Eye on Nature

While walking by Lough Mask I saw a flock of birds that I took to be curlews, only smaller. Later I found that they were whimbrels. Are they common?
Michael Maye
Cong, Co Mayo

Whimbrels pass in large numbers through Ireland on passage from Africa to and from breeding grounds in Iceland.

I have been struck by the number of grasses with pseudo bulbs clustered on their roots. Some orchids use them as reserves, but why do grasses have them?
John Rowe
New Ross, Co Wexford

According to John Feehan's The Grasses of Ireland, one grass that produces bulbs just below ground level is a variety of false oat called onion couch.

I came across a big yellow insect in my dad's sitting room. When I put it outside in the sun it took off, with a loud buzzing.
Ruth Phelan
Cobh, Co Cork

It is a female horntail, aka a wood wasp. It is a sawfly, not a wasp, and is harmless. She drills into pine and lays an egg. The larva takes two or three years to mature. It emerges in summer as the insect in your photograph.

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