Observations on nature
Early in June, hundreds of bugs hovered over my lawn. They had bottle-green heads and hard brownish backs and they looked quite drunk. This also happened last year.
Anne Ellis, Dalkey, Co Dublin
They were garden chafers that had just hatched. The larvae feed on grass roots. Adults feed on trees and shrubs and often damage fruit crops.
On the morning of June 19th, millions of Vellella, by-the-wind-sailors, were stranded on Bushfoot Strand. All were very young, the vast majority under 10mm and many under 5mm in length, yet lots had fully formed little "sails".
Philip Watson, Portballintrae, Co Antrim
On Lough Arrow in Co Sligo, my grandchildren captured a long thread of a creature, about one foot long, in the bailing bucket.
Barrie Cooke, Kilmactranny, Co Sligo
It sounds like a horsehair worm. They go into the water to mate and lay eggs. The microscopic larvae enter into the body of insects where they grow to maturity, then they emerge to enter the water again to start a new cycle.
• Send observations to Michael Viney, Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo; e-mail: viney@anu.ie (include a postal address)