-dropping sight, but in the best possible tasteANOTHER LIFE: ‘TINY WASPS ARE known whose larvae parasitize the larvae of still other kinds of wasps that live inside the bodies…Sat Jun 16 2012 - 01:00
What's big and hairy and good for bumps and bruises?ANOTHER LIFE: THE BUDGETING OF ENERGY that arrives with advancing age has made certain inroads on my organic aspirationsSat Jun 09 2012 - 01:00
Why so many Irish trout species? It's the lough of the drawANOTHER LIFE: IT’S CLOSE ON 60 YEARS since Ethna’s father, Seamus MacManus of Westport, won the beautiful bronze shield now …Sat Jun 02 2012 - 01:00
Stony silence where once there was the chatter of a friendANOTHER LIFE: IN THE GENTLE SPRING soundtrack that ushers me along the boreen these mornings (the better mornings, that is), …Sat May 26 2012 - 01:00
The tracing of the shrew: why Celtic DNA leads back to AfricaANOTHER LIFE: THERE COMES A DAY in May – not, surely, always the same one – when a calm blue sea beneath a sunny sky conjures…Sat May 19 2012 - 01:00
Beauty abounds as this rolling tome gathers much mossANOTHER LIFE: THE MOUNTAIN IN OUR window is bathed in warm and rosy light when the sun sets in the seaSat May 12 2012 - 01:00
Pissy beds, lion's tooth . . . It has to be the dandelionANOTHER LIFE: THE YELLOW OF DANDELIONS is like no other, that glow of orange at the heart of the flower surely borrowed from…Sat May 05 2012 - 01:00
How long is a bee's tongue, and why do ants protect plants?ANOTHER LIFE THE TALLEST PLANTS in the tunnel just now are the thicket of broad beans (var Aquadulce) sown last autumnSat Apr 28 2012 - 01:00
Stone the crows: the nuns who called in a hit squadANOTHER LIFE: THE MELLIFLUOUS TWITTERING of songbirds that attends my seed-sowing sessions in the polytunnel was rudely drowned…Sat Apr 21 2012 - 01:00
Beware Himalayan climbers getting a foothold on a bankANOTHER LIFE: THE PLANT THAT burst into bloom in our gateway a few years ago was new to my eye, certainly pretty, and grown, …Sat Apr 14 2012 - 01:00
Revelling in nature is more fun when you do it by the bookANOTHER LIFE: THAT AMAZING WEEK of warmth conjured a greening of the land just made for the mothering of lambs in April: rarely…Sat Apr 07 2012 - 01:00
Whose sick idea was it to ban every blooming thing?ANOTHER LIFE : THE POT HELD a primrose plant in full flower and violets blooming in green mossSat Mar 31 2012 - 01:00
Our rock'n'roll past is a key to Ireland's geological heritageANOTHER LIFE: AT THE WINDWARD coast of the Aran Islands, the lip of the high limestone cliffs is buckled and torn, its rock …Sat Mar 24 2012 - 00:00
Thanks to us, the natterjack still has plenty to talk aboutANOTHER LIFE: GIVEN THE TIMES that are in it, I have been waiting for the first suggestions that spending money on nature conservation…Sat Mar 17 2012 - 00:00
Caterpillars in silken nests, and butterfly eggs in blackthornsANOTHER LIFE: THIS COULD BE A good point in the year at which to become an aurelian – it could change your lifeSat Mar 10 2012 - 00:00
Nature or nurture: which keeps birds in the best of health?ANOTHER LIFE : THE BIRDS SEEM to take turns to show offSat Feb 25 2012 - 00:00
Would you know where to find our rarest heather?ANOTHER LIFE: ON THE OTHER side of Mweelrea, where the steep side of the mountain slopes into Killary Harbour, the remains of…Sat Feb 18 2012 - 00:00
Meet the robber of my peas, beans and sweetcornANOTHER LIFE: THE RETURN OF MY canvas director’s chair to its proper niche in the polytunnel is a declaration of faith in spring…Sat Feb 11 2012 - 00:00
The sparrow? There is no bird so sweetly rudeANOTHER LIFE: IN LAST WEEK’S COLUMN, a lonely blackbird launched his territorial songSat Feb 04 2012 - 00:00
Sing when you're winning: how birds size each other upANOTHER LIFE: A SOUTHEAST wind has to squeeze through the mountains, first Connemara’s Twelve Bens and then the Sheefrys and…Sat Jan 28 2012 - 00:00
Minks' high jinks make them not so super furry animalsANOTHER LIFE: OF ALL THE FURRY ANIMALS brought to Ireland by humankind, Mustela vison, the American mink must be the most widely…Sat Jan 21 2012 - 00:00
Just how good a marksman must a deer hunter be?ANOTHER LIFE: NATURE’S MORE durable bric-a-brac crowds too many of my window sills – seashells, little skulls, big claws, limestone…Sat Jan 14 2012 - 00:00
Minister almost too good to be true for nature conservationANOTHER LIFE: IRELAND MUST GO ON. It can’t go on. It’ll go onSat Jan 07 2012 - 00:00
Not the weather for walking? It's a good time to go onlineANOTHER LIFE: THE LAND IS FULL of waterSat Dec 31 2011 - 00:00
Test your nature knowledge with my Christmas quizANOTHER LIFE: 1 “O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum!” – a Merkelian carol to which seasonal decoration?Sat Dec 24 2011 - 00:00
The trouble with chardonnay conservationists, and other booksANOTHER LIFE WHEN ITS first, majestic edition appeared, 14 years ago, I described it as an atlas with attitude – this from its…Sat Dec 17 2011 - 00:00
Ordering my spuds opens a trapdoor to memories of HarryANOTHER LIFE: HARRY VINEY, my father, cut a trapdoor in the floorboards to give access to the space where our house was raised…Sat Dec 10 2011 - 00:00
Crane your neck to see the birds of heaven returnANOTHER LIFE: IT’S A BIRD I have largely to imagine, as no photograph does more than freeze a moment in the whole of its glorious…Sat Dec 03 2011 - 00:00
Starshot, snot and algae that look like dog droppingsANOTHER LIFE: BLOBS OF RAINBOWED jelly, scattered on the grass. Nothing around to suggest where they came fromSat Nov 26 2011 - 00:00
Wagtails, snipe and dippers, and picture books to dip intoANOTHER LIFE: IT’S A FEW YEARS since the county council, wanting to make a car park behind the strand, laid a couple of huge…Sat Nov 19 2011 - 00:00
Blowholes, bubble nets and Ireland's whales and dolphinsANOTHER LIFE: OLD SEA BONES, like pitted stone sculptures, stand around in the sodden November tangle of my gardenSat Nov 12 2011 - 00:00
How our wolves were ushered into wildlife historyANOTHER LIFE: THE ONE WOLF in my life trotted out of nowhere one evening in west Greenland, drawn by the fragrance of curry …Sat Nov 05 2011 - 00:00
The pros and contrails of travelling by airANOTHER LIFE: THE FIRST CLEAR dawn in weeks offered most of a moon in the seaward sky and a peachy glow of sunrise behind the…Sat Oct 29 2011 - 01:00
Accolade for lichen quilts, mosaics, brocadesANOTHER LIFE: TWICE SHORN OF its leaves by this year’s salty storms, the ash tree outside the window has had a difficult season…Sat Oct 22 2011 - 01:00
A sinister stalker in the matt black of a biker's leathersANOTHER LIFE: AN ERROR OF TIMING the other morning found me at the bottom of the boreen but still severed from the strand by…Sat Oct 15 2011 - 01:00
Irish peatlands: the last stand against climate changeANOTHER LIFE: IN THE AUTUMN the nation starts thinking again, or so we must hopeSat Oct 08 2011 - 01:00
A blot on the landscape? Depends how you look at itANOTHER LIFE: THE FLATTERING, enamelling light of autumn works its usual magic on the western landscape, waking the glow of …Sat Oct 01 2011 - 01:00
A tune about the curlew? It would have to be a lamentANOTHER LIFE ‘BELIEVE IT OR NOT, we heard a curlew last week, here at Cnoc Suain – a rare sound these days.”Sat Sept 24 2011 - 01:00
Positive about nature? It's hard to know what to make of thatANOTHER LIFE SO MUCH WRITTEN about the natural world is now a story of innocence lost, of imminent extinction or imperilment…Sat Sept 17 2011 - 01:00
Cultivating an understorey on the forest's ferny floorANOTHER LIFE: THE WESTERN MOUNTAIN landscape is emerging from a dark cloak of conifers as the great peatland forests are shaved…Sat Sept 10 2011 - 01:00
What you see when you drag near-nature into close-upANOTHER LIFE: MY OLD BINOCULARS, tin rims bare through years of bouncing on my chest, serve well enough for dragging nature …Sat Sept 03 2011 - 01:00
How a tomato set my hankering for the good lifeANOTHER LIFE SOMEWHERE IN THE pastoral wilds of Co Kilkenny, in a summer long ago, the wife of a Finnish jewellerymaker brought…Sat Aug 27 2011 - 01:00
Maze-navigating, sharpshooting escapologistsANOTHER LIFE: ONCE, WHEN YOUNG and snorkelling off a Greek island, I dived to snatch a little octopus from the seabed: the first…Sat Aug 20 2011 - 01:00
Remedial plants under threat from EU directiveANOTHER LIFE: WREATHED SO often in mists and drizzle this summer, the moister waysides of the west are billowing with creamy…Sat Aug 13 2011 - 01:00
Will the pests and pathogens conquer the conker?ANOTHER LIFE: WITHIN DAYS of the salty Atlantic storm that seared the west coast at the end of May, I was fielding anxious questions…Sat Aug 06 2011 - 01:00
Wonderful world of song with the beetles of Pollardstown FenANOTHER LIFE: CREATING OUR garden pond some 25 years ago, I blanketed the raw black plastic of its floor with a layer of earth…Sat Jul 30 2011 - 01:00
