Not the weather for walking? It's a good time to go online

ANOTHER LIFE:THE LAND IS FULL of water. I write this ahead of Christmas, and the water may well now be frozen and covered with snow. But just for now the land is merely drowned, the field drains swollen, the streams in flood, the duach a shattered mirror in any flash of sun.

It has not been weather for walking, so that, when a pair of Kerry’s white-tailed eagles dropped into the strand for a few shreds of decaying whale, only my neighbour David Cabot was there to admire. I am kept happy by the window-sill thrush, peering in as I stick with the virtual charms of broadband.

It’s a good time to go online. As recession bites, many in government are tempted to let “the heritage stuff” wait and put nature on a longer finger, so that even more must rest on individual interest and impulse. A spark for this can fly from any one of Ireland’s wildlife and landscape websites, never more colourful and enticing than in the bleak midwinter.

Even the State, for that matter, keeps up a good front in these matters. After a long and somewhat muted existence in the Department of the Environment, the National Parks and Wildlife Service now has a lively and engaging website (npws.ie) and a Minister (Jimmy Deenihan: Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht) who actually enjoys walking the bogs of north Kerry. He has even painted one of them, in Bogcotton Flying Beneath a Breezy Sky– see the Notice Nature page of the website.

It’s his department’s money, too, that funds the National Biodiversity Data Centre, in Waterford (biodiversity.ie). Along with projects that help recruit the amateur naturalist to the endless task of discovering what species live where, the centre’s great strength lies in its high-tech mapping. It has just made it possible to zero in on any townland in the country and help to improve the record of its biodiversity.

Interaction with maps is also a big attraction of the website run by Co Cork's Paul Whelan (biology.ie), an award-winning, beautifully designed venture offering great projects and seasonal recording. His special interest has also just produced Lichens of Ireland(Collins Press, €19.99), the first book written specifically about them and illustrating more than 250 species, so strikingly varied in colour and form.

Irish wildlife magazines have had a sad commercial past, which makes the bright quarterly publications of the Irish Wildlife Trust(iwt.ie) and of the data centre particularly welcome. The first, Irish Wildlife, reflects a membership NGO reinvigorated by new leadership and full of activity attractive to the young; the second, Biodiversity Ireland, is a colourful and fascinating bulletin on Irish wildlife research and discovery.

BirdWatch Ireland has just put its quarterly magazine online, enriching the already practised website (birdwatchireland.ie) of an NGO with many conservation achievements to its credit. A much newer venture, irishbirding.com, is the one for the excitement of fresh rarities and the Golden Eagle Trust (goldeneagle.ie), a charity devoted to reintroduction of Ireland’s lost birds.

Two of Ireland’s major conservation NGOs were 25 years old this year, and their websites have rich layers of interest to prove it. The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (ipcc.ie) has kept up a tireless battle for the bogs, bringing generations of schoolchildren, in particular, to a better appreciation of one of their island’s most precious ecosystems.

Crann (crann.ie) is the mainstream popular champion of planting trees (its magazine a polished and expert quarterly), and a whole spinney of arboreal websites follow particular objectives, such as nativewoodlandtrust.ie, forestfriends.ie and treecouncil.ie, the umbrella canopy for 50 tree-loving groups.

Ireland’s new focus on the life of the sea has depended notably on the energies of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (iwdg.ie), and its 21st birthday finds its website in full, enthusiastic fettle as cetacean sightings pour in. Sherkin Ireland Marine Station, in west Cork, offers a seasonal newsletter for children, a new one for winter at naturesweb.ie.

Irishsealsanctuary.ie pursues a brave mission of rescue, alongside campaigning for inshore fishing with a proper policy. For wildlife under the water, indeed, do sample exquisite species photographs in the encyclopedia of marine life at habitas.org.uk, a website at the Ulster Museum.

Some wildlife species find particular fan clubs, such as batconservationireland.org, butterflyireland.com and mothsireland.com, not to mention irishwildflowers.ie and wildflowersofireland.net. And for a general feelgood look at a landscape and its wildlife, spend time with burrenbeo.com, a match of nature and community that has been working out remarkably well.

When you tot all that up, nature isn’t doing so badly – but interest and effort have to move beyond the screen and out of the chair. Spring will come early, that’s a promise, and summer could last through April and May. Meanwhile, the thrush needs more oatflakes, so I must wish you all at least an ecofriendly new year.

Eye on nature

In 2005 I wrote to Eye on Nature about seeing a white pheasant in a field behind our house. This year I have had two sightings in the same field of what is probably an offspring.

Denis Boyle, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath

It could even be the same bird, as they can live up to eight years.

Recently, while crossing the Wolfe Tone Bridge in Galway, we had the rare delight of seeing an otter with his supper of eel on the riverbank. The otter seemed at ease despite the presence of Friday-night revellers.

Peter Crowley, Alina and friends, Galway

A recent letter in Eye on Nature mentioned a noticeable reduction in brent geese around Sandymount. The geese may have come farther south this year, as in the harbour and coastal field around Dungarvan there is a notable increase in their numbers.

Dan Donovan, Dungarvan, Co Waterford

Mushrooms are growing on a submerged tree stump that the local council cut down to prevent the spread of a fungus that is injurious to the fruit industry of north Co Dublin.

Brian Berry, Malahide, Co Dublin

Destroy them, as they are the fruiting bodies of honey fungus that still affects the tree stump.

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