A CONSERVATION milestone was reached last week; two coveys of partridges, raised in captivity at Boora Bog in County Offaly, were released at a secret location in north county Dublin.

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.