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.