TOUR de France cyclists exploit the slipstreams of their competitors in ‘le peloton’.

IN May, this column celebrated the extraordinary lifestyle of the red-necked phalarope. After years of research, ornithologists thought they knew almost everything about the strange ways of this little wader but they were wrong. A phalarope from Shetland has confounded everybody by travelling 16,000km on migration. It’s not just the distance covered which is astonishing but the bird’s destination.

HOW many birds die as a result of human activities each year?

IT was thought, until recently, that virtually all of the world’s large animals had been discovered.

JOHN Muir, the “father of the National Parks” who “saved the American soul from total surrender to materialism”, died a century ago this year. 2014 will be marked by Muir celebrations in the US and his native Scotland. April 21 has been designated John Muir day.

LIFE is tough for songbirds just now.

FOUR decades on from a watershed international agreement, 2013 was designated the Year of the Polar Bear.

DEPICTIONS of lions and cheetahs appear in centuries-old Persian carpets; the ‘Chelsea Carpet’ in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is a fine example.

WITH rising temperatures, courtesy of greenhouse gas emissions, you might expect birds to linger on at migration time, taking an extra ‘sus beag’, before the arduous journey to far-off lands.

SCIENTISTS from Inland Fisheries Ireland, led by Debbi Pedreschi of UCD, have studied the history of pike in Ireland.