This ghostly creature landed on my window earlier this month. Was it some kind of ghost making an early Halloween appearance? It put the heart crossways in me. Luckily it flew off after a few minutes. Elizabeth McEneaney, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan
It does indeed look exactly like a little ghost, as illustrated in story books, but what you have taken a picture of is a yellow-tail moth from the underside. These moths have all-white wings and a white body with a yellow tip at the end. Their large black eyes contrast sharply with their white head. They usually fly in July and August, but occasionally they have a second generation that flies in October. Not a ghost so. A pity really.
The birch trees in the local park have these large nest-like structures in the branches. I have never seen any birds use them. They do not occur in the other park trees which are of various species – only in the birches. E. Hand, Dublin
These are called witches’ brooms and are not bird’s nests and have nothing to do with birds. They have nothing to do with witches either – this is a growth distortion that results in bunches of twigs growing from points on the tree’s branches. The primary cause is usually a fungus called Taphrina betulina, which only affects birch trees. The broom growths may last for many years, typically for the life of the tree, but they cause no harm.
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What could this be? It was spotted on a bale in south Leitrim. Is it a spider? Patricia Mc Goldrick
It is indeed a spider – a large four-spotted orbweb spider, Araneus quadratus. They have been around quite a bit this year and I received several queries about them. This is a female, which can be three times as large as the male. They live in grassy vegetation where they construct a large web of up to 40cm in diameter. This one was lucky it didn’t end up inside the bale.
I spotted these two snails on my garden wall. When I first noticed them, they were in a circle head to tail. I went to get the phone to take a photo and returned to find them in this “plait”! What is going on? Bernie Igoe
What does it look like? These are two slugs (not snails) in flagrante delicto. The mating rituals of the great grey slug – Limax maximus – which these are, is worthy of description. Having met on the ground and fallen in love, both slugs climb up the nearest wall to begin operations. They both produce a rope of sticky mucus and lower themselves down from the wall. They then entwine first their mucal strings and then themselves upside down, and then their shiny white genitalia. After an hour or so, when it is all over, one slug drops to the ground while the other climbs back up the rope, eating it as it goes. I suppose it is feeling peckish after all the activity.
[ Two dragonflies tied up in afternoon delight in CorkOpens in new window ]
What is this. My guess is bats’ droppings. On the windowsill of my house in Kilcornan. Michael Murray, Co Limerick
You must have had a fine summer bat colony in your attic with the entrance hole directly over this windowsill. Bats eat insects, so they do dry powdery droppings composed of the hard indigestible parts of the insects. They will all have gone off to their winter quarters by now to hibernate until April, so you have plenty of time to clean up. They don’t actually fly around on Halloween despite what Hollywood studios would have us believe – but why spoil a good story with the facts?
Please submit your nature query or observation, ideally with a photo and location, via irishtimes.com/eyeonnature or by email to weekend@irishtimes.com
