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Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
The tiny ‘eggs' in this field bird's nest fungus are spore-bearing structures
What is this? I found it in my garden in Westmeath at the beginning of July. Karen Williams This a fungus – Cyathus olla – the field bird's nest fungus. It is very small, the 'nest' is only 1.5cm tall and 1cm in diameter. The 'eggs' inside are the spore-bearing structures. When they are struck by large raindrops they are dislodged from the 'nest' and become attached to grass stems where they burst open and spread their spores. They grow on soil, twigs and other organic debris and the fruiting bodies form in the summertime. Harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis var conspicua. Photograph: E Maloney I found this ladybird in my garden last week. Is it a good guy or a bad guy? E Maloney, Dublin There are melanic forms of the benign two-spot lady bird which are black with red spots. Although in its normal form the two-spot (which is a good guy) is red with two black spots, in the melanic form it is black with either four or six red spots. This one that you found is just another iteration of the dastardly harlequin ladybird – Harmonia axyridis var conspicua. So, it is a bad guy. It will eat the larvae of any native ladybird species in the garden. READ MORE Male blackbird with leucism. Photograph: Antoinette Donohue I saw this strange-looking bird at a bus stop in Maynooth. Has this bird stuck its head in a bucket of paint, or is there another explanation? Antoinette Donohue, Maynooth Indeed, on first glance it does look like that, but if you look closely, you will see that it is a male blackbird with the orange bill and characteristic stance. This bird has leucism which is a genetic mutation that causes white patches by preventing melanin being sent to some of the bird's feathers. Generally these birds do not succeed in getting mates and reproducing, so the mutation arises afresh each time rather than being inherited. Caterpillars. Photograph: Alison Kennedy Could you identify these caterpillars who are eating their way through my red currant bush? Alison Kennedy These are the caterpillars of the gooseberry sawfly – so called because it most often feeds on the leaves of gooseberry bushes. But it is not above dining on the leaves of currant bushes too and in fact a heavy invasion can strip the bushes bare. They will recover when the replete caterpillars drop off on to the soil where they pupate, overwinter and become adult sawflies. Adults feed mainly on pollen and are not often noticed. It is the larvae that get all the attention. Violet sea snail. Photograph: Anna Lopez I found this on the coast past Spanish point, Co Clare. Thought it is so beautiful and how it looks like it's knitted. Anna Lopez I spotted this blue shelled sea creature on the shoreline at White Strand Beach, Renvyle, Co Galway. It was 3cm to 4cm in diameter approximately Any idea what it is? Jane Bruton Both of these queries refer to the violet sea snail – Janthina ianthina – which lives on the surface of warmer oceans, floating on its raft of bubbles and feeding on siphonophores (jellyfish-like creatures) such as Velella , the by-the-wind sailor. It produces mucus which it agitates with its foot to mix it with air, thus filling it with bubbles. This creates a bubble raft which keeps it afloat on the surface of the sea, upside down with its shell hanging downwards. The remains of this is shown here in Anna's picture. Violet sea snails, which get detached from this raft, sink to the bottom and die soon after. The empty shells eventually get washed ashore and this is what Jane has photographed and submitted. They are quite fragile and are rare jetsam on our beaches. Please submit your nature query, observation, or photo, with a location, via or by email to weekend@
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
Ireland's ‘hotbed' for whales who have migrated from southern waters
For the past few years, Donegal Bay has been a hotbed for rare aquatic mammals. Part of the reason for this is that whales who may be more traditionally associated with Irish waters in the south of the country have been migrating further north, driven by a desire for one of their favourite Irish delicacies: sprat. Residents in west Cork have been drawing attention to industrial fishing of sprat in their communities through a Save Our Sprat campaign. On Tuesday, they received some encouraging news: Ireland is set to ban industrial sprat fishing in inshore waters from October next year in the move the campaign hopes will pave the way for a return of some familiar creatures. READ MORE Members of the campaign see it as a positive first step, though they are concerned that the restrictions don't go far enough and will continue to campaign. Pádraig Whooley, sightings officer for the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG), says that the same whales spotted off the coasts of Cork and Kerry 15 or 20 years ago are now popping up in places like Donegal Bay. 'That's obviously where the feed is at the moment,' he says. Other factors could include climate change, says Whooley. 'It could also be the fact that we're hammering what they're feeding on down here, which is the sprat,' he says. 'It's a very controversial one and local coastal communities are frankly getting very angry with the way we're allowing the industrial extraction of forage fish species like sprat. 'If you're into marine wildlife, and whales and dolphins in particular, Donegal Bay seems to be the place to be right now,' says Pádraig Whooley. Photograph: Joshua Nueva 'What we in the IWDG are saying is that the more sprat we're removing – and it's completely unregulated; they can catch as many as they want – we are saying that sprat is part of [the reason for] fewer of these humpback whales turning up in the likes of west Cork and west Kerry.' Donegal Bay is an inlet that touches three counties: Sligo , Leitrim and Donegal . There are a number of decent viewing points for activity in its waters, among them Sliabh Liag, Muckross Head and Mullaghmore Head. A number of species can be spotted in these waters. 'We also had a killer whale turn up [there] this weekend,' Whooley says. 'When the guys were out looking for humpback whales, they found one of the Scottish killer whales known as Aquarius. He was also, about three weeks ago, down off the Blaskets in Kerry. 'If you're into marine wildlife, and whales and dolphins in particular, Donegal Bay seems to be the place to be right now ... The more you see these animals, the more anecdotes you hear about them – the less they're just a number on a database. [They develop] personalities.' Even for experienced chroniclers of marine life, humpback whale sightings in Ireland are rare. [ Why are Ireland's whales disappearing? Opens in new window ] View across the bay at Slieve League cliffs, on the west coast of Donegal, Republic of Ireland. (Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) It can be a powerful moment for those that live it, as is evidenced by a video from content creator and adventurer Joshua Nueva in Donegal Bay last week. Flanked by a convoy of dolphins, Nueva's humpback emerges from below the surface, leaping up into the air and causing its travelling companions to scatter. Initially, the dolphins appear to be playing with the whale, whose movements generate a sort of slipstream on the surface. 'It's called pec slapping,' Nueva says. 'They take their fin, and they slap it on the water. There's no real data or proof to say why they do that. 'It is a playful behaviour – it's not like they're being threatened, or they feel like they're in danger. Dolphins love to swim with the whales because they're actually quite lazy. 'Whenever there are any boats or large mammals like humpbacks travelling in the direction that they want to go, they swim with it because they don't need to expend as much energy to travel.' Anyone who spots a whale is encouraged to contact the IWDG, as they can identify the animal. Photograph: Joshua Nueva Nueva logged his sighting with the IWDG, who have been documenting whales in Ireland for several decades. Anyone who spots a whale is encouraged to contact the IWDG, as they can identify the animal by its fluke – a uniquely shaped and marked tail that acts as a fingerprint. 'It takes a little while to try and find them because the bay is so vast,' Nueva says. 'When I saw the humpback fin splashing the water, I thought: no way. I couldn't believe it because there were no humpbacks spotted in the bay at that time. It was only then they started to accumulate. 'For us to see it and not be aware of it, it just goes to show what is going on around our coast that we wouldn't notice if we weren't looking for it. If we kept an eye on our coastline a little bit more, we'd be surprised at what we see.'
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
Pine martens: One of Ireland's rarest wildlife species in recovery
I was walking on a quiet country road near my home the other day when I spotted a small body in the centre of the tarmac. Initially, I thought it was a domestic cat that had met its fate on one of its nightly forays. On closer examination, it was nothing like a cat. The overall fur colour was a deep chocolate brown with a distinctive cream-coloured bib beneath its chin. The ears had pale creamy margins and the tail was bushy, much like that of a fox. I knew immediately that this was a wild mammal called the pine marten. In Irish, the species is known as cat crainn, the tree cat, which reveals its preference for woodland habitats . Indeed, there was woodland on both sides of the road where I found this sad traffic casualty. The earliest evidence of pine martens in Ireland comes from the late Bronze Age, a period when woodland cover was considered to have been high but beginning to decline. In 1850, William Thompson, one of Ireland's early naturalists, reported that the species was still present in every county in Ireland. READ MORE After that, woodland in Ireland shrank to cover only one per cent of the country at the beginning of the 20th century. Around that time, poisoning and persecution, together with the loss of its woodland habitats, led to the near extinction of the pine marten in Ireland. Some extensive research on pine martens in Ireland was done in the 1970s and 1980s by Paddy O'Sullivan, originally a forester who joined the Forest and Wildlife Service as a trapper. When the pine marten was protected under the original Wildlife Act of 1976, O'Sullivan was handed the task of discovering facts about this mammal, which was thought to be still declining and largely confined to a few refuges in counties Waterford and Clare. By examining more than 800 of their distinctive droppings (known as scats), O'Sullivan concluded that the pine marten in Co Clare had an extremely catholic diet that included small mammals, birds, frogs, lizards, a variety of insects and especially earthworms. In the autumn, it often turned to fruit such as blackberry, wild cherry, crab apple and ivy berries as well as hazel nuts. [ How the Dingle Peninsula is modelling a new way for rural Ireland to thrive Opens in new window ] In recent years, extensive research has shown that the pine marten may be a keystone species in the woodland ecosystem. As expert tree climbers, they are well able to hunt squirrels either in the treetops or on the ground. The decline and near extinction of the pine marten in Ireland coincided with the introduction and spread of the introduced American grey squirrel, which led to decline of the native red squirrel. However, the recent marked expansion of the pine marten has mirrored a corresponding decline or even complete disappearance of the grey squirrel in some parts of the country. It seems that the grey squirrel is especially vulnerable to this predator because it did not evolve with it as the red squirrel did, and because the greys spend more time feeding on the ground where the marten is most active. There has been a decline or even complete disappearance of the grey squirrel in some parts of Ireland. Photograph:It is also known that red squirrels will leave an area if they detect the scent of a pine marten. It has been found the red squirrels have returned in areas where the pine marten is now present. Today forests cover 11 per cent of the land, although the majority of these consist of commercial conifer plantations. The spread of forestry in the 20th century and the banning of the poison strychnine in the 1980s are all thought to have helped in the recovery of the pine marten. Recent island-wide surveys have shown that the species is continuing to recover and is found across parts of Ireland where it had been absent for more than a century. With a remote camera, I have recorded some daylight video footage of this exciting animal in the woodland on our own farm in Co Wicklow. By 2005-2007 the population range extended to more than half of Ireland, with a total population estimate of at least 3,000 individuals. The pine marten is still one of the rarest wildlife species in Ireland but the potential for a full recovery is clearly there. After a detailed examination, I moved the perfect small body of this wild animal to the side of the road and laid it under an oak tree in the habitat it preferred in life. Richard Nairn is an ecologist and writer. His latest book is Future Wild: Nature Restoration in Ireland.
