A grey squirrel, which visits my bird feeders regularly, has removed one of them and wedged it in an angle of the branches higher up the tree.
Verell Booth, Shankill, Co Dublin
In the grounds of the UCD campus at Belfield I chanced across strange growths on a rose bush. They resembled a multicoloured moss or lichen and grew around the stem and through some of the leaves.
Tom Kelly, Mount Merrion, Co Dublin
The growth, which resembles a ragged ball of pink moss, is made by the tiny gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae. She lays her eggs in the stems of wild roses and when they hatch the tissues swell up around the grubs to form a gall which has a hard centre. This is called bedeguar gall, or robin's pincushion, and can be up to 10cm wide.
A white swallow has been flying around near Castlerea, Co Roscommon, for several weeks.
Padraig Gibbons, Glasnevin, Dublin
I saw a black and white striped bird, similar in marking to a zebra, in my sister's garden in Raheny.
It had yellow eyes and a yellow beak and was about the same size as a blackbird.
Karen Meenan, Baldoyle, Dublin 13
It was a partially albino blackbird.