Last year, house martins constructed a nest on the gable end of my house facing eastwards. This year, when they returned, the nest was occupied again and another built beside it, semi detached. About late June I noticed an absence of house martins, and in August I took down the nests. One had two nearly fledged young and two adult birds dead inside; the other had two scaldies and one adult bird also dead. Why?
My theory is that frost in the second week of June coupled with east wind caused their death from cold.
Michael Mason, Carrick on Shannon, Co Leitrim
It could have been the cold snap you mentioned, or some infective virus. Death in wildlife is often obscure in its causes.
While walking along the green road on the south side of Killary Harbour I saw a large (20-24 inch) brown bird on the water's edge. On being disturbed, it flew across to the Mayo side. It was a wet, dark day in early August, and as I was some way off I did not see any features. Could it have been an osprey? There were two other sightings of the same bird. About 10 years a similar bird was seen on the south side
Brian Graham, Baldoyle, Dublin 13
A wandering osprey might certainly he attracted to a fish farm fiord such as Killary. but a glimpse such as this is tantalisingly uncertain. Almost all official reports of sightings have been on northern, eastern and southern coasts, and the attempts to attract ospreys from Scotland by providing artificial nest platforms are concentrated mainly on suitable sites in the north err half of the island.