ON mornings after the storms, when the sun is bright and warm and the tide is far out, the floor of the bay stretches away in miles of mud and sand, dissected by narrow channels reflecting the blue of the sky.

THE wind in the beech tops sounds like an overhead railway rocketing down a tunnel, but on the ground there isn’t a puff of breeze and the water in the pond is mirror-still.

THE short daylight hours of the Christmas holidays and of winter in general offer the opportunity for those who enjoy the outdoor world to read up on the finer details of natural history and be replete with knowledge and curiosity when the world reopens to welcome a new spring.

THE rain lies like a soft gauze curtain across the view of the terraced mountains and the white houses of the island of La Palma, westernmost of the Canary Islands.

IN the glorious weather during the weekend of Nov 23 and 24 — historic weather, one might almost say — the canvas of the Kerry landscape would have inspired, and probably defeated, the efforts of the greatest painters.

THIS year, the number of elvers swimming up UK rivers and waterways was 20 times the norm of recent decades. This is good news.

AFTER the constant blue skies and dry days of recent months, I had forgotten what the view looked like in rain.

NOT having slept under canvas for 13 years, I recently spent a weekend bivouacking in a field surrounded by family.

WALKING the West Cork roads on the weekend before last, we enjoyed the first blackberries of 2013, sun-warmed and shining on the hedges.

ONE night recently, as I drove my daughter and her husband west from Cork airport, they spotted a pine marten with its bushy tail and white bib loping into the woodland skirting the Bandon River near Inishannon.