Eye On Nature

Recently I met a sparrowhawk standing on the footpath beside the busy Ballinteer Road. I picked him up and had a look at him - he wasn't a bit scared. Then I put him over the wall into some shrubbery, and he fluttered his wings and looked up at me. I checked 20 minutes later and he was gone. What could have happened to him?

Joan Davis, Dundrum, Dublin, 14

The sparrowhawk was likely to have been chasing a small bird and crashed into something - a wall, a tree - and stunned himself. When he recovered he went on his way.

When trapping mice in the hot press we were sorry to catch several shrews. Is this unusual?

Keith Lamb, Clara, Co Offaly

Pygmy shrews often come into houses in the winter looking for food. They are so small that they need to eat twice their own body weight to stay alive in the cold weather.

We found the enclosed shells on the newly furbished bank of the Grand Canal between Robertstown and Rathangan (oval shell, 70 mm long, dark yellowish brown in colour). An American friend says they look like steamer clams found on the east coast of the US.

George Reeves, Blackrock, Co Dublin

They are freshwater duck mussels, found in rivers and canals, where they burrow in sand or gravel. Other larger freshwater mussels are the swan mussel, which burrows in the mud of slow-moving rivers, and the pearl mussel, found in fast-moving rivers with very little pollution.

Edited by Michael Viney, who welcomes observations sent to him at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. email: viney@anu.ie

Observations sent by email should be accompanied by postal address as location is sometimes important to identification or behaviour.