Recently I was walking behind the derelict hotel in Mullranny, Co Mayo. From a jungle of rhododendrons came a strange and alarming noise which stopped both myself and my dogs in our tracks. I had never heard anything like it before. It sounded like a number of animals - possibly birds - chattering, and the noise rose and fell, stopped and started again. It reminded me vaguely of a squirrel only much louder. Soon afterwards an animal crossed our path which could have been a mink, but there is no water nearby.
Megan Morris, Cork.
The sound suggests a stoat in confrontation, perhaps, with the mink or pine marten which crossed your path later.
At Heuston Station in Dublin, I noticed three cormorants sunning themselves on a wall. I thought cormorants were sea birds. Do they fish in fresh water or is the Liffey tidal?
Joe Burke, Fethard, Co Tipperary.
The Liffey is of course tidal, but cormorants often fish and even nest on inland lakes and rivers.
In the last days of November, I noticed an adult cormorant on an inland waterway, but instead of the usual white throat and thigh patches, this bird's entire front was snowy white. Is this colouring a genetic variation of winter plumage, or something else?
John Lee, Inniscarra, Co Cork
It was an immature cormorant which has white underparts until it moults at one year old and gets its adult plumage. The white thigh patches are only present during the breeding season.
Edited by Michael Viney, who welcomes observations sent to him at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. e-mail: viney@anu.ie