The green linnet, alias the greenfinch, deserves such lavish praise; the male, in his green array, has bright-yellow wing-bars and tail-fringes.

Did you know that some of our visiting summer birds engage in a form of cruise control and sleep while flying? Just one of the nuggets of information from readers following our piece last week on swallows, swifts and martins.

HAVING tried for years to work out exactly the differences between three quite similar migrant birds, I enlisted the help of BirdWatch Ireland, of late, writes Donal Hickey

Industry leaders have praised the cross-category strategy in Food Wise 2025, the agri-food sector’s 10-year plan to expand its exports by 85% to €19bn and create 23,000 jobs.

ACCORDING to Waterbirds in the UK 2012/13, a report just published by the British Trust for Ornithology, the populations of some duck and wader species are declining. Birds don’t recognise political boundaries and wetland ones are great travellers.

THERE’S good news on the wildlife front; BirdWatch Ireland has announced that terns nested very successfully on the east coast this summer. The numbers breeding ‘are at an all-time high’, says tern expert Dr Steve Newton.

With Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney widely expected to be moving to greener pastures, Birdwatch Ireland has welcomed his "significant decision" to pay farmers to protect endangered farmland birds.

A lack of scientific evidence about fish stocks saw a cut in the quantity of valuable species such as haddock and monkfish for Irish fishermen in the annual EU share-out of fish.

THOMAS BEWICK, the celebrated engraver, carved in hard woods.

RESULTS of last winter’s BirdWatch Ireland Garden Birds Survey have been published.

AT this time of year terns gather on our local beach for their annual Árd Fheis.

SILENCE, the movie by Cork-born film-maker Pat Collins, is in the cinemas at present.

CORNCRAKES, barn owls, and their likes, are the ‘sick men’ among Irish birds.

THERE’S good news on the bird front; little terns seem to have bred successfully this summer.

THE timber industry will have to import nearly one million cubic metres of material because about 1,500 hectares of forestry were lost in the recent spate of fires, according to the Irish Forestry and Forest Products Association, which represents the forestry and forest-based business sector.

RESIDENTS in a rural area of Co Clare have been asked to be patient for a few weeks after a nesting bird took up residence in their local postbox in recent days.

BIRDS visiting gardens are the only wild creatures which most people encounter nowadays.

FURTHER clashes between rural Fianna Fáil TDs and the Greens in Government are likely after a member of BirdWatchIreland was chosen to replace a farmers’ group to represent Ireland on an EU policy committee.

WHEN I heard that BirdWatch Ireland was starting a survey of kestrel numbers in Ireland one thing immediately struck me.

LIKE many people with an interest in wildlife, I keep track of the birds in my garden.

IN its environmental performance review, the OECD recently praised environmental research and innovation being carried out in Ireland.

WITH the current gloom and doom it’s a relief to have something positive to write about. Bank accounts may be empty and begging bowls back in vogue but there’s prosperity off the north Dublin coast; the tern colony on Rockabill has broken all records.

Richard Collins on the possibility that the great spotted has bred in Ireland

ALARMING declines in the number of bird populations across the island of Ireland have been identified in a new report.

THE possible arrival of rats on the Great Blasket Island could have “devastating consequences” for seabird colonies there, a BirdWatch Ireland expert warned.

One of the largest ever surveys of birds in this country begins this week.

BIRDWATCH Ireland needs your help; they want you to report any cuckoos, swallows or swifts which you see during the next few weeks. These three bird species are easy to identify, even without binoculars, so you don’t have to be a regular birdwatcher to do your bit.

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

THE road I drive to get to my local village includes a section with huge fields of winter barley on both sides.

SABREFLIGHT can demonstrate her admirable staying abilities in the P & C Morris Express Catering Units Mares’ Only “National Hunt” Novices’ Hurdle at Sedgefield today.

THE arrival this week of the winter’s first Arctic snap does not bode well for the blackbird fledgling which has made natural history in a Limerick Christmas tree.