Allium ursinum, known as wild garlic, ramsons, cowleekes, cows's leek, cowleek, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, Eurasian wild garlic or bear's garlic, is a bulbous perennial flowering plant in the amaryllis family Amaryllidaceae.

Blackthorn trees are early starters, bursting in to effusive white blossom early in the year, before they have even grown any leaves, before any other trees have thought too much about flowering.

Its spring, and like most birds, Crested Grebes have mating on the mind at this time of year. For this, grebes adopt a fancy feathered crest, and then engage in elaborate courtship rituals. Listen in to Nature File for a little insight in to the mating behaviour of crested grebes in Irish waters this mating season.

It is not native to Ireland and is thought to have been introduced to the Burren region of Ireland in 1970 from Britain. The slow worm is coppery brown or sometimes bluish grey in colour with darker flanks.

More than half of all species live in the soil, where there are microscopic fungal threads, arthropods of every shape and size and some of the strangest-looking creatures on the planet.

Cranes are the tallest wild birds in Europe, and now, after 300 years of absence, cranes are breeding in wild in Ireland again! This year’s young stay near their [aren’t through the Autumn months, a sight not seen here for a very long time. Celebrate the return of the common crane to Ireland in this week’s Nature File,

At the dawning of each day through the month of October, deer lock antlers in a fierce mating battle.  The deer rut is a contest between males - the winner will acquire the right to a whole harem of females.  This week Nature File is all about the autumn deer rut. 

One of Ireland's most widely distributed trees, often found in damp boggy areas and along river banks. Like most broad-leaved trees, Alnus glutinosa flowers before the leaves are out with attractive long reddish catkins appearing as early as January.

An octopus, octopuses or octopodes is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda.  The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class of squids, cuttlefish and nautiloids

Sturgeon are enormous fish, swimming in oceans and rivers since the time of the dinosaurs. Our hunter gatherer ancestors feasted on Sturgeon, as did more recent medieval communities in Ireland and across the continent. Now Sturgeon have been gone from Irish waters since the 1980s, though there are plans afoot to bring them back.

Wild crab apples are the tart little ancestors of thousands of varieties of domesticated apples, often planted or seeded wild in hedges near old farmsteads. This morning we explore this fruit, which is ripe in September and sustains many bugs and beasts through the autumn months. 

As the vibrant greens of summer morph into brown and golds of early autumn, wildflowers seem to love coming out in purple.  From ‘devil’s-bit scabious’ to blankets of wild heathers, purples are a popular colour at this time of year.  

Scallop is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops.

There are thousands of ant species across the world, but here are some you are more likely to find in Ireland. Anja tells us more!

Terms such as wild, native or alien are often used by botanists but what exactly do they mean? How long does a plant have to have occurred here to count as native?

Now that the chicks have fledged, Red-billed choughs can be seen soaring over the coastline in flocks and gathering together on clifftops and coastal grassland, where they to poke their distinctive red beak in the ground in search of small insects to eat. Explore the unexpected ways of being a chough in Nature File this Saturday morning.

Wild peas are clambering through hedges, woodland edges and pockets of wild tangled growth right now, using their climbing tentacles to help them get to the light. These delicate wild flowering plants are the original ancestors of domestic pea. Discover the world of wild peas on nature file this week.

Spectacular coral reefs thrive on Ireland’s continental margin, some reaching over 100m in height, teeming with life forms of every description. Discover the strange world of Irelands’ cold water coral reefs this Saturday morning on Nature File.

Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse. Mice are also popular as pets.

Most of the aromatic herbs we are familiar with are more at home in the Mediterranean, though native plants such as bog rosemary, wild thyme, sorrel and water mint have long been used for adding flavour to food.

Across the worlds there are many types of Lizard, but one one species made it to Ireland, and here they manage to live discreetly, going largely unnoticed by us. 

The osprey (Pandion haliaetus) also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk.

There are 70 different species of solitary bee in Ireland, these are different to bumble bees and honey bees, but are often hard to tell apart from a wasp or a fly!