Readers' observations on nature.
Late at night an exotic creature dropped on to my laptop.It was about half an inch long, psychedelic green, had long delicate antennae and skinny crooked legs. Its tail was pincered like an earwig's. When I moved my hand near, it sprang a foot sideways onto the wall in a flash. Was it some kind of a cricket?
Malcolm Douglas, Dublin 8
It sounds like either the oak bush cricket or the speckled bush cricket, but both, so far, have only been found in the south of England.
In the dark seed drying room at the Irish Seed Savers in Scariff, I noticed a pair of nests on the ceiling. One nest looked very like an almost completed swallows nest, the other looked similar but with the addition of a roof made of moss with a round doorway. On the floor beneath it were the wings, etc, of about 25 moths, mostly large yellow underwing with occasional ghost swift. Would any bird use such an inaccessible nesting site? I've never heard of a swallow's nest with a roof.
Dave Smith, Inagh, Co Clare
It was most likely a swallow's nest in a refurbished wren's nest.