Last week, an old friend of mine (not in the sense of seriously elderly, although he’s no stripling), Mr Kevin Hanly, a man with a great eye for the workings of nature and natural things, was abroad alone on his boat in Courtmacsherry Bay in West Cork, (something a seriously old person would not do), fishing for bass, writes Damien Enright

The sun comes out, and the butterflies follow. Few and far between, we saw only three on a 6km walk, two small heaths and a solitary speckled wood spiralling about under some beeches.

DUCKLINGS go to college? The sight of a troop of ducklings streaming in line after their mother through the gates of University College Cork had a definite, sentimental charm, but I saw it not so much as an endearing picture of “adorable, fluffy little creatures” seeking knowledge, as a testament to Nature’s unfailing geography of survival.

I arrive back from the Canary Islands, with a brief stop-over in London, and have messages on my telephone which make me wonder if there is more exotic wildlife to be seen in West Cork than in many far-flung places.

A ROCK falling on one’s head is a hazard rarely encountered on Irish roads. However, in the Canary Islands it is a distinct possibility on back roads not yet endowed with EU grants.

AT NIGHT, here on the island of La Gomera in the Canaries, we hear the pardelas — Cory’s Shearwaters — mewling as they cruise high above the lights of the harbour; their calls echoing against the sheer rock face that rises 1,000m directly above the port beach.

TO SEE green shoots rise from blackened branches in the vast swathes of forest destroyed by wildfires in La Gomera in the Canary Islands in August 2012 was at once a joy and a reassurance. 

The recurrent showers of recent weeks has had us crouching under bushes for shelter.

THE soldier stones that top the seashore wall for a kilometre or more from the east to the west end of this village are draped with the red stems and tiny purple flowers of ivy-leaved toadflax. If a lady could lift off this lacery of plant life and drape it on her shoulders, she would, it is sure, be wearing a shawl better than any designed by the top couturiers.

IT’S SUMMER again, whatever Met Éireann may say about it beginning in June.