We saw hundreds of these flies burrowing into ant-like nests at Powerscourt waterfall recently. What are they?—Conor Fleetwood, Wicklow
They are not flies and the nests are not ants’ nests. These tiny volcano-like structures are the entrances to the nests of mining bees. These are solitary bees, each with its own nest and young grub inside. They put pollen in for the grub to feed on and then close the entrance. As I only have its tail-end to go on, I think it is probably an ashy mining bee.
Is this a protected plant, the giant viper bugloss?—John Perry, Dublin 18
It is the giant viper’s bugloss, a native of La Palma in the Canary Islands, where it grows in the laurel forests (and is endangered by habitat loss). Irish gardeners grow it for its 4m-high cyme of funnel-shaped blue flowers. It sometimes escapes into the wild; as an alien species, it certainly is not protected here.
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Found this little green-bodied spider scuttling around strawberry plants we bought in a garden centre. What is it?—Frank D’Arcy, Galway
It is Arianiella cucurbitina, the cucumber green orb spider. It spins a small web between leaves and relies on its colour for camouflage rather than hiding away. It is predatory on flying insects caught in its web and never eats cucumbers.
What insect laid these eggs?—Abe Ludick, Co Kilkenny
These are not eggs but galls. A tiny gall wasp laid eggs on the veins on the underside of the oak leaf while it was growing last year, which caused the leaf to grow a gall around the egg. The grub hatches inside feeds on the inside of the gall and emerges to change into an adult and fly away. The gall does no harm to the leaf.
Noel Hiney sent in the above image of a swan in Bushy Park, Dublin.
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