On March 31st my son and I saw a weird bird in the garden. It was about 10 inches long with a short, stubby tail, brown colouring with lighter stripes along the body and one on the head, and red around the eyes. It had a short beak and fairly short legs. I think its chest had a very slightly pink flush. The general impression was of a slim, long-bodied bird. It uttered no call and seemed loath to fly, preferring to walk across grass and gravel to a hole in the fence, where it escaped into a paddock.
Felicity Smith, Gorey, Co Wexford
It sounds very much like a game bird and could have been a grey partridge, a bird that is quite rare in this country now.
I have a red cowslip growing in my garden. The stock came from some wild plants I dug up on the roadside in Co Meath which have seeded prolifically and now cover several square yards. Is this unique?
Trevor Boyd, Bangor, Co Down
Cowslips, even growing in the wild, can cross with red primulas from the garden.
There are no weasels in Ireland; your guest is a stoat which, normally, has a long tail with a black tip. The stoat flips up its tail at an attacking bird of prey and distracts it with the black tip, sometimes losing it in the process. As it gets older the tail is likely to get shorter.
Walking along the shores of Strangford Lough, approaching high tide, I found an oyster-catcher floating with its beak under the water attached to a limpet. Having nothing to prise up the limpet's shell, and the bird was in imminent danger of drowning, I had to break off about a centimetre of its beak, whereupon it flew away. I was worried it would not survive, but a few weeks later I saw it again at the same place.
Craig Nash, Strangford, Co Down
Edited by Michael Viney, who welcomes observations sent to him at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. e-mail: viney@anu.ie