If there’s one thing that was a constant in the old Bishop Lucey Park in Cork it was the pigeons. They swarmed over the old city wall where humans were denied because of a fence around it. Sometimes the wall was thick with them, waiting for a child to come along and scream and laugh…

At the PolskaEire Slavic Festival in Cork yesterday, owls were part of the festival, with kids getting a chance to hold one, much to their delight. The tawny owl, featured prominently in the foreground, is known for its distinctive “twit-twoo” call, which is actually a duet between a male and female—one calls “twit” and the…