The picture of a gull I took on Dún Laoghaire’s Eblana Avenue, in the grounds at the front of the church. It seemed so unusual to see a white gull with black spots on the tail. – Breda McGrath, Dublin
When you take a nice picture like this you can really focus in on the details of the gull, which is not really all white but has a light grey back. This is because its wings are grey and have black wing tips with white spots. When the wings are folded, the black tips with the white spots cover the white tail, which is underneath.
This wonderfully coloured mushroom was recently found while replanting a flower bed at the base of a tree. Any idea what it could be? – Anne Marie Keoghan
This is the amethyst deceiver, Laccaria amethystina. It is generally a woodland species, so your deceiver must have felt the flower bed was in a woodland. It only has that beautiful dark colour when it is moist, becoming pale lilac when dry. The colour fades as it ages, making it difficult to identify – hence the name deceiver.
Cycling in Spain near the source of the river Guadalquivir earlier this year, we came across this convoy of hairy mollies nose to tail, snaking their way along the path. There were some 78 of them. Do their Irish cousins ever feel so inclined? – Denis Kenny, Wexford
I should certainly hope not. These are the caterpillars of the pine processionary moth, a terrible pest species of pine trees on mainland Europe but one which has not reached our shores so far. We did receive an invasion of the oak processionary moth on four oak trees in a Dublin housing estate in June 2023. The caterpillars, which can march in columns eight abreast, were spotted by a citizen scientist and the nests and the four newly planted oak trees, in which they arrived from abroad, were quickly destroyed by the Department of Agriculture. As well as defoliating oak trees, the hairs of the caterpillars can provoke severe allergic reactions in humans.
Moving house, we found this deceased creature. We had never seen one in the house before. Is this common in Ireland or becoming the normal and less unusual? Is it a cockroach? – James Milliken, Co Donegal
This is not a cockroach, which only live so far in warm indoor buildings. This is the great diving beetle, a fierce carnivore that lives in freshwater ponds. It has wings and can fly, although usually only at night, to avoid being caught by predators such as birds. It is thought they use the reflections of the moon on the water surface to guide them to new wetland habitats. This sometimes results in farmers finding them in animal water troughs in fields or gardeners finding them in rainwater-filled wheelbarrows, or indeed in the beetles crash landing on the shiny roofs of cars gleaming in the moonlight.
On December 18th I discovered this frog spawn in my pond in Dunchaoin, Co Kerry. And the frogs are in full throat too. In the 1990s, peak spawning here was around St Patrick’s Day. This is a full three months earlier. – Aisling Nic an tSitigh
Frog spawn can be found as early as January 8th in Ireland, as reported by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, which has run the national Hop-to-It-,Frog Survey since 1997. They obviously haven’t reckoned with the Dunchaoin frogs, who can’t be accused of sleeping on the job. It’s another wake-up call to the fact that climate change is making winters, on Kerry coastlines at least, much warmer in recent times.
Please submit your nature query, observation, or photo, with a location, via irishtimes.com/eyeonnature or by email to weekend@irishtimes.com
