This month Birdwatch West Cork committee member Damaris Lysaght shares one of her favourite birds, the Greenshank. The Greenshank (Tringa nebularia) is on my short list of favourite birds. How could anyone not be impressed by this sleek, elegant and clean-cut bird, with its dark grey wings and back, and […]
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For the first eleven years of my life, home was a small farm in England, where we kept pigs and chickens, goats and geese. There have always been dogs and cats, and in Ireland in the 1970s, we had guinea pigs and donkeys as well. But my adult life has […]
If you have ever been lucky enough to be close to a Whooper swan night roost at dusk you will be treated to one of the wonders of Irish winters says Claire Deasy, Birdwatch Ireland West Cork Branch. Shortly after the sun sets, when the wind drops and the world […]
Have you ever looked closely at the head of a flatfish? Probably not, unless you are a fisherman or fishmonger. In Ireland, we generally like our fish beheaded; for many people, a fish is just a white fillet, or, in the words of the late, inimitable Keith Floyd, ‘an unidentified […]
This month I was reminiscing with my friends over glass milk bottles and the little birds that would come and peck through the lid to get to the cream below. I couldn’t help but feel like, since then, we have been duped by the mass production of plastic and the […]
Climate change can have a devastating effect on animals that have spent thousands or millions of years adapting to a particular lifestyle. In Ireland, the weather is always changeable – an early spring might encourage birds to nest too soon, only for their chicks to be killed off by snow […]