Edinburgh Canal Festival

Yesterday we went along to the first of the three events that form this year's Edinburgh Canal Festival, celebrating Edinburgh's Union Canal. The festival is organised by the Fountainbridge Canalside Community Trust, which organises events and activities alongside the canal and surrounding areas. 

I found the festival a little underwhelming this year, but it's always nice to walk along the canal. For some reason I only took one photo that features the canal itself! The photo below is taken from Harrison Park looking over to Polwarth Parish Church

I love this Black Poplar tree on the edge of Harrison Park. The photo below is looking up into the canopy of the Black Poplar

 and this photo shows the fluffy white fruits of the tree, which have fallen into the grass by the side of the canal tow-path

After we had walked along the canal from Harrison Park to the Lochrin Basin, we spent some time sitting in the sunshine listening to excellent local band TrippyTakka, who deserved a much bigger audience than they got yesterday. I posted a couple of photos over on my Shapeshifting Green blog, here.  

**

 I'm delighted to have three haiku in A Picnic Sky, the first anthology of haiku from Haiku Girl Summer, edited by Allyson Whipple. You can buy a hardcopy at IngramSpark. An E-Pub version will be available soon.

The Secret World of Twilight by Sally Coulthard

  

You might not think that there's enough to say about twilight to fill a hardback book, but this book is a real gem that will keep you enthralled all the way through. 

As we fill the world with more and more artificial light, twilight becomes more and more precious.Sally Coulthard shows us why, exploring the scientific, ecological and cultural importance of twilight in language that manages to be both straightforward and lyrical. She shares with us wonderful gems of information such as:

"The hawkbit, a dandelion-like wildflower, closes up shop, more often than not with a pollen beetle snugly tucked inside. Come the morning, the petals reopen and the rested beetle can be on its way."

The main narrative of the book is interspersed with the author's twilight diaries.  

I felt I learned a lot while reading this book, but it never feels overburdened by facts and is consistently readable and beautifully written. 

The Secret World of Twilight by Sally Coulthard, published (March 2026) by Head of Zeus (an imprint of Bloomsbury). 

** 

One of the aspects of twilight explored in the book is the twilight of the deep sea, which is the topic of a fascinating recent article on the Guardian website, which you can read here.  

**

My latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about the development of larch cones, you can read it here.  

Bank Holiday Butterfly Survey

 Today in Scotland we were given a bank holiday for some reason. I hadn't managed to do a butterfly survey yet this survey week (the survey year starts on 1 April, so this year the survey week starts on Wednesdays) as the weather hadn't been good enough. It was just about good enough this morning, so Crafty Green Boyfriend accompanied me on a survey at Lauriston Farm (Edinburgh's agro-ecology project). We didn't see a huge number of butterflies (two Speckled Woods, one Small Tortoiseshell and four Ringlets) but we enjoyed the walk anyway. The Buttercups are beautiful at the moment

and we enjoyed listening to this Song Thrush singing  

We found this interesting looking (but sadly dead) moth on a pavement, and I've looked it up and it's a Heart and Dart, which I'd never heard of before. 

 It has a very distinctive marking on its head

 

Glasdrum and a Chequered Skipper Butterfly

On the final day of our holiday in Oban we went to Glasdrum, a stunning woodland nature reserve

 

and home to the Chequered Skipper, a rare butterfly in the UK (though I think it's more common in continental Europe). The weather was dull and damp when we started the walk and we didn't expect to see the butterfly. However, just 10 meters or so away from the information board telling us to look out for Chequered Skippers, we were incredibly lucky to see this:

It's a tiny, beautifully patterned butterfly and we were delighted to find it so easily! We enjoyed the rest of the walk too, the woodland itself is beautiful, with lots of fast flowing streams running between the trees 

There are also wonderful views from the high points of the reserve

 

There's plenty of insect life to find. I was pleased to be able to get a decent photo of this Scorpion fly, one of a group of about five that were fluttering around this birch tree.  

Like Glen Nant, which I wrote about a couple of days ago, in this post, it's a steep climb in places, but a wonderful walk.

Benderloch Beach

 Another of the trips we made while staying in Oban last week was to Benderloch Beach. It's a lovely pebbly beach 

 

We saw a couple of pairs of Common Sandpipers, who were nesting on this beach (no photos of these birds though, we kept well away from them, not wanting to accidentally step on their nests). It was lovely to see Silverweed growing on the edge of the beach 

The landscape around the beach is also lovely - we heard a cuckoo here for the first (and only) time in our holiday. 

The Lovely Island of Lismore

 One of the days we were staying in Oban we took the ferry across to the lovely Island of Lismore. Luckily the weather stayed fine for the trip and we were able to appreciate the views of the misty coastline

The sunlight broke through the mist to light up this island beach  

The trip over to Lismore took about 45 minutes and there's a nice walk once you get there. You start by walking along the coast (much of this this path is boggy, but the surrounding trees and bushes are full of birds)

The path ends at the island's Gaelic Heritage Centre, which has a nice cafe. We took a detour to view this loch  

where we were delighted to see two Spotted Flycatchers, which are an increasingly rare sight these days (click on the photo below to get a closer view!)

If you're staying in or near Oban and wondering which of the islands are worth a day trip, Lismore is definitely one, as is Kerrera. Mull is worth a longer trip, and there are boat trips which take in several of the smaller islands at the same time. 

**

I also wrote about our trip to Oban in today's post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack.

 

Glen Nant

On the second day of our holiday in Oban, we travelled to Glen Nant, a beautiful area of upland oak woodland, which also holds other trees including birch, hazel and alder.

 There are streams to cross

and uneven steps to climb

There's a lot of Hard Fern (Blechnum spicant) which I always like to find

and some lovely views 

It's a beautiful place to visit, but some of the the slopes are very steep, so be warned! 

Wildlife in Oban

 We're just back from a lovely (but very rainy) few days on the west coast of Scotland. We stayed in the pretty harbour town of Oban. Over the next few posts, I'll share some of our photos. Today, I'll focus on Oban itself. 

The waters around Oban are famous (for us at least!) for the Black Guillemots that nest in the walls of the promenade

 We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast very close to Dunollie Woods

which are part of the grounds of Dunollie Castle, which you can see in the background of the photo below 

the woodland walk also offers good views across the water 

We saw a Red Squirrel in these woods, but it didn't want to pose for a photo. Unlike this Hooded Crow in the centre of Oban 

A Fish Caught in Time by Samantha Weinberg

 

 This is the story of the scientists who rediscovered the coelacanth. This fish had only been known from the fossil record until 1938 when Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, a young curator at East London Museum, South Africa found what she suspected to be a coelacanth in amongst a catch of fish that she'd been invited to look at in case there was anything there of interest to the museum. 

The book then follows the search to rediscover this unique fish for science. Outwith the scientific world, fishermen had been familiar with the fish, though it wasn't considered a good fish to catch, as it didn't taste good. Once the fish was rediscovered by science, it became much more worthwhile for the fishermen to catch it, as scientists and wealthy collectors suddenly started paying large sums of money for it. 

Although I totally understand the need for scientists to study the fish, throughout reading this book, I felt the risk of overfishing to the current populations of coelacanths. It seems though, that the species' elusive habits, that hid it from science for so long, will continue to protect it.  

This is a fascinating book, giving insights into both the coelacanth itself and the scientific research and rivalries around it. 

A Fish Caught in Time, by Samantha Weinberg, published (1999) by Fourth Estate.  

**

The latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about my favourite birds, swifts, you can read it here.  

 

 

 

Trees in Spring

As many readers will know, I regularly patrol Edinburgh's Water of Leith river, picking litter and recording wildlife. I've become even more than usual fascinated by the development of fruits on trees. I don't mean the obvious fruits, like cherries or apples (though their development is also fascinating) but specifically beech and larch. 

At the beginning of May, I noticed these lovely little pom-poms on a beech tree

 

Today those pom-poms (on a different beech tree!) look like this:

Meanwhile, the larch cones on 25 March this year looked like this

and today they look like this (same tree, different cones)

(I'm preparing a post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack to show the development of larch cones, which hopefully will be posted in a couple of weeks, though it depends on how quickly the cones develop to full maturity!)
 

Sunshine, Birds and Insects at Musselburgh

 We had a lovely walk at Musselburgh yesterday. We started by walking along the River Esk 

 where we saw a good number of Eider ducks and their tiny ducklings (we counted 17 ducklings in total), though the water doesn't look to be the ideal state for birds to live in

 

We continued along the John Muir Walkway along the Firth of Forth and on to the Lagoons, where there were several Shelducks and not very many other birds (but this is to be expected, winter is the best time to see lots of birds here)

We also saw a few butterflies, including this Common Blue  

and a few Speckled Woods

 There were several damselflies, including this mating pair of Common Blue damselflies, being photo bombed by a second male

 and a Blue Tailed Damselfly 

 and finally a very bright Early Bumblebee

 

 

Rainy Day Haiku

watching the raindrops -
kitten raises her paw
to the windowpane

 **

originally published in Blithe Spirit, the journal of the British Haiku Society.  

**

Today is World Bee Day, to read my latest Crafty Green Poet Substack post about bees, click here.  

Arthur's Seat

 We had a lovely walk round Arthur's Seat yesterday, the weather was lovely, sunny and mild. 

We were particularly keen to check on the tadpoles in Dunsapie Loch. Regular readers may remember the scenes from a few weeks ago when we found a lot of toads in the loch. Well yesterday, we found a lot of tadpoles! 

Hopefully a good number of these will grow up to be toads (or in a few cases frogs). 

There were lots of Chaffinches singing around the hill 

and several pheasants who seemed to want to pose for the camera

We were delighted to watch this Roe Deer as she walked across the field - we wondered whether she had a fawn hidden away somewhere...

 

The Birds Foot Trefoil was beautifully in flower  

much to the delight of this Red Tailed Bumblebee (one of the few bees we saw yesterday)

 The Hawthorn trees were also in almost full bloom 

and were surrounded by St Marks Flies (though we didn't get any photos of those - they're big black flies with dangly legs which come out in late April, early May.)