This red squirrel was a regular visitor to our flower boxes during the summer. We first thought he was burying nuts in the soil, but it seems now that it has been eating the plants. Tony Furlong, Thomastown, Co Kilkenny
Squirrels can only feed on nuts in the autumn when they are about. They have to eat other things during the rest of the year. During the summer they often remove bark from the growing tips of branches which causes them to wilt and be snapped off by the wind. They also eat fungi, fruit and berries. The braver of them have learnt that our gardens can be an easy source of food and they come to steal strawberries and, as in your case, tasty plants.
While walking in my sister’s garden near Ballydehob, we came across this enormous caterpillar. We at first thought it was an invasive species but now believe it is a goat moth caterpillar. It was at 10-12cm in size. We placed a €2 coin beside it for scale before leaving it go on its merry way. Garret Pearse
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It is indeed a goat moth – so called because the caterpillars have the smell of an active Billy goat. This one has spent up to four years as a caterpillar inside the timber of an ash or willow tree where it bored large tunnels through the wood. It has now emerged and is off to become a glossy, chestnut-brown pupa in a tough silk-lined cocoon underground. It will emerge next summer as a large moth with silvery grey-brown wings that look exactly like tree bark.
This little plant, which I think is a red sand spurrey, was growing at the southern end of Emlagh strand in Co Mayo, sheltered in a rocky cove. I thought they only grew in the southeast and some parts of Ulster? Is this an unusual occurrence? Barry Porter
It is Spergularia rupicola – rock sea-spurrey, which has uniformly coloured lilac flowers and 10 stamens. S. rubra – sand spurrey – has white bases to the petals and only five stamens. Rock sea-spurrey grows on rocks and sea walls and is frequent around most of the coast. You are right that S. rubra is rare, but this is not it.
Can you identify this little creature and his/her friends busy laying waste to this plant in my garden? Rory Mc Guinn, Moycullen, Co Galway
This is an excellent picture of the lesser willow sawfly larva. As can be seen from your image, it has six pairs of fleshy abdominal legs at the back of its body behind the front three pairs of true legs. As everyone knows, the caterpillars of moths and butterflies never have more than five pairs of abdominal legs. Sawfly larvae only have two dark eyes, one on each side of the head, whereas moth and butterfly larvae usually have six smaller eyes on each side of the head. Sawfly larvae are well able to demolish the leaves of whatever plant they are feeding on before eventually pupating and turning into four-winged wasp-like sawflies, although without the wasp waist.
While walking to the beach at Warren Strand in west Cork, we saw these very lazy lizards enjoying the sun. The cushion was obviously very comfortable and warm. Collette Fitzgerald, Knocklyon, Dublin
Ah yes, very many species enjoyed the warm summer days. Our only native lizard – Lacerta vivipara – is a cold-blooded reptile and must absorb its heat from the environment rather than generating it from the food it eats, as do mammals and birds. They feed on centipedes, spiders and molluscs but leave woodlice and ants alone. They don’t like the taste apparently.
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