Can you identify the pea-sized spider in the photograph I’m sending you?
Matthew Walton
Mountshannon, Co Clare
It is the female crab spider, ‘Misumena vatia’, also called the flower spider. It lies in wait in flowers and pounces on insects collecting nectar.
The blue tit in my photograph has chosen to bring up its brood inside a street lamp in Kill of the Grange, in Dún Laoghaire.
Colum Clarke
Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow
I found the feather in my photograph in our garden recently. It was 41cm long, and silky bronze with green highlights.
Maura Neligan
Glenageary, Co Dublin
It is the tail feather of a pheasant.
How about this good-looking moth?
Joe Walsh
Cahir, Co Tipperary
The insect you photographed is the beautiful angle shades moth. It rests with wings wrinkled like a dead leaf.
The round object in my photograph is hanging inside a tiny bird house. It’s a pale blue-grey, and it vibrates gently.
Brigid Murtagh
Bray, Co Wicklow
It’s a wasps’ nest. The queen wasp tore strips from a painted piece of weathered timber and chewed it to make the papier-mache nest. There are terraces of cells for the larvae inside.
It seems to becoming a hummingbird hawkmoth year. Photos have come from Monica Curran in Offaly, Sheelagh Stewart in Donegal, Georgina Dalton in Meath, and Paul Murphy in Limerick. This summer visitor from southern Europe is immensely difficult to photograph, as it hovers at such fantastic speed.
Ethna Viney welcomes observations and photographs at Thallabawn, Louisburgh, Co Mayo, F28 F978, or by email at viney@anu.ie. Please include a postal address
