Eye on Nature: Your notes and queries

We found a long, thin creature, like a stick, on a doorstep on Kenmare Bay. What is it, and is it common in Ireland?
Philip Goldrick
Kenmare, Co Kerry

It is the stick insect ‘Acanthoxyla inermis’, judging by your photograph. It is native to New Zealand but has been naturalised in the Kenmare area for several decades.

A brown bird with feathered feet landed in my mother's garden in Glasnevin, in Dublin. It was totally unafraid of people.
Clare Donnelly
Muff, Co Donegal

From your photograph, it is a pigeon prized by fanciers for its feathered feet. From its colour and shape it could be a Kazan tumbler, which originated in Russia but is now bred all over the world.

In Donegal I spotted what I took to be an old nest, but it had three chicks being fed by two beige birds with long beaks and fantails. Earlier I heard a cuckoo. Do they ever rear their own young?
Jeffrey Dudgeon
Belfast

They were probably collared doves. Both parents feed the young. Cuckoos do not feed their young.

Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Louisburgh, Co Mayo, or by email at viney@anu.ie. Please include a postal address