Heritage & Habitat | The Irish Times

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

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

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

The angel shark has faced quite different threats to leave it ‘critically endangered’. Drawing: Michael Viney

The great decline of Ireland’s angel shark

Native to big sandy bays on the west coast it may not survive to breed there any more

For raptors like kestrel (above) and barn owl, the influx of voles and greater white-toothed shrew offers a change of diet. Illustration: Michael Viney

New furry prey for the windhover, by any other name

The hovering kestrel has an ability to track voles on the ground through UV reflections from the urine and faeces the rodents use to scent-mark their runways

Ducks near Venice. Photograph: Pat Heffernan

What is this purple beetle? Readers’ nature queries

Ethna Viney on coloured insects, dappled ducks and multiplying water snails

What’s this animal washed up in Dublin Bay? Readers’ nature queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on a harbour porpoise, a melanistic fox and a growing flock of yellowhammers

Pine marten: the distinctive smell of its scat is often described as like that of Parma violets. Illustration: Michael Viney

Overcome by the pong of a pine-marten den? Count yourself lucky

Another Life: Michael Viney on the slow return of one of Ireland’s rarest mammals

The lark ascending: the skylark has hoisted countless poets into verse. Illustration: Michael Viney

Skylarks stunned me, just like the poets the bird has hoisted into verse

Another Life: Michael Viney on his awe for a key voice in ‘Dawn Chorus 2018’

This heron swallowed its struggling rat whole. Readers’ nature notes and queries

Eye on Nature: Ethna Viney on lizards, urchins and birds’ nests in strange places

This Brent goose was ringed at Laxarvogur, southwest Iceland in 2007 and has travelled back to Ireland every year since then to Strangford Lough and the Dublin coast.

The goose that travels from Iceland to Ireland every year and red-tailed bees

Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries for Ethna Viney

Hedgerow blackthorn blossom provide early nectar for pollinating bees. Illustration: Michael Viney

Ireland’s historic hedgerows the essential corridors of nature

Measuring some 300,000km, their value to biodiversity remains paramount

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

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

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

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