Get closer to the wild side of Ireland
When “Birds Through Irish Eyes” by Anthony McGeehan with Julian Wyllie arrived at IWHQ the first thing that struck me was its size. It is a monster of a tome. The next thing I noticed was it’s shape… an unusual, almost square aspect ratio makes for a very attractive layout of text and images on [...]
Mark Avery has been fighting for birds for most of his adult life. As Conservation Director with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Europe’s largest conservation NGO, Mark has been at the forefront of some of the most iconic conservation issues to emerge over recent decades. Naturally the book has a UK [...]
Butterflies have always intrigued me. The splash of animated colour they add to garden and hedgerow, their fascinating life cycles and the spectacular metamorphosis into their adult form has always been captivating. As a young child I remember being awestruck as I watched a peacock butterfly emerge from a chrysalis I’d collected in the garden. [...]
Birds are perhaps the most accessible and obvious of all our Irish wildlife. They’re relatively large, active, sometimes brightly coloured and, because they can fly to escape danger, they tend to be less elusive than many other wild creatures. Once you’re tuned in to bird activity seeing birds in your garden or the local park [...]
Whenever I visit a new part of Ireland I’m charged with anticipation. What wildlife surprises will my destination have in store, and where are the best places to look for them. While I’m a firm believer in the concept that, if you look, you can and will find wildlife anywhere, it’s an inescapable fact that [...]
How often do you think about lichens? Most people rarely give them a second thought, even though they encounter them every day. Lichens are everywhere — encrusting growths on rocks, walls and tree trunks, more leafy or feathery forms clinging to rocky outcrops and dangling from branches – lichens are among the most fascinating life [...]
It’s an incontrovertible fact that when wildlife flies, jumps, crawls, slithers, swims, grunts or shrieks it is generally a lot more noticeable than when it doesn’t. Things that just sit there, by and large, go unnoticed. As a survival strategy that’s probably no bad thing, but it’s also a shame, because some of the wildlife [...]
I’m the first to admit that I’m very keen on birds… and that perhaps my bias is reflected at times, both here and on the Ireland’s Wildlife page on Facebook. I’ve been a birder since I first picked up a pair of binoculars more than 30 years ago, and while I have a profound fascination [...]
Wolves… the very word evokes a sense of wonder, admiration and fascination, albeit tempered with a healthy undercurrent of instinctive apprehension. Awe and fear: that’s a pretty evocative combination. When I heard about “Wolves in Ireland – A natural and cultural history” by Kieran Hickey, published by Four Courts Press, I couldn’t wait to read [...]
Did you know that Ireland’s largest mammal is the blue whale – the largest animal ever to have lived on earth. This oceanic leviathan weighs in at over 100 tonnes (or about the same as 33 African elephants, if you’re counting) and can be up to a staggering 33.5 metres long. That’s bigger than [...]
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