Eye On Nature

I have had a wasps' nest under the slates of my kitchen roof throughout the summer and their traffic remains incessant like aircraft in and out of Heathrow on a busy day. What are these creatures so ferociously working on? When will they die off and will they return here next year?

Dermott Barrett, Portobello, Dublin, 8.

Your wasps have a nest, probably as big as a football and containing many thousands of cells in tiers. It is made from paper manufactured first by the queen from chewed-up dead wood, and later enlarged by workers. They will have reared up to 15,000 wasps in it during the summer, not all of them there at any one time as the life of worker wasps is short. They are still busy bringing caterpillars and insects to feed the larvae. The last small hatches of larvae will develop into queens and are the only wasps to survive the winter. The others, relieved of chores in September go off on sugar-hunting sprees and die with the first cold weather. The queens will hibernate in a dry corners and emerge in spring to start the process all over again in a newly-built nest.

A large hole has been dug in my rockery, scattering soil and rocks and disturbing wasps which evidently had a nest there. Could it have been a badger or a fox looking for honey?

Kathleen Delap, Cabinteely, Dublin, 18.

Wasps do not make honey. They feed their larvae on caterpillars and insects. Your visitor was a badger raiding the nest for grubs.

I came across a small rodent outside Clones, Co Monaghan. He was smaller than a rat, but larger and darker than your average mouse. He sat up like a squirrel and his back legs were bigger and stronger than his forelegs. (Photograph enclosed).

Niall Dolan, Virginia, Co Cavan

It is a bank vole. They are shy and secretive although diurnal, and are found where there is fairly dense cover.

We found a dead female pine marten beside the road near a small wood close to our farm. Have there been many sightings of pine martens in north Kildare?

Alistair and Rosalind Gallie (aged 10 and eight), Broadford, Co Kildare

Pine martens are not plentiful in Co Kildare but there have been some sightings. They are spreading our all over Ireland in recent years.

Edited by Michael Viney, who welcomes observations sent to him at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. e-mail: viney@anu.ie. Observations sent by e-mail should be accompanied by postal address as location is sometimes important to identification or behaviour.