ONCE persecuted to extinction here, the buzzard, a bird of prey, seems to be making a comeback and we’ll probably be seeing more of it in southern parts, writes Donal Hickey

JUST like Christmas, it happens annually with calendar certainty. From around St Patrick’s Day until well into April, the uplands are ablaze in parts of the west and southwest. 

OUR grandmother’s liking for carrageen moss was looked upon as a sort of an oddity, says Donal Hickey.

ON a visit to the royally-endorsed English Market, in Cork, globetrotting TV chef Rick Stein was pulled, as if by magnetic force, to the seafood corner, as are many.

A WALK on a country road these days will show that we don’t have to look too far to see nature showing its face again, writes Donal Hickey.

Bold lettering on a quirky tee-shirt we saw a man wearing the other day declared that if you want to be happy for a day, get drunk, but if you want to be happy for life, take up fishing.

IT seems many peopl do not realise they are causing litter when they throw a cigarette butt on the ground.

IRELAND is speckled with small lakes and streams, about which little enough is known scientifically.

GIVEN the massive amounts of marine waste that was washed in by last year’s storms, people might be justified in thinking that there was little more of it left in the oceans.

THE ‘biddies’ were out over the weekend in some rural areas, keeping alive an age-old custom that marks the coming of spring while schoolchildren here and there have been making St Brigid’s crosses in honour of the saint whose feast day is February 1.