Another Life Michael VineyThe flattened, spiny husk of a hedgehog among the tyre-marks on the boreen was a sad sight but not a gloomy one: at least the little creatures are surviving on a hillside well-patrolled by badgers, the one mammal dedicated, it can sometimes seem, to their eradication. Our own destruction of Erinaceus europaeus is casual and oblivious.
Some of the figures for hedgehog road-kills in Europe are striking, indeed: up to 340,000 a year in the Netherlands and up to 350,000 in Belgium. But ecologically speaking, the more dead hedgehogs there are, the healthier their overall population is likely to be. In Britain, the worry is that sightings of the animal, dead or alive, are dropping sharply, raising fears that the national population may have halved in only a decade - not from being squashed, but having less and less suitable room in which to live.
As Ireland's roads and traffic multiply, the toll on our mammals increases, but so does the interest in avoiding their deaths: not every species has the hedgehog's resilience (most of the squashed ones are males, travelling in search of a mate at breeding time; the fecundity of the more sedentary females is more important). But along with the new highways has come the provision of "crossing structures" targeted at protected species.
How well they are working is being studied by Lisa Dolan, the UCC ecologist, whose years of research into road design and habitat creation has already helped to soften the impact of highways on the countryside and its wildlife.
Otters and badgers have been the priority in placing the arched culverts, with mammal ledges, that tunnel under the concrete. Where farms have been divided, "green bridges" built for cattle have also become safe crossings for deer and smaller mammals. There are even, apparently, rope ladders linking trees on opposite sides of a motorway for the benefit of red squirrels and pine martens.
But the casualties continue, and this year's roadkill survey by the National Parks and Wildlife Service is part of its duty under the EU Habitats Directive to monitor the impact of "incidental killing" on protected species. It has based its interaction with the public in the excellent and innovative website, www.biology.ie.
This is the creation of Paul Whelan, a biologist and computer wizard who, retiring to Cobh for health reasons, set out to fill the huge gap in Ireland's popular engagement with nature, biodiversity and the impact of climate change. The website is the place where amateur and professional naturalists alike can put their wildlife sightings on the map.
The map, in its transformations, is a digital delight, deploying infinite varieties of data at a touch and ready to be be swooped in upon or roamed around at will. The island-wide roadkills of mink, or the one that was spotted at the Strawberry Beds; the striking spread of pine martens into Leinster; the apparent concentration of dead hedgehogs into the southern half of the island - its graphic byways are endlessly adaptable and intriguing.
As yet, of course, it reflects as much the density of interested observers as the actual wildlife (or death) observed. Co Cork seems to be teeming (if that is the word) with dead stoats, otters and hedgehogs until one happens to know about the enthusiasm for zoology - and, indeed, for Whelan's website - that radiates from the relevant department in UCC and its associated naturalists.
But with the spread of interest in the site, its picture of Ireland's natural events and species should grow ever more detailed and useful.The Heritage Council has chosen it to host its Biodiversity Watch project, in which people can enter the plants and animals to be found in a particular local habitat, perhaps a local park, woodland or seashore. This could prove a potentially awesome database, of special value to the new National Biological Records Centre in Waterford. The site is already a conduit for the National Lichens Survey based in the Botanic Gardens, and Paul Whelan's ever-accommodating map will soon be plotting, on demand, the results of national surveys of lizards and bats.
Meanwhile, Whelan sums up the progress of climate change glimpsed from records sent in to the site's nature calendar this spring. Hawthorn was flowering almost three weeks earlier than in most other years, peacock butterflies were on the wing up to 30 days ahead, a lot of frogspawn appeared a fortnight early. But the ash tree, bless it, burst into leaf just about on time.
The site is a tool that Irish nature-lovers have been waiting for (though Apple Mac users like myself may need to download a new internet browser, such as Firefox, to gain proper access). It can only get better and more scientifically worthwhile as its popular database grows.
www.biology.ie
EyeOnNature
Among our large wild population of rabbits we have one that is jet black. Is this likely to be a result of a cross with a domestic pet rabbit?
Robert Myerscough, Colbinstown,
Co Kildare
Black rabbits are not unusual in the wild population but they are more liable to predation because their colour makes them more obvious. The long hairs on a rabbit's back have alternating bands of brown and dark grey, and the relative proportions of these determine the apparent colour of the fur.
Having taken a photograph of a bee orchid near Clonakilty, Co Cork, I saw what seemed to be a butterfly egg deposited in the "mouth" of the flower.
Daniel Cronin, Model Farm Road, Cork
The small, round object inside the lip of the bee orchid was more likely the egg sac of a tiny spider that lives among vegetation.
We have had an invasion of basking sharks in Glandore Bay. From our boat we spotted 11. The sounder showed an extraordinary amount of plankton in the water, and there was also an incredible number of mackerel.
Alex Donohoe (10), Glandore, Co Cork