The skylark is a bird everyone loves to hear, warbling excitedly as it rises into the air and signalling the coming of summer.

THE common or garden swan, the mute swan, is one of Ireland’s most widespread and familiar birds.

THERE are not as many books about birds in Ireland as there are about birds in Britain.

I WAS walking the dog along the canal bank when I saw something that I always find exciting, however often it happens. A kingfisher burst out of a bank-side bush and headed off low over the water — an electric blue streak, wings beating so fast they were a blur.

LAST WEEK I wrote an article on this page about jays. I noted that jays were more numerous in the south and east of the country but that the pattern seemed to be changing, with the population slowly shifting north westwards.