While visiting our summer cottage in the Slieve Mish Mountains in Kerry in January, I saw an animal in the fuel shed, which I believe was a weasel. He was hiding behind some logs, and sometimes he would sit on a log for a few seconds and look at me. There was a roll of fibre-glass insulation in the shed and when I opened it later, I found that the centre had been, hollowed out and lined with feathers. Could this have been a weasel's nest?
Kevin Gormley, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
Your visitor was a stoat; We don't have weasels. The literature says they nest in holes in walls or banks, in birds' nests, or in the burrows or dens of their prey or other animals. There is no suggestion that they hollow out these burrows themselves. The nest could have been made originally made by a rat, which was subsequently killed and eaten by the stoat, which then moved in.
Recently I saw a male blackboard with two white feathers, one on each side of his tail. Is this uncommon?
Tom Murray, Raheny, Dublin 5.
Albinism in blackbirds is not at.all rare. Partially white birds that retain otherwise normal colouring are thought to be suffering from diet deficiency, old age, injury or shock.
What is the highest a bird can fly in the sky? In other words, could a bird be seen to fly on a level with a plane, up in or above the clouds?
Niamh Neumann, Newcastle, Co Wicklow.
It depends on how high the plane was flying. Birds depend on air currents to reach high altitude, either thermals, which are, bubbles of rising warm air, or orographic airflows, that is, airflows, rising over high ground. Thermals can reach a height of 500m-1,500m. Golden eagles seem to hold the record for altitude: 4,000 ft reported in Seton Gordon's book, The Golden Eagle; and a report from Texas of birds reaching 5,000 metres. But other birds with large wings can also reach respectable altitudes given the right conditions.