Michael Viney responds to reader's queries and observations on nature.
A young neighbour found a fish with an upright flat shape like a sea bream or a John Dory. It looks like a deep-water fish with red coloration and a huge eye. Press on its lower lip and the mouth protrudes out like a tube.
Peter Wolstenholme, Courtmacsherry, Co Cork
It is a boar fish, Capros aper, and lives mainly at 100-400 m over rock and coral around these islands, with occasional sorties into shallow water. It is rarely seen.
I saw a magpie filing its beak with mud from our garden pond. Was it collecting this for a nest?
John Brennan, North Strand, Dublin, 3.
Magpies make a foundation of mud, grass and hair for their unruly nests.
On our patio we have lots of tits, dunnocks and sparrows, but we now have a disabled chaffinch, with horrible growths on his feet and legs. Is this a birth defect?
Sheila Brown, Lismore, Co Waterford
Whether it is a birth defect or contracted, it could be caused by pesticide - perhaps a herbicide sprayed on seeding weeds.
Edited by Michael Viney, who welcomes observations sent to him at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. E-mail: viney@anu.ie (include postal address)