heat haze haiku

skylarksong—
blue butterflies flutter
in heat hazed fields

 

originally published in Haiku Girl Summer.  

**

May is the perfect time to take a walk, so that's what I wrote about in my latest Crafty Green Poet Substack post, which you can read here.

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael McCarthy

 This a beautiful, but sobering book about the UK's Spring migrants, which make up about a quarter of all our bird species. 

"If we could see it as a whole, if they all arrived in a single flood, say, and they came in the day instead of the night, we would be truly amazed." From this opening onwards, this is a celebration of the wonders of the birds who visit our shores to breed and who then leave again to escape our winters. It's also a call for us all (not just birdwatchers) to notice these birds again and to conserve them before they disappear from our skies. 

The book looks at not only the natural history of several of our migrant songbirds, but also considers their cultural impact, from the immortalisation of Nightingales in poetry and song, to our contradictory feelings about Cuckoos being both the harbingers of Spring (due to their song) and their being symbols of deception (for laying their eggs in other birds' nests).

The author travels throughout England and visits Gibraltar (a crossing point for many species migrating from Africa to Europe), in search of migrant songbirds, meeting scientists, conservation workers and gardeners. He also outlines some of the biology involved in migration and some of the history of how scientists learned about migration from Aristotle's early observations, to Gilbert White, the first person to really record detailed notes about the arrivals of local birds in his Natural History of Selbourne, published in 1789 and coming up to date with a brief history of bird ringing (banding in the US) and how that has helped work out migration routes. 

The largest part of the book focuses in detail on selected species of the UK Spring migrants, including Swallow, Wood Warbler and Turtle Dove. His writing is full of enthusiasm and wonder, the joy of listening to the songs of these migrants, because their songs are such a part of our experience of the natural world in Spring. I love the description of listening to the Sedge Warbler as he mimics a variety of other species of birds, so well that at one point McCarthy looks around for the passing Greenshank and has to be reminded that the sound is coming from the Sedge Warbler. 

There are stories of conservation efforts throughout the book, including Edward Mayer, who spends most of his time campaigning to conserve Swifts, including installing swift nest boxes on buildings across London; and the villagers in Worcestershire who got together to record and conserve the Spotted Flycatchers in their area. 

The final two chapters look in more detail at the threats facing out Spring migrants, from loss of nesting sites here, through the lack of insects and other food sources to the degradation of the habitat in the birds' wintering grounds and the effect of climate change on the timing of natural events (many caterpillars no appear earlier than they used to, but the migrants aren't able to alter their journey times to keep up with the peak supply of their food sources). Bird surveying is highlighted as being vital if we are to understand what is happening to bird populations. 

"Over thosands of years [these birds] have inspired us to poetry and prompted us to proverbs, they have been the source of a vast treasury of European folklore, legends and literature, and they have been so woven into the fabric of our culture as to become part of the continent's idea of itself. A Europe without its Spring-bringers is almost as unthinkable as a Europe without its cathedrals."

Yet, with the numbers of so many of these migrant birds plummeting as they are, are we actually approaching a time when we will find ourselves saying goodbye to the cuckoo? 

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael McCarthy published (2009) by John Murray Press.  

Corstorphine Hill

 We had another day of beautiful sunshine yesterday, but we really do need some rain and it seems as though we're not forecast any for another week! 

We took advantage of the sunshine though and enjoyed a walk round Corstorphine Hill. One of the lovely things about this hill is the variety of habitats, from open areas with numerous Hawthorn bushes

 to shady woodland areas

As is often the case these days, there were few insects about, which is as worrying for the wildlife as is the lack of recent rain. One insect that is present in good numbers is the greenfly or common aphid, which is gathering on the undersides of some leaves, just take a close look at the leaves of the Sycamore tree in the photo below 

We were also pleased to see this lovely lacewing 

and surprised to see this Large Red Damselfly, which you would expect to find closer to a pond or river

and delighted to find this very beautiful Ruby Tailed Wasp, which was moving too quickly for us to get a good photo, but you get an idea of its beautiful colouration below, click on the photo for a closer look. 

It's a cuckoo wasp and lays its eggs in the nests of other wasps and bees, we guessed this one was searching for nests of mason bees to lay eggs in. 

Despite enjoying the sunshine, we are hoping for rain....

haiku for the bees

dandelion clocks —
already too late
for the bees

**

originally published on Haiku Girl Summer.  

**

I published a post today on my Substack blog. It's all about birds' nests, from the beautiful magpie nest I shared photos of here a few days ago to the swifts we hope will use the nest boxes we put up a few years ago! You can read it here. 

Hawthorn in Bloom

 I did a butterfly survey today at Edinburgh Agro-ecology's project at Lauriston Farm. The weather was perfect for butterflies, warm and sunny with not too much wind. The farm is looking particularly lovely at the moment with all the Hawthorn trees and hedges being in full bloom 

It was lovely to see so many small insects on this Dandelion flower

This used to be the standard situation for dandelion flowers, they used to be always covered in small insects, but these days this is a rare sighting, many dandelion flowers these days have no obvious insects on them, which is a sad indication of the decline in insect numbers. As insects decline so do the birds and other animals that feed on them. Some insects are more well liked than others, most people like butterflies for example! On today's survey, I saw a good number of butterflies, but the only one that wasn't a species of white butterfly was this rather faded looking Speckled Wood 

I saw and heard a lot of birds, including: Reed Bunting, Skylark, Meadow Pipit; House Martin; Swallow and several Whitethroats (in fact I don't think I've ever seen or heard so many Whitethroats in one place). I also was interested (and saddened) to find this dead newt - probably a Palmate Newt. I had no idea there were newts at the farm! 

Although this sunny weather that has lasted for most of the year so far is lovely and great for butterflies, we desperately need more rain. There have been wildfires across the country (and Scotland is not a country where wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem!) and fire warnings are in place. Rain isn't forecast for Edinburgh for at least another week.  

The beautiful East Lothian Coastline

 Yesterday we decided on an impulse to go to Dunbar in East Lothian to walk along the beautiful coastal path there. The weather was perfect and the views were as stunning as ever. 

 

If you look across the water, you can see Bass Rock in the distance, famous for its large colony of Gannets (which are responsible for the white colour you can see in this zoomed in photo)

We only saw one Gannet during our walk, but we were very impressed by many of the other birds we saw. A decent sized colony of Kittiwakes nests on cliffs just outside Dunbar. These are lovely members of the gull family, who helpfully call their name: Kittiwake! In the photo below you get some idea of the colony 

and here is a close up of  three of the birds which gives you some idea of the messiness of the nesting area

Kittiwakes aren't the only birds nesting in good numbers on this stretch of coastline, we were delighted to find ourselves surrounded by more Sand Martins than we've ever seen before! These birds, related to swallows, nest in holes in the cliffs, you can see several nest holes in  the photo below - the birds themselves are much trickier to capture on film as they move so quickly! 

There is also a good variety of beautiful flowers in the area too, including Thrift (sometimes known as Sea Pink) 

Birds-foot Trefoil 

and Ribwort Plantain 

So if you're looking for beautiful coastal scenery or wonderful wildlife, Dunbar is definitely a great place for a day trip. 

Swifts Are Here!

Do you see the swifts are here again?
They swoop so low and soar so high
I think there may be more than ten -
do you see the swifts are here again?
We know it's summer round here when
our favourite bird comes gliding by
You see the swifts are here! Again
they sweep so low and soar so high!

**

We are lucky enough to live in an area of Edinburgh where there are several active swift nests sites. Sadly, numbers of these amazing birds have been severely declining across the UK over the past several years (a decline of 65% since 1995), due largely to a lack of nest sites and reducing populations of insects (their main food source). (See this 2020 article on the Bird Guides website for some thoughts on the factors behind the decline of the swift).

The swifts arrived back in our local area at about 3pm today, when four of them appeared over the rooftops and then floated away again! 

We put up two nest boxes on our front wall a couple of years ago (we persuaded the roofing contractor to fit them when our last roofing work was carried out). I haven't seen the swifts going into the nest boxes, though they have flown close over the past couple of years. Hopefully this year may be the year that they decide to use the nest-boxes....

I enjoyed watching this video from the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) about how we can help swifts. I played it at quite a high volume with the windows open, hoping that the calls of the swifts on the soundtrack would attract the local swifts to our nest boxes. Another great video from the RSPB is this one, which shows the route of one swift as it flies from its breeding grounds in the UK across Europe and around Africa and back here for the next breeding season, a journey during which it will not land at all! I particularly like this video as it looks as though this swift passed directly over the village where I lived in Malawi for two years! 

If you're in the UK, please consider signing this petition from 38 Degrees asking to make it a legal rule that all new houses built in the UK must include Swift bricks.