THE ATLANTIC breakers of the western seaboard have a romantic purity. Bathing in waters that stretch for 3,000 miles gives an illusion of health and well-being, of immersion in a timeless infinity.

ON the night of February 13, 1945, Dresden was drenched in bombs by the Royal Air Force. Raids by the Americans followed on the 14th and 15th.

THE STAR attraction at Dublin Zoo this month is a pair of snow leopard cubs, which have just gone on show.

THERE SEEM to be plenty of spotted flycatchers around this year. These little brown birds, with streaked pale breasts and little spots on their heads, are summer visitors to our shores.

ACCORDING to the Examiner of June 26, the light died, last month, for the oldest known living animal.

Richard Collins finds an unlikely seabird on the Liffey.

THE BUDGET airline taking me to France charged for bags checked into the aircraft hold. This did not, I hasten to say, affect me as I travel with only a spare pair of underpants, a packet of Daz and a few cyanide capsules in case the worst comes to the worst.

IN A WILDLIFE equivalent of the Olympic Games, Irish animals would win gold and silver medals. The gold would go to the blue whale, for being the largest mammal ever to have lived.

I’VE LISTENED to dawn choruses in various parts of the world.

THANK God for the budget airlines; it’s so easy to travel nowadays and flying no longer breaks the bank.