Fascination with dolphins continues
I’ve had plenty of encounters with dolphins and porpoises in my life, and even a few with whales, but the sense of excitement never diminishes. In fact, there were two biologists in the boat with me who had been studying dolphins for years, in one case for decades, and they were whooping with pleasure as if they’d never seen one.
It was a particularly good show. We were close enough to them to hear the snort as dolphins expelled air from their lungs when they broke the surface.
A few times, instead of just porpoising out of the water, a couple of them would launch themselves vertically into the air, reaching quite a height and spinning while they went. Several species of dolphin do this and nobody’s quite sure why, though there’s no shortage of theories. It is entirely possible that they just do it for fun.
The attraction of dolphins is hard to explain. The shape of their faces does tend to give them a permanent cheeky grin but there seems to be a lot more to it than that. For some reason most people just feel happy in their company.
The fact some dolphins appear to like people is even more of a mystery but it should be remembered these are wild creatures and, especially after the recent events with Dusty the dolphin in Doolin — where a swimmer was injured by the so-called aggressive behaviour — the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group are discouraging people from swimming with whales and dolphins.
Fungie the Dingle dolphin is far from being a unique phenomenon, though the fact he’s been entertaining visitors since 1984 does make him one of the longest running acts in the business. There are records of solitary dolphins attaching themselves to coastal communities from all over the world and stretching back in history to ancient Greece and Rome. This despite the fact there’s also a history of people hunting dolphins for food. They are still eaten in one or two countries and were once on the menu in Ireland.
Purple loosestrife is one of our showiest wild-flowers, at its finest in late July and early August.
The purple flower spikes appear in damp spots such as river and canal banks and marshes, though not in true bogs, which are too acidic. It is widespread, though somewhat commoner in the west of the country.
There are several cultivated varieties, though the unimproved wild plant is attractive enough to justify a damp spot in any garden. It was popular with herbalists in days gone by and the name loosestrife seems to refer to stress reducing properties.
It’s also ecologically important — the flowers provide nectar for long-tongued insects such as butterflies and bees and the foliage feeds several species of beetle, weevil and caterpillar. North America and New Zealand accidentally imported it and, in the absence of those leaf eating insects, it became invasive, choking rivers and canals.
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