Michael Viney responds to readers queries and observations on nature.
I found this insect on the ivy (photo enclosed) and it looks like a stick insect. I am keeping it in a jam jar, and it eats ivy and cabbage.
Finnian Hartnett (aged seven), Dublin.
It is the caterpillar of the swallow-tailed moth which feeds during the night and stays still on the plant during the day looking like a piece of stick. It will pupate in a cocoon of silk and leaf fragments, and the moths will emerge in July.
A bird has arrived in our back garden that is the size and shape of a robin, but it stays in the trees and on the suet feeding balls. It is uniformly grey except for a reddish patch on its head.
Corinne McWilliams, Galway.
It is a female blackcap.
For a period of at least a week around Christmas the dawn chorus seemed to last through the night. Birds were singing at one, two and three a.m.
Denis Ryan, Portobello, Dublin, 8.
Birds, particularly those of the thrush family, sometimes sing at night during the breeding season but only for a week or two.
Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo; e-mail: viney@anu.ie. Include a postal address.