AMONGST roadside swathes of celandine lies a bag of suppurating household rubbish.

YESTERDAY, I saw a heron fly overhead with a twig in its beak.

I WAS impressed with The Shorebirds of Ireland, recently published by The Collins Press, a beautifully-produced treasury of well-written, informative text by Jim Wilson, with a gallery of wonderful bird photographs by Mark Carmody.

IT is difficult for the self-employed to stay indoors these days when the sky is blue and the world outside bathed in sunlight, and there is – even! – warmth in sheltered corners so that one could close one’s eyes and think one is on the Mediterranean.

AS Alice in Wonderland said, things gets “curiouser and curioser” and she was “so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English”.

A STRETCH in the evenings and with it nature, although a little late, is busy again.

SAINT Valentine’s Day 2010 remains memorable as one of the most all-round perfect February days for years.

A Johnny-the-bogs regularly stands sentinel at the end of an old pier, Tanner’s Pier, now reduced to a corridor of wrack-grown rocks opposite what was once the Earl of Shannon’s summer house, now the elegant Courtmacsherry Hotel.

THIS week, I will diverge from reports of local events in nature, the marvellous humpback whale displays in Wexford, and the shoals of sprats in the seas off west Cork, to tell readers about a book I’ve greatly enjoyed called Birding from the Hip: A Sound Approach Anthology.

A GREY adolescent seal and two pure white adult spoonbills in front of Timoleague Abbey in the falling light of a mid-January Sunday were only two of the delights of west Cork this winter.