While nesting birds and their chicks are the main victims of illegal gorse fires that have again plagued the country this year, plants and other animals that are often forgotten about are also being badly hit, writes Donal Hickey. 

Families living in the Lee Valley area of Co Cork are refusing to give up their nine-year fight to stop a windfarm being sited close to one of the Europe’s last ancient river forests. They are to appeal Cork County Council’s latest decision to An Bord Pleanála.

The upper Lee Valley’s river forest could be transformed into an eco-park, and its salmon population returned, if the ESB were to work with environmental campaigners, says the West Cork Ecology Centre.

The ESB, Cork County Council, Inland Fisheries Ireland, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, have been meeting to devise a plan to possibly save an ancient river forest that was flooded 60 years ago.

AMONG the unusual visitors brought by fine weather to our shores is the Clouded Yellow butterfly.