LITTLE creatures are often overlooked, while big ones get all the attention. Shrews are a case in point.

THERE ARE few certainties in life and even fewer when it comes to wildlife. Badgers in Britain live mainly on worms.

THE Wild Geese left Ireland to enlist in foreign armies after the wars of the 1690s.

EATING OWL flesh will help a child’s whooping cough and owl’s eyes contain a cure for blindness, or so the piseogs claim. According to the ancient Doctrine of Signatures, an animal’s special attributes indicate the medicinal benefits its flesh has to offer.

AN UNHOLY row has broken out in Britain. Catholic agencies won’t accept same-sex couples as adoptive parents, despite being required to do so under new anti-discrimination legislation.

I RINGED four blackcaps in the last month. What’s so remarkable about that you may ask; blackcaps are common birds nowadays.

EMIGRATION has ceased and people are flooding into Celtic Tiger Ireland. The country’s human population is being transformed and so is the landscape.

AN EXTRAORDINARY claim was made recently in a BBC report. It concerned a mountaineering accident and its consequences.

THE NEW elephant facility is nearing completion at Dublin Zoo. It is not scheduled to open until late spring and, so as not to pre-empt the celebrations planned for then, I won't go into detail about it here.

AN INTERESTING project is underway at UCD: post-graduate student Jack Murphy is studying horses. His concern, however, is not with their health strength or breeding performance. Jack is examining the property known as “handedness” and the form it takes in horses.