Heritage & Habitat | The Irish Times

Dearg-a-daol, devil’s coach horse.

From pond whirligigs to tooth-nosed snout weevils – it’s a busy beetle hunt

Michael Viney: Look out for orange harlequin ladybird – it’s pretty but it’s a pest

Edible crab: Illustration: Michael Viney.

Moulting periods and the constant process of renewal

Another Life: The process of physical repair, of growing on, extends to most forms of animal life

Bees nest

Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries for Ethna Viney

Harvestman spiders in Galway, a dragonfly in Leitrim and a stoat in Co Clare

Illustration: Michael Viney

Poisoned and preyless: obstacles to rewilding Ireland with eagles

Restoring the golden eagle to the west has found the limits to bringing back a carnivore

The speckled wood butterfly

Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries for Ethna Viney

Specled wood butterfly, white plume moth, and a patch-work leaf-cutter bee

“Like our neighbours, we once depended wholly on the stream, piped to the house by gravity from one of its higher pools.”

Nature takes refuge as drought dries the landscape

Access to water, and lack of it, shapes ecosystem for humans, flora and fauna alike

An expert on the whale we featured, plus readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on moths, hoverflies, caterpillars and sunbathing birds

“The view from the top balcony can be sublime.” Illustration: Michael Viney

Clifftops have given me some of the high point of my life

Michael Viney: The cliffs of Ireland are the island’s last wild land, the views enchanting tourists on the Wild Atlantic Way

Upland peat. Illustration: Michael Viney

For peat’s sake, our uplands need rain – just not too much at once

Drought takes a toll on our peaty peaks – but a follow-up of torrential rain is a landslide risk

What’s this slithering mass of caterpillars? Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on dragonflies, damselflies, beetles and cuckoos

Weeping beech: We found a drift of self-sown beech seedlings, a few inches high, and pocketed one for the garden. Illustration: Michael Viney

Michael Viney: The beauty of weeping beeches

Another Life: The weeping beech is the largest growing of all hardy weeping trees

Glucose for a lethargic bee and bird kill in the garden

For a leatherback turtle, a jellyfish or a plastic bag? Illustration: Michael Viney

We’ve known of ‘the plastic perils in the sea’ for 30 years

Michael Viney: In 1989, decades before David Attenborough’s ‘Blue Planet 11’, I wrote a column for this newspaper on the threat of plastic to marine life

What kind of spider is this? Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on the king rag, solitary mining bees and pygmy shrews

The Killarney fern – Trichomanes speciosum – is a filmy fern of finely cut, translucent tracery. Drawing: Michael Viney

Michael Viney: As hedges and trees have grown, the acre is amassing quite a fernery

Apart from its rarity and ethereal beauty, the botanical fascination of the fern includes a quirk of lifestyle largely peculiar to Ireland

Marsh fritillary

Is this species of butterfly getting rarer? Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on bee houses, beetles, spiders, ducks and a rare fungus

Cabbage white: many offspring are hatched by July. Illustration: Michael Viney

Butterfly beauty, sexy scents and solar-powered wings

The cabbage white butterfly is a multifaceted insect – if only it would keep off my brassicas

The bronze ground beetle, Carabus nemoralis

Nature letters: From beautiful beetles to sliming snails

Readers’ nature questions answered, plus observations and photos

A hoverfly at tomato flowers: drawing by Michael Viney

In praise of aphid-eating pollinators

Stingless, most no bigger than a thumbnail, hoverflies are a largely unsung legion among our insect pollinators

Is this guy I saw on the Burren a lizard or a snake? Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on black rabbits, butterflies and mating hedgehogs

Woodlouse spider

Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries for Ethna Viney

Woodlouse spider, solitary bees, fledgling chaffinch and thieving black crows

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