This appeared in my neighbour’s front garden in Delgany during the summer, and we have no idea what it is. It’s about two inches long and appears to have four eyes. Is it a caterpillar? Carole Mahon
Wonderful camouflage, isn’t it? This is the caterpillar of the elephant hawk moth – so called because the dark-brown caterpillar has a trunk-like snout. The eyes are just eye spots. If you or a potential predator had alarmed the caterpillar, it would have withdrawn its snout into the eye-spot region, which would swell up, and the “eyes” would be very prominent. It would then sway menacingly from side to side looking like a small snake. Works every time.
This beautiful bird visited our garden in the middle of the day recently. It stayed on the fence for a few minutes, only a couple of metres from the house. Is it a hawk? Justyna Mullin, Sion Hill, Dublin
RM Block
It is. It is a female sparrow hawk which is bigger than the male. It is our most abundant bird of prey in Ireland. Gardens and hedgerows are the hunting habitat for this species and so your garden was being cased to see if any prey could be found. Sparrowhawks are a bird-eating species, which hunts along hedgerows and ambushes the prey by suddenly hopping over the hedge and grabbing it. They can pounce on birds at a feeder by coming on it suddenly from the other side. It is a top predator, and the larger female can catch and kill a pigeon or a magpie if they can launch a successful surprise attack.
I attach photos of hundreds of heart urchins washed up dead on the beach at Fionn Trá in Co Kerry at the end of July. Could the warm weather have been a factor? James Farrell
Michael O’Shea spotted several on Ballinskelligs beach in Kerry that same weekend. This species of heart urchin are known as sea potatoes in these parts. This is because all the spines fall off them when they are dead, and when the empty shells wash up on the shore, the whitish non-hairy tests (the correct name for these shells) look exactly like small potatoes. They live in tunnels, buried in the sand in deeper waters and feed on small particles brought into their burrows in the sea water. They aggregate for breeding, so if caught out by a storm at that time lots will be washed ashore. The July high pressure had moved away during the fourth week, allowing an Atlantic westerly airflow to take hold.
I found this insect on the wall inside my house in Cahore, Co Wexford in August. What is it? Claire Tyrell
This is a green lacewing – a common carnivorous garden insect that feeds mainly on aphids. Gardeners love them.
A rather scary-looking spider sat on the same strand of lavender in our garden for at least a week during the summer. Over five days she caught at least two moths, one white-tailed bumblebee and one solitary bee – getting bigger each day as she devoured them. There were three smaller, more orange-coloured spiders of similar morphology also on site, but they only caught one small carder bee between them. I presume it is a female goldenrod crab spider? Liam Plant, Cork
It is called the flower crab spider on this side of the Atlantic – Misumena vatia – as your other excellent image demonstrates. It sits and waits for insects to approach flowers and then sinks its fangs into the head of the unfortunate creature. Here it has grabbed a silver-y moth much bigger than itself. No wonder it is getting bigger with each passing day.
Please submit your nature query or observation, ideally with a photo and location, via irishtimes.com/eyeonnature or by email to weekend@irishtimes.com
Please submit your nature query or observation, ideally with a photo and location, using the form below or by email to weekend@irishtimes.com
