According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Scotland’s capercaillies are in trouble; their numbers are falling relentlessly and, if effective measures aren’t taken, extinction looms, writes Richard Collins

IRELAND’S Environment — An Assessment 2016 has been published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

Wind and solar energy firm Mainstream Renewable Power remains committed to building a £2bn (€2.39bn) wind farm off the Scottish coast despite losing a critical legal battle.

Europe has an estimated 421m fewer birds today than it did 30 years ago, a study has found.

Time will come to a standstill today to mark 100 years since the death of the last passenger pigeon and the extinction of what was once the world’s most abundant bird.

THE Old Man of Hoy, in Orkney, is a spectacular sight. This vertical pillar, rising from the sea, 60m out from a sheer cliff-face, is 137 metres high and about 30m thick.

DID three months of fierce winter storms affect our wildlife? Millions of trees were felled and swathes of farmland inundated.

LAST month, I visited Rathlin Island, off the Antrim coast.

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

ACCORDING to the Meteorological Service, average temperatures here rose by three quarters of a degree in the last 20 years.

WITH climate change and population growth, a global energy crisis looms.

LADY, Britain’s oldest osprey, has returned to the Loch of Lowes in Scotland after spending the winter in West Africa.

SMALL things are easily overlooked.

OH TO be in Africa where the great herds of wildebeest are crossing the Serengeti and the Masai Mara on their annual migration.

THE conservation of nature depends on us knowing where the species are, the number of individuals and whether this number is increasing or decreasing.

DORCHA, our normally docile cat, killed two baby wrens this week.

THE Guardian newspaper in Britain recently reported on a row that has broken out over the future of a thrush-sized bird introduced from South America.

THERE’S enough room for everyone, humans and animals, in this country.

DORLING Kindersley has re-launched its series of pocket nature guides in association with the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). There are six volumes in the series covering butterflies and moths, fungi, insects and spiders, trees, wild animals and wild flowers.

THE sight and sound of swifts in the sky, scything through the air and screaming, is an icon of summer.

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

Richard Collins says so far only two of 53 red kite chicks have perished in wild.

DOZENS of common bird species have declined across Europe over the past quarter of a century, with some pushed to the brink of extinction in the continent, a report warned yesterday.

DOZENS of common bird species have declined across Europe over the past two decades. Some have been pushed to the brink of extinction.

Stormont Assembly members were today urged to back a motion deploring the display of replica weapons at a Sinn Féin-sponsored parade in Belfast highlighting collusion between the security forces and loyalist terror groups.

The sparrow, subject of an exhibition at the Natuurhistorisch Museum in Rotterdam until mid-May 2007.

HEN HARRIERS are in the news. As Gordon Deegan reported in The Irish Examiner last week, the developers of a €10 million windfarm in Co Clare have been asked by the Department of the Environment to incorporate measures to protect harriers.

ONE OF many things that make cruising on the Shannon such a pleasure is the bird life.

The North is edging closer to having its own environmental protection agency, it was claimed today.

A French spider-eating wasp has been found for the first time in Britain, wildlife experts announced today.

THE weather in continental Europe over the next few weeks will affect the chances of migratory birds bringing the H5N1 virus into Britain and Ireland, an expert said yesterday.

A blanket ban on the import of live birds into the European Union is expected to be agreed today as more cases of the most deadly strain of avian flu are confirmed.

The British government faced new demands today to protect areas of wildlife in Northern Ireland amid claims that the conservation of dozens of rare species was threatened.

A MAN responsible for one of Britain’s worst wildlife crimes yesterday escaped a jail term.

HUNDREDS of bird lovers are flocking to Rathlin island off Co Antrim for the annual puffin show.

Farm pesticides and weedkillers have had a devastating effect on Europe's bird populations, according to a new study.

The ghettoblaster is playing a key role in helping preserve a rare bird’s presence on Irish soil.

A new £21m terminal at Belfast City Airport opened its doors to passengers today.

A leading campaign group has welcomed a decision to withdraw controversial GM crop trials which had been planned to take place only two miles from Europe’s biggest organic research centre.

A rare bird of prey has been found dead after ingesting a fatal dose ofpoison, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said today.

British soldiers are alleged to have started a fire on a South Atlantic Island, damaging one of the most important seabird sites in the world.