The city’s no stranger to wildlife

I LIVE in the country, and although I quite often repeat the comforting cliché that lovers of wildlife who are misfortunate enough to live in towns or cities can still find a lot to enjoy if they examine their environment carefully enough, somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve never fully believed these words of consolation.

Then the other day I got a bit of a surprise that made me revise my prejudices.

It was Science Week and I had been asked to visit a National School in the centre of Galway City and to take the kids on a nature walk. The first class lined up, two by two, and we trooped out of the front door of the school and walked about 50 metres down the street.