Making the best of the ever-changing bounty of Atlantic flotsamDr Don Cotton has produced a fascinating study of marine debris along the Sligo coastSat Apr 07 2018 - 06:00
Michael Viney: An appreciation of spring in the winter of his lifeEvery splurge of energy . . . prompts sitting down for a bit, to contemplate my own, much diminished, kingdomSat Mar 31 2018 - 06:00
Curled octopuses among the many washed-up victims of Storm EmmaTimely publication of ‘Ireland’s Seashore’ (Collins Press, €15) a boon for beachcombersSat Mar 17 2018 - 06:00
Storm Emma brought us the regular refugees from winter coldAnother Life: Michael Viney on tired birds, bitter temperatures and climate chaosTue Mar 13 2018 - 17:55
Mammal mysteries in sorties of the squirrel and sailing of the shrewDNA research has explored the post-glacial sources of Ireland’s mixed bag of mammalsSat Mar 10 2018 - 06:00
Ethna, Olivia and the mystery of the Killiney Bay amberAnother Life: Michael Viney on a rare find by two young sistersSat Mar 03 2018 - 06:00
How much would you pay for cleaner beaches and safer water?Another Life: Michael Viney on the cash value of Ireland’s coastal ecosystemSat Feb 24 2018 - 06:00
How the west gave a poet his dream and identityAnother Life: Michael Viney on Richard Murphy’s Connemara lifeSat Feb 17 2018 - 06:00
Hubs of deep-water life in need of greater protectionJosepha Madigan appears to be ‘appropriate minister’ to look after our ocean ecosystemSat Feb 10 2018 - 06:00
Ireland’s rocks remarkably rich in evidence of ancient sea lifeBrittle-star belonged to deep-water life of a vanishing ocean 435 million years agoSat Feb 03 2018 - 06:00
Michael Viney: Murderous mink, menacing muskrats and the marksmen who keep them in checkThe problem of aquatic rodents, first brought to Europe for exploitation in the fur trade, has grown along with their numbersSat Jan 27 2018 - 06:00
Michael Viney: Ecocentrism has had to bide its timeTo any naturalist, Homo sapiens is a predator long out of balance with the rest of natureSat Jan 20 2018 - 06:00
‘Oh boy it feels good!’: Vaccination opens way for clearing badgers of cattle TBAnother Life: Michael Viney on a chance for Ireland to catch up with other countriesSat Jan 13 2018 - 06:00
Michael Viney: Wild Nephin won’t work if it is managed like any other parkIreland’s first experiment in rewilding needs proper funding and greater autonomySat Jan 06 2018 - 06:00
Search the sky, comb the beaches: a nature challenge for 2018Jump aboard: digital technology has given amateur science a whole new roleSat Dec 30 2017 - 06:00
Michael Viney’s Christmas quiz: test your nature knowledgeAnother Life: 40 questions to answer, plus 40 solutions, to see how much you knowSat Dec 23 2017 - 06:00
Beluga sturgeon and the secrets of your Christmas caviarAnother Life: Michael Viney on the unpalatable truth about lumpfish roeSat Dec 16 2017 - 06:00
Mystery of seasonal moisture: blobs of goo also known as ‘star jelly’Eye on Nature: A common surface for nostoc is limestone gravel, used throughout Ireland on paths, drives and flat roofsSat Dec 09 2017 - 06:00
Michael Viney: Elusive water rails easier to hear than to spotOur feral American mink now top the list of water-bird predators in reed-bed habitatsSat Dec 02 2017 - 06:00
New book a timely reminder of harsh realities of coastal lifeHistory of the fishery piers of North Clare and Galway sheds intriguing light on bygone eraSat Nov 25 2017 - 06:00
Worthy Papal encyclical on environment didn’t go far enoughAnother Life: ‘Laudato Si’ failed to acknowledge human overpopulation as the driver of planetary degradationSat Nov 18 2017 - 06:00
Take the slime of one black slug . . . A cure for wartsAnother Life: Michael Viney on gastropods and their mucusSat Nov 11 2017 - 06:00
From Dublin Bay to a tapestry of light: nature books for ChristmasAnother Life: Michael Viney’s pick of the wildlife writing and photography of 2017Sat Nov 04 2017 - 06:00
Small woods of native trees are beautiful but ecologically dodgyEcologists push for a critical mass of cover, extending and merging existing clustersSun Oct 22 2017 - 14:50
The forecasts didn’t get Ophelia quite rightA website to advise the surfers of the world had proved intriguingly reliable until nowSat Oct 21 2017 - 06:00
Captivating chronicle of woodpecker lifeMichael Viney: Declan Murphy’s engaging ‘A Life in the Trees’ the result of painstaking studySat Oct 14 2017 - 06:00
Michael Viney: The false widow spider is not dangerous, but ...On walls and boundary railings of Lucan’s public park, 54 were counted on one visit in JulySat Oct 07 2017 - 06:00
Listening for the whistle on the shoreAnother Life: Michael Viney on the Irish curlew’s staggering declineSat Sept 30 2017 - 06:00
Happy as a pig on straw: the difference good animal husbandry makesBored pigs can start biting each other’s tails. It’s not hard to enrich their livesSat Sept 23 2017 - 06:00
The wasps plundering resources for native ecosystemsWasp species common to Ireland are making much trouble for insects and birds in New ZealandSat Sept 16 2017 - 06:00
Sands of time start to run out: what our building frenzy is doing to seas and lakesMichael Viney: We are extracting aggregates faster than the planet can replace themSat Sept 09 2017 - 06:00
Jellyfish with sting that closes beachesMichael Viney: the lion’s mane jellyfish has been medically problematic for a centurySat Sept 02 2017 - 06:00
‘Small bodies swaying with the vigour of their chewing’Michael Viney: Sandhoppers are the most prolific animals in the ‘splash zone’ above the highest reach of spring tides, and scientists have been fascinated by their navigational capacitiesSat Aug 26 2017 - 06:00
Michael Viney: Is starry stonewort a native species that knows its place?Genetic fingerprinting may be needed to trace the stonewort to the reedy channels of East AngliaSat Aug 19 2017 - 06:00
Naming nature’s creatures – great, small and microscopicMichael Viney: We have never known about more species – and the list is growingSat Aug 12 2017 - 06:00
The humble squid’s extraordinary service to neuroscienceMichael Viney: Everything we know about how nerves work gleaned from squid nervesSat Aug 05 2017 - 06:00
History preserved in the whorls of Irish tree-ringsMichael Viney: Stephen Galvin’s work established the long-lived yew as a reliable barometer of environmental changeSat Jul 29 2017 - 05:00
On the equiangular spiral and how the narwhal got its hornMichael Viney: D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson belongs on the same shelf as Charles DarwinSat Jul 22 2017 - 05:00
Farmers’ weapons of mass destruction carry cancer fearsMichael Viney: Is Roundup safe or carcinogenic? What about other herbicides?Sat Jul 15 2017 - 11:18
How many birds can the natural world support?The brilliant CB Moffat anticipated 21st-century avian population dynamics theorySat Jul 08 2017 - 05:00
A bunch of 10 wild roses by any other namesMichael Viney: Hybridising habits and costume changes boost Ireland’s ‘Rosa’ rosterSat Jul 01 2017 - 05:00
Pioneering plants in peril on shingle banksAnother Life: New survey finds just 27 sites that fit the EU prescription for perennially vegetated shingle, almost all within special areas of conservationSat Jun 24 2017 - 05:00
We’re all lost without a national landscape map of IrelandThe lack of such a map is to the detriment of good planning and landscape policySat Jun 17 2017 - 05:00
The beautiful early bloom has taken on a troubling edgeThere was an innocent time when one could just have thanked the sun, but that’s goneSat Jun 10 2017 - 05:00
Crude overfishing means the world is no longer oysters’The native oyster’s history tells both of a great loss from the coast’s ecosystemSat Jun 03 2017 - 05:00
Michael Viney: Animals were put on Earth to fart aroundThe sight of sheep at a hedge got me thinking about animal curiositySat May 27 2017 - 05:00
Why is the sea blue, and why can’t dogs see all the colours that we can?Michael Viney: You might wonder if any living thing sees Earth’s ‘true’ colours at allSat May 20 2017 - 05:00
The link between gorse fires, farming and a disregard for natureMichael Viney: A blazing furze bush is a furnace of wildlifeSat May 13 2017 - 05:00
Garden feeders encourage conifer-loving siskinsAnother Life: A relative of the goldfinch, the siskin is ‘the most joyous of birds’Sat May 06 2017 - 05:00
It’s a forest of friends – hug a lonely beech tree‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ reveals a totally new insight and empathy towards treesSat Apr 29 2017 - 05:00
