Hush of the hives"THE sun, in genial humour peeping through the open door, gives to the long-imprisoned inmates assurance of kindlier, conditions…Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
Bringing in spring with history in bloomIN a garden below the mountain, at almost the windiest corner of the lawn, the first daffodils came into flower more than a month…Sat Mar 22 1997 - 00:00
Rafts and corruptionIN the depleted, anti climactic year of 1947, Europe was offered a hero who was part of nobody's army and whose adventure was…Sat Mar 15 1997 - 00:00
Gems in Dublin's old debrisTHE robust run of winter storms has planed the strand to its lowest level and polished it clean as a boneSat Mar 15 1997 - 00:00
EYE ON NATUREQ: Every morning I feed the residents of my rookery with a bowlful of bread in order to count them for the IWC winter garden …Sat Mar 08 1997 - 00:00
Working window on intimate secretsBETWEEN storms, I put the box of seeds back on the sill outside my workroom window and so coax the birds a lot closerSat Mar 08 1997 - 00:00
Sewing seeds of satisfactionSOME people have snowdrops and crocuses to signal the resurgence of the garden. My own early omens are more prosaicSat Mar 01 1997 - 00:00
Torn by the ravages of rockeriesON the eastern side off Lough Mask, in Co Mayo, the waves slap against a shoreline of bare limestone and conspire with the rain…Sat Feb 22 1997 - 00:00
Diving dippersTHE mountain river crosses the boreen most of the time, on a final, deep swerve to its channel in the strandSat Feb 15 1997 - 00:00
EYE ON NATUREON a morning walks up our boreen on December 5th we saw a complete rainbow in the field alongside usSat Feb 08 1997 - 00:00
Fields of dreamsIT is usually safe to congratulate me on the beauty of Thallabawn, as if I had personally taken a hand in the composition of …Sat Feb 08 1997 - 00:00
Kite flying for the birds of preyEVEN at the corner of the eye, there is something about birds of prey, an intentness and self possession, that gives them a special…Sat Feb 01 1997 - 00:00
Time to mow the pondTHE memo to myself had, been waiting on the kitchen blackboard since New Year's Day: "Mow The Pond!" - and as soon as the frost…Sat Jan 25 1997 - 00:00
EYE ON NATUREIn recent years the bottom of the Portumna swimming pool (where the River Shannon enters Lough Derg) has been carpeted with well…Sat Jan 18 1997 - 00:00
Yews of the worldIT WAS for sombre days in January that I planted Taxus baccata aurea, the prostrate golden yew, just inside the gateSat Jan 18 1997 - 00:00
Hare winters and welcome callersIN Europe's hardest winters, the coast of Connacht can sometimes seem an enchanted annex of ArcadySat Jan 11 1997 - 00:00
Time to go native with wildflowers and treesEACH time I travel out around the bay, there's a new house a-building, another corner widened, a further stretch of brand new…Sat Jan 04 1997 - 00:00
A climate for climbersTHE holly and the ivy/ When they are both full grown/ Of all the trees that are in the wood/ The holly bears the crown...Sat Dec 21 1996 - 00:00
Return to the earthTHE great US protest movements of the 1960s civil rights, Vietnam, all that did widely succeed in installing a liberal idealism…Sat Dec 21 1996 - 00:00
Fertile future for the cutaway desertIN the half-light of December the central plain of Ireland unrolls a low-key landscape in which neither nature nor people seem…Sat Dec 14 1996 - 00:00
Watching the waterON the west's mountain rivers, the first thaw of winter snow sends ice water bouncing down foaming white beyond the glow of holly…Sat Dec 07 1996 - 00:00
Why must lights be so shiny?AMONG last year's Christmas presents was a square lantern with a candle in it a brand new model, in galvanised zinc, of the sort…Sat Nov 30 1996 - 00:00
EYE ON NATURELooking out from the conservatory recently I saw a large bird (not the usual garden bird) alight on the hypericumSat Nov 30 1996 - 00:00
Pull The TriggerTO sample plants on a hillside, botanists often stretch a line across the ground and see what is growing at, say, every metre…Sat Nov 23 1996 - 00:00
AN EYE ON NATUREOn a visit to the Blessington lakes at the end of October, we saw that some large beech trees near the shore had recently been…Sat Nov 23 1996 - 00:00
Hibernian hibernationTHE fox is out long ahead of me on the tideline these mornings, his tracks a tight line of asterisks, erased here and there by…Sat Nov 16 1996 - 00:00
Our `stronghold' for a vanishing speciesTHE little moth fluttering at the bathroom light was one of the teeming family of noctuids - stout, stubby bodies and "cryptic…Sat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
AN EYE ON NATUREWhat can you tell me about a plant just appeared in my son's front lawn which we have identified as a thornapple? He dug a patch…Sat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
A right nutter in NovemberOvernight the sycamore collapses, leaves black-blistered, cracking into scraps.Sat Nov 02 1996 - 00:00
Autumn lays out its stallON a showery autumn morning, with the sun still climbing the far side of the mountain, the seaward sky is all shining mother-…Sat Oct 26 1996 - 01:00
Berry TastyA BIRD'S-EVE view of Ireland just now finds the island ribboned with crimson berries: field after field marked out with blurry…Sat Oct 19 1996 - 01:00
The gall of the waspsSTRANGE fruit adorn the topmost twigs of our tallest oak saplings: clusters of large green marbles, turning brownSat Oct 12 1996 - 01:00
Tracing back through time with the tiniest cluesHOLLYHOCKS lean together after the winds, and the bumblebees dodge around each other to feed at the last silky flowersSat Oct 05 1996 - 01:00
Doing PR for the earwigAN almost superstitious tremor forbids me to welcome the winds of autumn with quite the enthusiasm that I feelSat Sept 28 1996 - 01:00
Starting a little patch of paradiseTHE old copper cylinder from the hot press makes a grand, tall, objet, ready antiqued with verdigris, for the centrepiece of …Sat Sept 21 1996 - 01:00
A trade of patience and a hunting full of maybesTHE fish of the Scombridae family are all beautifully coloured for upper, sunlit layer of the ocean: the back a dark, intense…Sat Sept 14 1996 - 01:00
Tiny kingdoms scatter after summerTHE mice are back in the house again, so it's definitely autumn: squeaks ring out as the new crop of males decide which is boss…Sat Sept 07 1996 - 01:00
Why we should welcome the swallows of the nightON a muggy day in August the air between the young trees on the acre is positively dancing with fliesSat Aug 31 1996 - 01:00
AN EYE ON NATUREWE HAVE observed black mink at the mouth of the Ballinglen River (which flows through Ballycastle, Co Mayo, into Bunatrahir Bay…Sat Aug 31 1996 - 01:00
EYE ON NATUREOn a sunny day the female earwig, Forficula auricularia, described one-inch circles, anti-clockwise on the garden path for over…Sat Aug 24 1996 - 01:00
Mobile menace creeps into the wildernessTULLY Mountain, across the bay from me in Connemara, is not one of Connaught's great summitsSat Aug 24 1996 - 01:00
River "improvements" can spell ruin for ottersTHEY don't seem very happy, the jeep peopleSat Aug 17 1996 - 01:00
Potent herbs that hug the hedgerowsMEADOWSWEET, meadow maid, lady or queen of the meadow - the old names for Filipendula ulmaria speak of meadows as they used to…Sat Aug 10 1996 - 01:00
Sweet scents of summerBLACKBIRD, stuffed with blackcurrants, sprawls on a carpet of rose petals, wings spread to the sun and beak agape in a silent…Sat Aug 03 1996 - 01:00
Points on the compassTUCKED away discreetly in an empty corner of many maps is something called the compass rose, a nominal diagram of possible lines…Sat Aug 03 1996 - 01:00
Blankets of toxins carried in on the tideIN spring, a great upwelling of water brings minerals from the ocean floor to nourish the growth of phytoplankton, the single…Sat Jul 27 1996 - 01:00
Maybe nature and golfers can club together ...THE tadpoles nudging into the pond's warm and sandy shallows were jet black, not brown, and had none of the gold speckling that…Sat Jul 20 1996 - 01:00
What's that lurking under your stones?ANY TIME I lift up something big and flat on the acre these days (a concrete block, a fishbox, an old log - anything thats just…Sat Jul 13 1996 - 01:00
