For several years now, correspondents to the letters columns of the Irish Times have heatedly debated the merits — or lack of them — of magpies. The magpie is a large black-and-white bird that first appeared in Ireland in the 17th Century and is now proliferating in every part of the country.
Nature
Eurasian Magpie • Photo by Airwolfhound (CC BY SA 2.0)
Photo by Mathias Appel (Public Domain)
Starlings: from the sea to shining sea
Economists have a maxim called Gresham’s Law that says “bad money will always drive out good.” Sometimes I think ecologists should enunciate a similar principle.
Photo by Dave Herring on Unsplash
Ireland’s changeable weather
For 12 years, off and on, I have been a student of Irish weather. I have studied the daily weather maps in the Irish Times. I have listened to the 6 o’clock shipping forecasts on the BBC. I have watched the barometer. I have held a moistened finger to the wind.
The Mourning Cloak butterfly • Photo by Milantina (CC BY 4.0)
Spring’s first mourning cloak
Only a daredevil makes metaphors. To make a metaphor is to walk a tightrope, to be shot out of a cannon, to do aerial somersaults without a net. The trouble with metaphors is you never know when they’ll let you down. You turn a somersault in midair, you reach for the trapeze, and suddenly it’s not there.
Great Blue Heron • Photo by Steven Fine (CC BY SA 4.0)
Stalking the great blue heron
Even before I saw him I felt the shove of his huge wings. There was a sound of air moving. I turned and there he was, his zeppelin bulk rising inexplicably into the air, his long legs dangling behind like mooring lines. The great blue heron.
Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) • Photo by Tom Raymo
Consider the miracle of the wild columbine
For almost 20 years I have ranged the woods and fields near my home in eastern Massachusetts. Most of the plants and animals have become familiar friends. By paying close attention to the weather, I can predict almost to a day when the first red-wing blackbird will reappear along the brook, or when the first cinnamon fern will unfurl its fiddleheads near the pond. There is a pleasure in the familiar, in the recurring patterns of the seasons.
North American Opossum • Photo by Cody Pope (CC BY SA 2.5)
The possum’s progress
The possum is not an attractive domestic scavenger, having the scruffy, unkempt look of a Bowery bum and the reputation, probably deserved, of being stupid. Certainly the possum lacks the cuddlesome charm of its partner in backyard crime, the raccoon.