The curlew task force has launched a plan to conserve one of Ireland’s most threatened bird species.

A friend, John Nichol, an avid birdwatcher whose present patch is the Old Head of Kinsale, had some unique sightings this week.

Blackbirds seem to be in full voice now, perhaps making the most of lengthening daylight hours to enchant us with their song at dawn and dusk.

The curlew is in trouble; a BirdWatch Ireland census found only 150 breeding pairs here in 2015-16, a 97% reduction in numbers since the 1980s.

The State’s bid to save the corncrake from national extinction suffered a further blow last year as the numbers of calling males fell to 140.

The circle of life.

The summer evenings here in our West Cork village is full not of “the linnet’s wings” of WB Yeats’s ‘Lake Isle of Innisfree’ but of house martin’s wings. These birds faithfully come all the way from tropical Africa to nest below the fascia boards on sea-facing houses each year.

This adorable Footage of an unlikely friendship between a Boxer dog, Rusty and a baby chick is guaranteed to make you "awwwwwww"

A little guy with an iron nerve.

A boy has accidently hit a bird mid-flight with a baseball.

The first white-tailed sea eagles chicks in Co Kerry in more than a century have flown their nests.

One runner in the Irish Examiner Cork City Marathon put his finishing time in danger to help out a little bird.

A rare snowy owl, the arctic birds popularised by the Harry Potter films, has set up home in the Burren, more than 1,000km from it usual habitat.

Life is getting easier, says Julie Feeney.