Heritage & Habitat | The Irish Times

Bumblebee at broad bean flowers. Illustration: Michael Viney

Getting up close and digital with nature’s miniature life

Michael Viney: Smartphone cameras allow us to get in close, often to a hand’s breadth of the subject

Skeleton of the head of a dolphin found on a small beach south of Thallabawn Strand

Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries for Ethna Viney

Dolphin’s head, crayfish, inseparable geese and sea beans

Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries for Ethna Viney

Masked crab in Wexford, hungry herons in Cork and an arctic redpoll in Kerry

Lophelia pertusa reef. Monitoring changes in reefs is prompting new remote video techniques, like that just pioneered by a science team from UCC. Illustration: Michael Viney

Protecting cold water corals that support an array of wildlife off our coasts

Lophelia pertusa is the great builder of deep-sea reefs, with live coral crests as rich in species as rainforests

Trawler balls at the house at Thallabawn. Illustration: Midhael Viney

Making the best of the ever-changing bounty of Atlantic flotsam

Dr Don Cotton has produced a fascinating study of marine debris along the Sligo coast

This frozen frog was found on Mount Eagle on the Dingle Peninsula

Eye on Nature: Frozen frogs and giant house spiders

Ethna Viney responds to your queries, observations and photographs

Field mouse by Michael Viney

Michael Viney: An appreciation of spring in the winter of his life

Every splurge of energy . . . prompts sitting down for a bit, to contemplate my own, much diminished, kingdom

An Irish weasel or stoat?

Is this roadkill in Mayo a weasel or a stoat? – readers’ nature notes and queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on a giant egg case, a diving water beetle and a fighting sparrowhawk

Curled octopus. Illustration: Michael Viney

Curled octopuses among the many washed-up victims of Storm Emma

Timely publication of ‘Ireland’s Seashore’ (Collins Press, €15) a boon for beachcombers

A carpet of shellfish beached on Rosslare Strand, sent by Allison Morris

Look what got washed up by Storm Emma: Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Brittle starfish, sea squirts and sea mouse among rarely seen marine life

Snipe: two flew up from the marsh, their long bills numbed from prodding ice at night, to try the softer ground under David Cabot’s window across the lake. Illustration: Michael Viney

Storm Emma brought us the regular refugees from winter cold

Another Life: Michael Viney on tired birds, bitter temperatures and climate chaos

The pygmy shrew: A York University researcher was surprised to find that a small sample of our pygmy shrews shared a distinctive genetic lineage with those of Andorra. Drawing: Michael Viney

Mammal mysteries in sorties of the squirrel and sailing of the shrew

DNA research has explored the post-glacial sources of Ireland’s mixed bag of mammals

Mandarin duck: escaped from domestic collections and has been established on the Dodder for more than a decade.

I spotted this very exotic duck on the Dodder: readers’ nature notes and queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on Alexanders’ rust, frog spawn and yellowhammers

What’s this strange rock we found after Storm Ophelia? Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on amber, scarlet elf caps, squirrels and mistle thrushes

Ancient amber: about one in 1,000 blobs of Cretaceous conifer resin enveloped an insect. Illustration: Michael Viney

Ethna, Olivia and the mystery of the Killiney Bay amber

Another Life: Michael Viney on a rare find by two young sisters

Treacherous driving conditions in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath during the snowfall associated with Storm Emma. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

Snow Q&A: Things will get worse before they get better

Q&A: Expect no relief until the weekend when floods from melting snow could arise

Pretty penny: our “marine recreation” trips are worth almost €1.7 billion a year. Illustration: Michael Viney

How much would you pay for cleaner beaches and safer water?

Another Life: Michael Viney on the cash value of Ireland’s coastal ecosystem

Is this a bee on my amaryllis? Readers’ nature queries

Ethna Viney on an undesirable visitor, rotating starlings and one-legged gulls

What does this Icelandic bone come from? Readers’ nature queries

Ethna Viney on a hen bullfinch, a dining otter and a hen’s 11 chicks

Connemara corncrake: Inishbofin, out on my horizon, is now one of the bird’s few strongholds and probably where Richard Murphy first heard its “staunchly nailed iambics”. Illustration: Michael Viney

How the west gave a poet his dream and identity

Another Life: Michael Viney on Richard Murphy’s Connemara life

The deep coral zones designated far offshore were closed to bottom-trawling by the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission. Illustration: Michael Viney

Hubs of deep-water life in need of greater protection

Josepha Madigan appears to be ‘appropriate minister’ to look after our ocean ecosystem

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