Eye On Nature

I was walking in the woods between Derryclare Lake and Lough Inagh when I saw a creature about 70 cm from head to tail. The tail was fairly bushy and as long as the body. It was completely black. I think it was a mink, but I read that mink are not found in Clare, Galway or Mayo.

Aoife Hollywood (aged 11), Rathgar, Dublin 6.

It was almost certainly a mink, which are now found from coast to coast.

Recently my wife and I observed an unusual chase in our garden. Our cat drew our attention to movements in long grass and buttercups. Suddenly out jumped a frog and hot on its tail was a hedgehog. The cat ran towards the frog but was literally charged at by the hedgehog. The cat watched from a distance as the hedgehog chased in circles after the frog who stayed one jump ahead. The chase continued for some twenty minutes before they disappeared once more into the undergrowth.

What was the hedgehog doing? Was it an act of territorial defence? Or was the unfortunate frog see as a potential banquet?

Mark Hackett, Roundwood, Co Wicklow.

The hedgehog wanted to eat the frog, but may not have been successful. They normally feed on slugs, beetles and the larves of insects, but will eat dog food if it is left out for them.

The enclosed insect flew into my neighbour's house and tried repeatedly to attack his mother. What is it? (Insect ressembling a damselfly, with a long abdomen speckled white on a dark background, long antennae, wings shorter than a damselfly, long, orange legs like a daddy-long-legs, and an ovipositor which is longer than the body.)

Cliodhna Drury Byrne, Castleconnor, Co Sligo.

It is a female ichneumon fly, Rhyssa persuasoria, which lays its eggs in the larvae of the horntail or wood wasp buried in the wood of a pine tree. The ovipositor has a metal-reinforced tip for drilling into the wood. It does not have a sting.