Hovering jewels on the windFLUTTERING like shreds of some faded oriental carpet, painted lady butterflies have brought a special glamour to the hedgerows…Sat Jul 06 1996 - 01:00
EYE ON NATURE. I was fishing oft a bridge on the Slaney about three miles above Baltinglass in the last week in May, when I disturbed a salmon…Sat Jun 22 1996 - 01:00
TURN AND RUNSOMETIMES, working bare handed in the garden, I am consciously appreciative of the generally benign character of Irish nature…Sat Jun 22 1996 - 01:00
Glittering Prizes lie among the flotsamAN unseasonal wind the other day stripped the petals from the hawthorn in swirls of reckless confetti and left the flowers with…Sat Jun 15 1996 - 01:00
Trills spill from a warbler in the woodTHE trees and bushes on the acre are thickening up most gratifyingly this summer, so that soon I shall be like one of my own …Sat Jun 08 1996 - 01:00
Vive la diversityFOLLOW the butterflies, and you are brought very soon to the warmest spot on the acre, a few square metres of hedgebank and pebbly…Sat Jun 01 1996 - 01:00
The birds and the birdsDUSK in mid May can be rather too chilly for taking one's seafood special outside at Moran's of the WeirSat May 25 1996 - 01:00
Up the airy mountainI suppose we shall learn to love DNA, the stuff that uses us to make more of itself in shape of yet more peopleSat May 18 1996 - 01:00
Time to catch on to fish struggling for survivalCLANNISHNESS runs deep among anglers who feel a local river or lake is peculiarly "theirs" even more so when the fish they catch…Sat May 18 1996 - 01:00
In the eye of the beholderNEPHIN Mountain, someway north of me in Mayo, has a rough and promising sort of wildness quite different from the fluted and …Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Fruit of the hedgerowFROM one day to the next, a rather dowdy little tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the acre has erupted in showy blossom: the…Sat May 04 1996 - 01:00
The lizard springA PHRASE long overdue for deletion from the mantras of the weathermen is surely "a risk of showers"Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Bringing the sea inside - and keeping it thereTHE town aquarium I grew up with was already three quarters of a century oldSat Apr 20 1996 - 01:00
Hound on the hearthrugI HAD gone through life man and boy, without ever meeting a greyhound, until once, cycling through the Limerick countryside at…Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
The extinction of speciesA dreadful sentence sneaks through to page 127 of this bookSat Apr 06 1996 - 01:00
Lifting the lid on the badger's secret lifeONCE, a few thousand years back in evolutionary history, the badger was probably a loner, like most of the mustelid familySat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
The pleasures of a well-dusted museumSTEPHEN JAY GOULD spent much of 1971 in Ireland, measuring the and antlers of Megaceros giganteus, the so called Irish elkSat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
ANOTHER LIFECONNACHT'S old stones can be oddly grudging with their history: there is so much of it and yet littleSat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
AN EYE OWN NATUREDo my eyes deceive me or is a magpie building a nest on the lamp standard outside my front garden? What will be the fate of the…Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
Watching for bud burstRECORDING the rain these mornings (when there is some) is a cheering sort of ritual, attended by bird song and a distinct whiff…Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
AN EYE ON NATURERECENTLY I've had a female greenfinch at my nut feeder with large areas of white feathers on her wingsSat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
Tell-Tale TitsTHERE is a rook I feel I know, the one that croons to itself as it flaps across the acre: it's a low-pitched, reflective, Barry…Sat Mar 09 1996 - 00:00
EYE ON NATUREIN mid-February a small flock of green and yellow birds came to feed at my net feeders of nuts and sunflower seedsSat Mar 09 1996 - 00:00
Beak spots are a gull's best friendTHE little sand-spit at the end of the channel has a light all its own on a frosty sunny morning: an exactitude edging every …Sat Mar 02 1996 - 00:00
Whatever you do, do nothingONCE moving into an old house late in winter, I mooched impatiently about the tangled and neglected gardenSat Feb 10 1996 - 00:00
EYE ON NATUREOn December 28th I observed three blackcaps feeding on the remaining cotoneaster berries in our gardenSat Feb 03 1996 - 00:00
Watchers at the lakeA STRONG wind from the east meets the Atlantic head-on, shocking the waves into shades of sapphire-blue not seen at any other…Sat Feb 03 1996 - 00:00
Worrying at the country ratTHE brown rat dining at our bird-table is the very picture of health, each hair shampooed and shining, little ears perked up …Sat Jan 20 1996 - 00:00
The Otter limitsTHE sea piles in from the north-west in minty, iceberg colours; throws itself down in sullen breakers, seethes up the empty strand…Sat Jan 13 1996 - 00:00
Nature needs no help in quashing its killersAS the sun sneaked up behind Mweelrea the other morning it set fire to a cloud resting on the snowy summit, turning it to blazing…Sat Jan 06 1996 - 00:00
EYE ON NATURE"I was surprised to read (Eye, November 18th) that the presence of undeveloped tadpoles in a pond in winter was an unusual phenomenon…Sat Jan 06 1996 - 00:00
