THE popular English carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, mentions five kinds of bird and a tree.

Richard Collins finds out that humans aren’t the only animals to ‘pig out’.

ACCORDING to Wings, BirdWatch Ireland’s magazine, a new long distance flight record has been set.

Richard Collins is fascinated by the colourful habits of dunnocks.

STEPHEN JAY GOULD remarked that “the Irish elk was neither Irish nor an elk”. Although found throughout much of northern Europe, the giant deer was once the iconic Irish mammal.

THREE weeks from now, a most unusual birthday will be celebrated in Berlin; Knut, the city’s polar bear cub, will be one year old.

TWO books by well-known Irish naturalists have come to hand. One celebrates a river and the landscape through which it flows; the other focuses on a peninsula in Co Donegal.

Richard Collins shares his inside view as a juror in the competition.

IN 1933, a rare Tasmanian tiger was snared by a trapper. In those days, exotic creatures were sold to fairground operators who put them on display for money. This particular animal, however, ended up in Hobart Zoo where it was christened Benjamin by a journalist, even though its sex was never reliably determined.

LATE summer is a lean time for the birdwatcher.