One of the best short videos of a humpback whale leaping vertically, full body, out of the sea was taken just outside Courtmacsherry Bay by a visitor aboard Mark Gannon’s angling boat.

The leaves underfoot are dry as potato crisps, lighter and every shade from pastel yellow to blood red. They crunch underfoot; they blow around the yard in eddies and whirlpools, writes Damien Enright

THE European eel is in trouble. 

USA: Jeanette and Alexander Toczko were each eight years old when they became smitten with one another. 

ON a visit to the royally-endorsed English Market, in Cork, globetrotting TV chef Rick Stein was pulled, as if by magnetic force, to the seafood corner, as are many.

We think of polar bears as slow-moving, rather lazy, animals which sleep a great deal. In fact, these giants are some of the greatest wanderers on four legs.

THIS year, the number of elvers swimming up UK rivers and waterways was 20 times the norm of recent decades. This is good news.

IN 1950s Limerick, we turned over stones at low tide in the bed of the Shannon to catch eel-fry wriggling underneath.

A pair of Columbus crabs which hitched a lift on a barrel drifting in the sea have been washed ashore in the northern Dingle Peninsula.

IN the days when youngsters spent seemingly endless time fishing for brown trout, they would sometimes catch an eel, of which there was a plentiful supply in our lakes and rivers.

THE solstice is a time to take stock and make new resolutions.

An enormous patch of waste plastic debris covering thousands of square miles has formed in the Atlantic, researchers said today.

IN RECENT years we’ve heard a lot about the decline in stocks of salmon and sea trout in Ireland and abroad, but less about the plight of the humble eel.

EEL stocks in Ireland and Europe are now so depleted as to be under threat, and radical action is needed to ensure the survival of the species.

A FEW weeks ago a reader emailed me with a query about the life-cycle of eels.

I’VE LISTENED to dawn choruses in various parts of the world.

WILD PASSION arrived safely at Sandown yesterday from Noel Meade's yard in Co Meath and is all set for his big head-to-head with Marcel in the ladbrokes.com Tolworth Hurdle at the Esher track tomorrow.