A nocturnal creature stole 40 standard golf balls but no hollow plastic ones. Why? – The Irish Times

Occasionally I practise golf in my back walled garden with old golf balls and plastic balls. I take them in at night-time. A few days ago, I forgot and left 54 golf balls and 20 plastic balls out. The following morning there were only 14 golf balls left but the 20 plastic balls were still there. Where have the 40 balls gone, what took them and why? This is the third time this has happened over the past year or two, and the missing golf balls have never turned up anywhere – not even, to my knowledge, in my neighbour’s garden. Kevin Kelly, Co Dublin

Your neighbour is off the hook – the golf balls were taken by a fox who mistook them for eggs and was stashing them away as a winter food cache. Rooks and magpies will certainly sometimes investigate golf balls and can even pick them up and drop them in the hope that they might be tasty eggs, but they leave it at that. The plastic balls mustn’t have seemed like eggs and so they were left.

This male common darter landed and took off repeatedly from my outstretched hand when boating on the lower lake in Killarney in September. On one occasion he returned with a midge fly but just held on to it rather than consuming it and flew off again. I was in a lake boat in a calm, sunny spot, and the dragonfly continued to come and go until I rowed away after about 20 minutes. I haven’t seen recorded similar behaviour by a dragonfly on an internet search and was chuffed by the encounter. Pat Myers, Co Kerry

Brian Nelson and Robert Thompson’s book The Natural History of Ireland’s Dragonflies says these darter dragonflies typically fly off a short distance before returning again and again to a favoured perch. These are often light-coloured, unvegetated surfaces in full sun where they can warm up quickly. Your outstretched hand could be described as such. Darters would normally consume their prey back at their perch – this one mustn’t have been all that hungry.

I woke to a very misty morning and discovered in the garden that most of the bushes and grass in the garden were covered in what looked like cobwebs. Are they cobwebs? Michael Fletcher, Co Donegal

Yes indeed. These are the hammock webs of money spiders, which are so fine that they are often very difficult to see except on misty or frosty autumn mornings, when their true abundance is revealed. The densely woven sheets of web are supported above and below by a loose framework of threads attached to the vegetation and the tiny little spiders hang upside-down on the underside waiting for prey to blunder in.

What animal is producing these droppings? They were found in the outdoor area of our preschool. Mary Anderson, Athlone

These are not droppings but pellets, which are coughed up by birds because the contents are indigestible. They are most probably rook pellets, which are typically about 25mm across and contain lots of plant fragments, stems, insect remains and small pebbles.

I was exploring in Curragh Woods with my little brother, Tadhg, when we came across this unusual creature on a fallen tree. It had what looks like two longs tails. Can you please help us identify it? Olive Ronan (9), Co Cork

It is an ichneumon fly called Rhyssa persuasoria. The tails are its ovipositor, with which it lays eggs deep inside caterpillars. The emerging larvae eat the poor caterpillars from the inside.

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