JOHN MEDLEY WOOD was a 19th Century sailor turned farmer who became curator of the Durban Botanic Gardens in South Africa.

BABY emus have hatched at Stonehall Farm in Limerick. According to Sinead Shanahan of the visitor farm and RTÉ’s Mooney Goes Wild programme, this is the second year in which the birds have bred; a chick was born during Easter last year.

WITH A magnificent fireworks display and the popping of hundreds of champagne corks, Freedom of the Seas, the world’s largest passenger ship, left Southampton on its inaugural cruise last week.

IRELAND has several species of wild chicken. The pheasant is the most successful of them, but it’s not really an Irish bird.

THE bird maternity season is underway and, like expectant fathers, people worry about the nests in their gardens. A neighbour, mowing her lawn, frightened a blackbird off its eggs.

I LIVE ON the coast, where the typical sound of spring isn’t the song of the blackbird or the mistle thrush.