Eye on Nature

My wife and I spotted a most unusual sight on Seapoint Beach in Termonfeckin: a dead gannet with a dogfish stuck in its gullet.
Eoin O'Flynn
Termonfeckin, Co Louth

Looking at your photograph, your gannet certainly bit off more than it could swallow.

I found a cluster of tiny yellow oval eggs on the lid of my compost bin. Are they butterfly eggs? I saw most of them being eaten later by a ladybird.
Mary Fitzgerald
Terenure, Dublin

The eggs of the cabbage white butterflies are yellow, but you would only find them on a brassica leaf. Those in your photograph are ladybird eggs. Ladybirds eat their eggs if they are not fertilised or if food is scarce.

Up to the last week of April we had seen and heard a flock of about 200 golden plover wheeling overhead. We have not known them remaining here, so far inland, so late in the year. We also saw a white curlew near Ballyvaughan, Co Clare.
Elsie and David Nesbit
Ballybay, Co Monaghan

The plover usually have left by the end of March.

Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo, or by email at viney@anu.ie. Please include a postal address