When it comes to birds, one good tern deserves anotherANOTHER LIFE: YEARS AGO, BEFORE the rooks were evicted from the sycamores down the hill, they would fly up to raid my potatoes…Sat Jul 23 2011 - 01:00
Cold, plague and extermination: life in our watery wildANOTHER LIFE: THE YELLOW-BELLIED SLIDER, Trachemys scripta scripta , is a brightly patterned turtle a little bigger than one…Sat Jul 16 2011 - 01:00
Developers' defeat reprised in full as Tiger folly recalledANOTHER LIFE: AT INTERVALS through the Tiger years, the opinions of many local planning inspectors pitched a sad Greek chorus…Sat Jul 09 2011 - 01:00
Water meters? Not on the stream that's our do-it-yourself supplyANOTHER LIFE: EACH MORNING at the same hour, in service to Met Éireann, I go out to lift the funnel from the rain gauge in the…Sat Jul 02 2011 - 01:00
Where to look for all you need to know about wild flowersANOTHER LIFE: ON OLD MAPS of the hillside, the boreen to the shore doesn’t get there, the dotted lines tilting down briefly …Sat Jun 25 2011 - 01:00
Right-flippered humpbacks and left-pawed tomcatsANOTHER LIFE: IN THE 13TH YEAR after her rescue from a dog orphanage, Meg, a cuddly cross of Labrador and spaniel, is living…Sat Jun 18 2011 - 01:00
Winds of the west plant a seed for gardening by the seaANOTHER LIFE: IT TOOK A FEW days to show the full effect of gaoth ruadh, the blasting, reddening wind from the seaSat Jun 11 2011 - 01:00
How flowers found their way to Ireland from the YangtzeANOTHER LIFE: IN THE MIDST of the tangled thicket of shrub roses (their French names and langorous scents my one gesture to …Sat Jun 04 2011 - 01:00
Why the Forty Foot jellyfish could be a bad sign for the seaANOTHER LIFE: ANY DAY NOW, if it hasn’t happened already, the stoical bliss normal to Dublin’s Forty Foot bathing cove is likely…Sat May 28 2011 - 01:00
Horse stingers, eye pokers and Devil's darning needlesANOTHER LIFE: MATSUO BASHO, 17th-century Zen master and inventor of the telegraphic haiku, certainly got the colour right, but…Sat May 21 2011 - 01:00
Listening to things that go korrk-kok! in the nightThere, as the “fern owl”, it has been watched by Richard MabeySat May 14 2011 - 01:00
Picture how Ireland must have looked after the Ice AgeANOTHER LIFE: The book took Thompson on more than two years of harnessed flights in a doorless helicopter to seize perfect moments…Sat May 07 2011 - 01:00
Finally, Ireland is starting to see the wood for the treesANOTHER LIFE: A BUNCH OF 14 people beam at the camera in bright spring sunshine, the woods in shadow behind themSat Apr 23 2011 - 01:00
I doubt if Charlie Haughey ever stewed a rabbit on a fire of sheep dungANOTHER LIFE: SUCH A SHAME that the one taoiseach to count love of nature among the finer things in life should have been such…Sat Apr 16 2011 - 01:00
Why sheep aren't nearly as sheeplike as we've been toldANOTHER LIFE: THE SHEEP ON the lawn at daybreak tested my goodwill with a few more illicit mouthfuls, then lolloped away into…Sat Apr 09 2011 - 01:00
Here's what biodiversity has done for usANOTHER LIFE: ‘WHAT HAS BIODIVERSITY ever done for me?” The question chimed rhetorically at the end of a letter to this newspaper…Sat Apr 02 2011 - 01:00
Seen a white hare? Here's what you were looking atANOTHER LIFE: IT TOOK A COUPLE of days with loppers, bush saw and shredder to reduce the rampant escallonia bush outside my …Sat Mar 26 2011 - 00:00
Another invasion, and this time it's by alien life formsANOTHER LIFE: ON THE SOUTHERN cliffs of Howth Head, out to Baily Lighthouse, large mats of vegetation on the steep slopes are…Sat Mar 19 2011 - 00:00
Worming its way into gardeners' affectionsANOTHER LIFE: DARK, DRY AND RICH, crumbly and sweet-smelling: garden compost sometimes earns words more appropriate to Christmas…Sat Mar 12 2011 - 00:00
Plucky as a jockey galloping a racehorse into spaceANOTHER LIFE: THERE AREN’T that many poems about squirrels, perhaps from the problem of finding a decent rhyme for the animal…Sat Mar 05 2011 - 00:00
Charted territory: romantic Ireland, trekked and drawnANOTHER LIFE: A FRAGMENT of a map appeared among my e-mails, its Tudor calligraphy stark on the screenSat Feb 26 2011 - 00:00
The tiny alien that calls our house its homeANOTHER LIFE: What do you do with a shrew in the loo? This lunatic, unquenchable jingle was born of the latest addition to the…Sat Feb 19 2011 - 00:00
A harsh, wet winter makes it no country for Old Irish goatsANOTHER LIFE: THIS WAS NOT the best of winters in which to be a goat, at least not one of the wilder sort that Robert Lloyd …Sat Feb 12 2011 - 00:00
Spring's the time to shake off nature deficit disorderANOTHER LIFE : IF IT WEREN’T for the early whizz-by of the school bus, dashing to the furthest tendril of its morning round-…Sat Feb 05 2011 - 00:00
Plants that nourished our ancestors go under the microscopeTHE FIRST SEEDLINGS on my workroom window sill looked a bit pale at first in their yogurt pots, but they have grown greener with…Sat Jan 29 2011 - 00:00
It's a dirty job, but our wetlands can do itANOTHER LIFE: AT THE BOTTOM of the hill, where fields are chewed ragged by the sea, some hectares of watery hollow behind the…Sat Jan 22 2011 - 00:00
Views of Ireland you won't have seen beforeIT TOOK THIS winter to make a proper fjord (with Norway’s “j”) of Killary Harbour, the sea’s rift between Galway and Mayo, with…Sat Jan 15 2011 - 00:00
How likely is the prospect of another little ice age?ANOTHER LIFE: THE SUN, these frosty evenings, finally sears the horizon around High Island, off Connemara, on its slow roll …Sat Jan 08 2011 - 00:00
Defending the texture that gives a place its characterANOTHER LIFE: THE CHRISTMAS journey home across Ireland at the end of next week will pass through much wreckage from the tiger…Sat Dec 18 2010 - 00:00
Disappearing moorland leaves curlews homelessANOTHER LIFE: WITH THE sea asleep and the wind behind the ridge, the silence of an icy morning can reach all the way to the …Sat Dec 11 2010 - 00:00
Surviving the cold snap on a wing and a prayerANOTHER LIFE: INSIDE THAT LITTLE sphere of fluff clinging to the feeder is a body not much bigger than a ping-pong ball, its…Sat Dec 04 2010 - 00:00
Mother Nature meets Father ChristmasANOTHER LIFE: NOT SINCE the first pre-dawn unwrapping of a Christmas Annual for Boys have I leafed through a new book with quite…Sat Nov 27 2010 - 00:00
'The polytunnel was jiggling like a whale with fleas'ANOTHER LIFE: ‘IF YOU’VE GOT enough ground to grow spuds for a year, what can they do to you, really?”Sat Nov 20 2010 - 00:00
Extreme weather clouds the water for our river fishANOTHER LIFE: AS THE GREAT Atlantic swells approached Ireland last Sunday, rising under low pressure and driven by the wind, …Sat Nov 13 2010 - 00:00
Why ecologists always fall for this wild wedge of coastANOTHER LIFE: DOOAGHTRY IS THE townland that separates us from the sea, a wild wedge of coast almost at the southerly toe of…Sat Nov 06 2010 - 00:00
Bord na Móna's 'contract with nature' is convincingANOTHER LIFE : AS THE sedges begin to wither, some stretches of the Connacht moors have the richness of medieval velvets: russets…Sat Oct 30 2010 - 01:00
The 'other CO2 problem', looming ever more urgentlyANOTHER LIFE: OCTOBER’S BIG spring tide coincided with days of very high pressure, so that the memorable calm of the hillside…Sat Oct 23 2010 - 01:00
Spiders, stink bugs and other creepy-crawliesANOTHER LIFE: AT LEISURE in the loo, a rather damp and chilly annex adapted from the old cottage porch, I take a generally benevolent…Sat Oct 16 2010 - 01:00
Taking stock in a 5,000 mile walk on the wild sideANOTHER LIFE: MORE THAN a century ago the great Irish field botanist Robert Lloyd Praeger took out maps of Ireland and railway…Sat Oct 09 2010 - 01:00
Why we're a generation too late to save our treesANOTHER LIFE: THE FIRST whiff of woodsmoke from our chimney settles me comfortably into my skin: summer was never my seasonSat Oct 02 2010 - 01:00
Bibles of Ireland's birdie fraternityANOTHER LIFE: SUN-BLEACHED and water-stained, its linen cover worn to the spine, a book I bought 44 years ago still earns its…Sat Sept 25 2010 - 01:00
A wild idea to help our green infrastructure growANOTHER LIFE: THISTLEDOWN drifts through gaping doorways; grass springs up on unpaved roads; brambles lean in from the fences…Sat Sept 11 2010 - 01:00
Saving seeds of the future from threats of the presentANOTHER LIFE : IN BETWEEN the leeks and the courgettes a little clump of redundant lettuce is heading for half a metre tallSat Aug 28 2010 - 01:00
Seaweed waves its fingers from Thallabawn to TokyoANOTHER LIFE: IT IS ONE OF the richer threads to the weave of life on earth that the seaweeds on the rocky shores below me, …Sat Aug 21 2010 - 01:00
Why badgers are bad news for waspsANOTHER LIFE: THE WASPS come home to their nest a few at a time, converging like unsteady helicopters in an airspace at the …Sat Aug 14 2010 - 01:00
Finding solace in animals, plants and landANOTHER LIFE: IN THE DUBLIN newsroom of the Daily Express at the end of the 19th century, Charles Moffat was quite a curiosity…Sat Aug 07 2010 - 01:00
Why mushrooms choose to fruit remains mysteriousANOTHER LIFE: THE WARMTH of Connacht’s long, dry spring was stored with particular benefit in the sandy undulations of the machair…Sat Jul 31 2010 - 01:00
Trees that surround us in memory of old friendsANOTHER LIFE: The tree surgeon proved not only to be skilled, devoted and a man of visual taste but a diplomat as wellSat Jul 24 2010 - 01:00
Tread carefully this summer: our plants are in perilANOTHER LIFE: THE WESTERN HILLS had to wait for rain before blackened slopes, from Donegal to Connemara to Kerry, began to turn…Sat Jul 17 2010 - 01:00
