THE corncrake, as everyone knows, is in trouble. Once common, this noisy little relative of the water-hen kept people awake at night with its rhythmic rasping.

STUDENTS sitting this year’s Leaving Certificate biology exam were asked: “Herbivores in an eco-system normally live longer lives – true or false?”.

SO said the Bard of Avon.

BLUE TITS raised a brood in a nestbox at Wicklow Montessori School this summer.

THE Natural History Museum, closed for three years following the collapse of a staircase, has reopened in Dublin’s Kildare Street.

COWSLIPs and violets are having a bumper year.

THE anthropologist Robin Dunbar visited Trinity College’s Science Gallery last week.

EACH spring, RTÉ’s Mooney Show sets up nest-boxes at locations around Dublin.

POOR old Iceland is in the dog-house.

HOI An is a beautiful town near the mouth of Vietnam’s Thu Bon River.