Why I love tohear all your fishy tales

Koi carp are available for sale in Ireland.

THE best thing I ever did was to put an email address at the end of this column. I get fascinating wildlife observations from readers, and, often, the answers to questions that puzzle me. The amount of response to different topics also helps me gauge the sort of things that interest you.

If I write about feeding garden birds, or about garden ponds, I know I’m going to get email in my in-box, and usually a few letters, as well. I wrote about both last week and the usual happened. One interesting email, from a Co Limerick reader, noted that frogs were late to spawn in his pond this year (February 26 last year, but nothing so far, in 2010). Though, as he noted, a frog can’t get into the water to spawn if the pond is iced over.