David, aged 10, wonders if he has been "seeing things". "No David, you are not mad," comes the answer. The lobster-like creature David saw in a river was a crayfish, a shy and rarely spotted freshwater crustacean. There's also a warning for the young explorer: "It can give you a nip - so be careful!"
In Mayo, another person with a nature problem contacts www.wildireland.ie to report strange rat sightings and a returned emigrant in Kells laments the disappearance of swifts. A Dublin surfer who just got back from riding the waves with dolphins in the west writes breathlessly: "I've never felt such a feeling of euphoria - it was like a drug. I was laughing all over . . . everyone was beaming like idiots".
Given the growing interest in wildlife and nature, it is perhaps surprising that there are so few publications on the topic for the Irish reader. There is no generalist's nature magazine, and popular media slots like such as Derek Mooney's Sunday radio show on RTE Radio 1 Mooney Goes Wild (www.rte.ie/moooneygoeswild) and Michael Viney's column every Saturday in this paper are not intended to be comprehensive resources. The suspicion that an appetite existed for a larger forum appears to have been borne out by enthusiastic responses to wildireland.ie, where amateurs and experts are invited to mingle with each other and with species such as horseshoe bats, fire-bellied newts, rare hares, whales and badgers, all more easily accessible on the Net than in the field.
The wide range of nature-related activity across the country is now available via the imaginative, bilingual website - which is designed to encourage the growth of an online nature community. A bat expert takes readers on a twilight tour of Cork's stately homes; the mysteries of the fieldmouse, of honeybees and of the "danger lurking in the deep" (zebra mussels) are revealed; bird-ringers and whale watchers explain their work; and genetically modified crops are discussed.
Queries come in from amateurs and researchers from Ireland and abroad. One US school wanted to know why Ireland has no snakes ("Please don't say St Patrick," the inquirers pleaded).
"As a result of an article by Dr Simon Berrow on the viability of dolphin-watching on the Shannon estuary, National Geographic is going to cover the subject in a TV documentary," says Colm Dolan, one of the four founders of the site, which operates out of riverside offices in Co Kildare.
Compared with countries such as Thailand or Kenya, with their elephants, lions and exotic reptiles, Ireland is not often considered a hotbed of interesting wildlife. But there is considerably more activity out there than we might think - such as the shy creatures that which live in ditches and hedges to the littleknown Minke, fin and even humpback whales which can be found off places such as Loop Head, Co Clare. The growing concern about conservation issues means an increased appetite to share information between interested groups, which the Web is well placed to serve.
Congella Murphy, a wildlife ranger at the Burren National Park in Co Clare, has used wildireland.ie to publicise upcoming events: "Other sites, such as those for birdwatchers, are also popular," she says - such as the one at http://homepage.tinet.ie/~birdwatch.
Part of her job as a ranger is to bring wildlife and conservation issues to schools. School pupils are also catered for at wildireland.ie and as part of a new "Wildschools" section, it is planned to set up twinning arrangements between urban and rural schools to facilitate information exchanges and visits.
The information on wildireland.ie is free, but the venture aims to pay its way through sales of books, clothes and other materials, including educational CDs.
sbarron@iol.ie