Authorities are breeding corncrakes in captivity for the first time in Ireland in a bid to combat the endangered bird’s population decline.

THE red grouse, a relative of the pheasant and the farmyard hen, lives in bogs, where it feeds on the shoots of young heather.

PARTRIDGES, as everybody knows, frequent pear trees during Christmas, although no self-respecting one would be seen dead in a tree at other times of the year.