Eye On Nature

A fly wandered round my curtains recently. It had a long, thin, dark body and black wings shaped something like a wasp with very long antennae, very long yellow legs with black socks. It had a flexible extension from its rump that could be an ovipositor which it flexed and stabbed at the cardboard on which I put it. At one point I thought I saw the tip parting. - Helen Lucy Burke, Dublin

The description fits the ichneumon fly, Lissonata setosa or similar species, the female of which uses her ovipositor to drill into trees and lay eggs in the larvae of a tree-boring moth or wood wasp.

There has been an explosion of seagulls in Skerries over the past few years. They are all over the area and have been building nests for four or five years on the roofs of the estate where I live. In the breeding season they cause considerable nuisance to people in their gardens, dive-bombing them and uttering loud rooftop noises and shrieks from 4 a.m. - Brendan Morrissey, Skerries, Co Dublin.

I can only suggest that the population explosion is due to the increased food supply from the various municipal dumps in north Co Dublin.

Recently, while visiting Skellig Michael, I noticed a fine crop of what I was told was scurvy grass? Is this really an antidote to scurvy and where else does it grow? - Mary Banotti, Ringsend, Dublin 4.

Common scurvy grass is not a grass, but a member of the cabbage family which is rich in vitamin C. It is short with kidney-shaped, fleshy leaves and white flowers, and grows on banks and cliffs by the sea and on salt marshes. Like today's glass of orange juice, from the early centuries of this millennium it was taken as a decoction by sailors and landlubbers alike to prevent scurvy.

During one of those beautiful summer nights in July, I'm convinced that I saw a firefly in a friend's garden. Could I have? I never saw one before in Ireland, only in America. - Kieran Delaney, Stillorgan, Co Dublin

Fireflies are natives of southern Europe and as far as I know have never been reported in Britain or Ireland. Still we never know what a warmer climate will bring us. 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.