Crafty Green Poet

Ghost Orchids by Siobhan Healy

2012-01-31T15:49:00.003Z

When we visited the Botanics this weekend for the Big Garden Birdwatch, we took a moment to look at this beautiful exhibition by Scottish glass artist Siobhan Healy. The delicate transparent glass flowers in the exhibition are haunting evocations of this very rare flower, the fragility of the medium reflecting the fragility of the plant in the wild.

The ghost orchid was declared extinct in the UK in 2005 but was amazingly rediscovered in 2009!

This exhibition has now closed in Edinburgh, but apparently (and information is contradictory on this) will be on display at the Blaschka Gallery of Glass Flowers at Harvard Museum of Natural History until 4 March 2012. Well worth seeing if you get the chance!

Plantlife, the UK charity for plant conservation has recently put together a Ghost Orchid Declaration outlining the key issues for wild plant conservation and some potential solutions.

haiku

2012-01-30T16:00:00.001Z

tree shadows
on the frosty grass -
rooks take flight

Moody trees at Cramond

2012-01-29T19:42:00.000Z

taken a few days ago
at Cramond

Big Garden Birdwatch

2012-01-28T17:30:00.004Z

It's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch today and tomorrow! We don't have much of a garden ourselves and can't see it from any of our windows. So we decided to go to Inverleith Park and The Royal Botanic Gardens to record our birds there. The biggest birds we saw were mute swans (though we also saw two grey herons up a tree!). This swan was particularly co-operative.

I was particularly pleased to see siskins in the Botanics, they're such a lovely species, the male is very handsome. We didn't get any photos of the siskins or any of the other smaller birds. This squirrel though was eager to pose.
As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

And the winners are....

2012-01-27T15:17:00.002Z

John Muir Way, Musselburgh

Not having a trained rabbit to pick out names from a hat, I asked Crafty Green Boyfriend to pick the winners of the recent giveaway. So, the winners of the kits for making fat cakes for garden birds are:

Michelle May of Raspberry Rabbits

Deb G of bee creative

Bunnits of Art in the Wind

Christina of Rabid Tidbits

madhat of madhat's musings

Magyar of Magyar Haiku

The human of Little Fluffy Adventures

EG Wow of East Gwillimbury WOW (Daily Photo)

and Facebook friends Emma and Jane.

I've contacted all the winners for their addresses, which I will pass on to Yorkshire Water who will then send out the prizes directly.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to Yorkshire Water for donating the prizes! If you are a winner, I would be interested in hearing how your birds enjoy the fat cakes!

Cleaning up the Mess

2012-01-26T13:40:00.001Z

I had a chilly walk around Cramond, at the mouth of the River Almond today. The light was stunning and there were loads of oystercatchers around and some other birds too (though not as many as usual).

It was quite littered in places, so I'm glad to know that Cramond is one of the locations in the Marine Conservation Society Beachwatch clean ups this weekend (28 January). They're encouraging people to join in to clean up the mess that is often found on many of our beaches. Joining in is not only a great way to do your bit for conservation but is great exercise and generally a very sociable experience! You can find your nearest event here.

You can also sign up now for the Keep Scotland Beautiful annual Spring Clean campaign. Choose a day between 1 April and 31 May, get together with some friends and set out to clean up the litter in a place near you!

The Water of Leith Conservation Trust is always on the look out for volunteers to help with their annual clean-ups (and with many other tasks!) - you can find out more here.

Meanwhile, a reminder that there is still time to enter the recent giveaway to win kits for making fat cakes for your garden birds. You just need to comment on this post! I'll choose the winners later today! Thanks to Yorkshire Water for providing the prizes!

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson

2012-01-25T15:09:00.004Z

This novel published in 1998 is set in an imagined Antarctica of the early twenty-first century

There is an odd feeling of reading about a future that isn't quite the future but nor is it the present that it's somehow supposed to be. Other than that though, this is an excellent piece of speculative fiction - gripping and meticulously researched (Robinson spent time in Antarctica as part of the US Antarctic Program's Artist and Writer Program).

This is an Antarctica fought over by African oil companies and eco terrorists while scientists continue their studies and an international group of 'ferals' try to develop an indigenous way of life on the continent. Meanwhile Val leads groups of tourists on extreme adventures, recreating the journeys of the original polar explorers. Stories of these explorers intercut the narrative in a very effective manner, giving the reader a sense of the real history of the continent.

The narrative is very intense in places, there are long passages outlining scientific experiments, political manoeverings and an expedition that Val leads, which doesn't go to plan.

The technology is worked into the narrative really well, wristwatch computers, recordings a trek participant makes for TV-masks and the intelligent fabrics that everyone's clothes are made from. Similarly the ideas around the ferals' construction of a potentially permanent way of life are well explored.

It's a compelling read and one that makes the reader think deeply about the future of the world's last great wilderness. And as this month marks the centenary of Scott's failed expedition to reach the South Pole, what better time to read this book?

Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson published by Voyager

I reviewed this book for Brighton Blogger's 2012 Reading Challenge. I also reviewed The Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius.

Green Ways to Unblock Drains

2012-01-24T13:13:00.004Z

I posted recently about Yorkshire Water's Doing the Dirty Campaign. Just a reminder that there's still time to enter the giveaway for kits to make fat cakes for your garden birds! I'll be choosing winners on Thursday!

If you are very careful with your waste, you may still end up with blocked drains or a blocked toilet. There are a number of environmentally friendly ways that you can fix the problem yourself including: using a plunger or a mop (scroll down a bit to More Top Tips) to unblock a toilet or using vinegar or baking soda (or a mixture of both) to unblock sinks or toilets. Any of these methods can work in clearing minor bockages and save you the expense of calling out a plumber. If they don't work though, there may be a more major problem with your piping and then you should call out a professional!

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Goldcrests and Citrus Fiesta

2012-01-23T16:13:00.002Z

It's a beautiful clear but chilly day today. Just got back from a lovely walk along the Water of Leith. The highlight was definitely the goldcrest that flew round our heads at the end of the walk. Recently I've seen many more of these tiny birds than I used to do, they seem to be spending more time in the lower branches than normal. Or perhaps there are more of them? Always a delight to see.

Meanwhile I'm delighted to have two poems up on Gabrielle Bryden's blog as part of her Citrus Fiesta. You can read them here.

haiku

2012-01-22T15:10:00.000Z

herring gulls call -
the changing colours
of sunrise

Green Books

2012-01-20T13:08:00.001Z

I'm delighted to be starting a monthly guest spot on Brighton Blogger's Book after Book blog. Every month for the next six months or so, I'll be talking about some aspect of environmental issues related to reading, books and writing. You can read my first post here.

Doing the Dirty - Look after your Drains and a Giveaway for Bird lovers

2012-01-19T15:06:00.003Z

Many people put the wrong things down their sinks and toilets. This can result in blocked drains, which can cause problems for your household. In some places raw sewage is still dumped into rivers and oceans, causing unsightly pollution and problems for wildlife and if you're putting the wrong things in your drains then they can affect wildlife.

Yorkshire Water cleared 18 000 blocked drains last year (the population of Yorkshire is around 5.1 million). Around 37% of these blockages were probably preventable. The company is currently running a campaign to raise awareness of the issues. Although the campaign is aimed at their customers in Yorkshire, it offers very useful advice for everyone!

Their basic advice is:

* Don’t pour fat, oil or grease down the kitchen sink – small amounts of fat put down a sink can solidify in pipes like lard. Over time this fat builds up preventing waste water from escaping down the pipes to the sewers. This means it finds its way back up the pipes and could end up coming out of toilets and sinks.

* Waste oils and fat can be made into fat cakes to feed birds in your garden. You can find out more here and if you are a Yorkshire Water customer you can order free fat cake making kits (and see below for a chance to get your hands on some free fat cake making kits even if you don't live in Yorkshire)!

* Don’t flush wipes, sanitary products, cotton buds, nappies, hair. Toilets are only designed to remove toilet roll and human waste. Anything else can cause your toilet to become blocked. If waste cannot escape to the sewers, it could come back up through the toilet resulting in a nasty flooded bathroom.

* Put sanitary products etc in a bin.

You can read more about the Dos and Don'ts here and if you are a new parent, there is an interesting infographic about babies and nappy waste here.

Yorkshire Water have kindly offered me some fat cake making kits to give away to readers of this blog. All you need to do is leave a comment within the next week on this post here or on Facebook or Twitter (or retweet the post on Twitter)! Ten people will receive two fat cake making kits each. These can be sent anywhere in the world, but preference may be given to people in the UK, who are not Yorkshire Water customers.

Favourite Bird Books

2012-01-18T19:05:00.002Z

I had a brilliant day's birding today along the coast at Musselburgh. I saw loads of birds including four lifers: snow buntings, velvet scoters, a purple sandpiper and a gadwall.

I write about birds a lot on this blog and I write about books a lot, but so far I've never written about bird identification guides! So here are my favourites:

1) Collins Wild Guide Birds - this is a basic, pocket sized guide to British birds. Each species has a page to itself with a photo and a couple of drawings, a brief description and some important facts, such as size and flight pattern. There is a little grid showing which months the bird is in the UK and a distribution map. This is the book I carry with me when I'm out birding or leading a birdwatching class.

2) Birds of Europe by Lars Jonsson, published by Helm. This is a big thick book that covers the birds of Europe. It's beautifully illustrated and contains a good amount of information on each species. There's a good introduction about topics such as feathers, behaviour and migration. It's a great reference book but can be quite confusing (or envy inspiring) as there are many birds here that never (or only very rarely) come to the UK.

3) Identifying Birds by Behaviour by Dominic Couzens published by Collins. This is a fascinating book covering interesting behaviour in British and European birds, giving detailed comparisons between similar species. It is beautifully illustrated and very interesting. Some of the descriptions are delightful, such as the common gull walking with 'dainty, free moving footsteps'.

4) The MacMillan Field Guide to Bird Identification by Alan Harris, Laurel Tucker and Keith Vinicombe. This is similar to 3 above except there is more text and fewer illustrations. It goes into a lot of detail, which can be overwhelming but is very useful and interesting!

Do you have a favourite bird guide?

This post doesn't really quality as a book review! But you can read my latest review for Brighton Blogger's Reading Challenge 2012 over on Over Forty Shades here.

I'm delighted to have a guest post about Vegetarian Food in Scotland here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Green Transport vs the trees

2012-01-17T14:23:00.000Z

I'm one of those old fashioned environmentalists, who likes trees and wildlife. So it always makes me sad and angry when the natural world is sacrificed for the sake of initiatives to cut carbon emissions (not that I don't think cutting emissions is necessary!). Particularly when the carbon cutting may not end up being as significant as the projects lead us to believe.

Edinburgh is a green city, but is rapidly losing a lot of trees (for example a lot were lost in the last two hard winters, recent winds have felled several and many are being cut down for the Water of Leith Flood Prevention Works, which you can read about in my blog posts here, here and here. Some of the trees along the river have been saved, but many have been lost. Two trees will be planted for every tree removed.)

So I was particularly shocked to read this article in the Herald newspaper, which states that over 3 300 trees will be cut down to make way for the Edinburgh trams. Construction work for the trams has already caused chaos in Edinburgh. Leaving aside that the trams will serve a very restricted route that is already well served by buses and that bus services elsewhere will probably end up being reduced. Trees have already started disappearing without warning. These are mature trees and their loss will be really felt by residents of Edinburgh, both humans and birds. Again there is a promise that all trees will be replaced, but given how long the whole tram fiasco has been going on already, who knows when that might happen?

On the national level, the High Speed rail link between London and Birmingham has been given the go-ahead, though it won't be taking passengers for at least another 14 years. This is touted to reduce carbon emissions, but perhaps not by as much as the Government would have us believe. The controversy about the route is that it will devastate large areas of natural beauty and probably 21 areas of ancient woodland.

Surely it cannot be right that we destroy the natural world to reduce our carbon footprint? It's misguided anyway, as trees soak up carbon emissions!

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other websites where you can find out more.

A poem for Monday Bunday

2012-01-16T08:52:00.003Z

I was delighted when Rabbits' Guy and Bunny Lady asked me to write a poem for Zoey and Chico, two of their bunnies who were recently bonded with each other. The two bunnies look so happy together now!

You can see the latest photo of the happy couple and read my poem for them on the House of Rabbits blog here.

On Wednesday, I'm delighted to say, I'll have a guest post (about veggie food in Scotland) up on Vegetarian at Large!

Singers in the Dells

2012-01-14T16:00:00.001Z

I've heard the first song thrushes singing already this year! So I thought it a good time to post this little story, that I was originally intending to post a bit later in the year! The Dells are the part of the Water of Leith that I help to look after in my work as a volunteer for the Water of Leith Conservation Trust.

There are reports that our numbers are declining. Not here though. Song thrushes still sing in the Dells as we have done for centuries.

History weaves its way through the generations of our sung sagas. We sing of the armies who marched through these woods with Cromwell, laying waste to nature and human settlements. We sing of the wealthy estate owners who used to hunt deer through the trees and built walled gardens that they could see from their hilltop mansions. We sing of the times when this area was busy with mill-workers and the river was the most polluted in Scotland. We sing of the railway that roared straight through the heart of the woodlands. We sing of a great fire that brought an end to the mills.

We sing in a place that is now a green and peaceful woodland. People walk and cycle where the trains used to roar. Wild flowers grow where the mills once clattered. The waters are full of trout and fished by herons and kingfishers.

But there are still disturbances. Downstream the council is cutting down trees and building walls to stop floods. This is all bad news for our kind, though in fifty years the walls will be reclaimed by nature, just as has happened to older walls along stretches of the river.

At weekends young people party and set fire to the grass and damage the trees. They are young and hopefully will learn. Upstream a man with a chainsaw is killing trees, but the police will catch him and protect us from him.

Further afield though it doesn't sound good. Our cousins' homes are threatened by high speed railways, mining and shopping malls. We sing to spread the word about these threats but we also sing of hope. Hope that people will see sense and understand the value of woodlands, not only for us and the other birds and animals that live here, but also for them, the humans.

Every person who wakes up early and hears us sing, starts to understand a little better.

Everyone who understands, can help us and the woodlands to thrive. So we keep singing and the Dells remain as a place of magic.

Not a typical January!

2012-01-13T15:36:00.002Z

fungi (don't know what species!)

gorse

snowdrops

Corstorphine Hill, this lunchtime

Cholesterol in the Vegetarian Diet

2012-01-12T12:14:00.005Z

It's very easy to think that as a vegetarian you have a healthy diet. However, most vegetarians eat a lot of dairy products (most of which are high in saturated fats, which increase blood cholesterol levels) and eggs (which are high in cholesterol). This can lead to high blood cholesterol even if you are not overweight. High cholesterol levels have been linked to increased risk of heart disease and strokes (though the health issues around cholesterol are complicates, as I'll talk about later in this post).

So, if you need to control your cholesterol levels, what can you do within a vegetarian diet?

You can cut down on eggs, but for some people eating eggs doesn't raise their blood cholesterol level even though eggs are themselves high in cholesterol (its complicated).

Dairy products (specially cheese) are always a problem though because they contain lots of saturated fats, which increase blood cholesterol levels. So you may want to replace them with something else. The obvious choice as any vegan would tell you is to use soya products - most people have heard of tofu and soya milk but there are also soya cheeses and soya yoghurts. I've been trying soya cheeses and struggled at first, because quite frankly some of them are pretty disgusting (no matter the cheery slogan on the packaging that says: "A Delicious alternative to cheese!") though I have now found one that's palatable. Soya products can actively reduce cholesterol and can also reduce the risk factors for certain types of cancer. However, there are some health concerns about soya products, you can read about some of them on the EnviroSeeker blog and some people suffer from soy allergy. There are also concerns about the amount of processing required to make soya beans palatable, though many cheeses and yoghurts are highly processed anyway.

Other foods that can help to reduce cholesterol include foods that contain soluble fibre (such as oats and pulses), some nuts (particularly almonds) and dark chocolate (with cocoa content over 70% - you can see a video of the many health benefits of dark chocolate here).

Other foods that are high in saturated fats (which increases blood cholesterol) include coconuts and palm oil (and you should avoid palm oil anyway because of its connection with the loss of rainforest in Indonesia and across the world). Palm oil crops up everywhere, even in health food snacks and mueslis that are otherwise full of oats and almonds, so you have to keep your eyes open! It's generally a good idea to cut down on processed foods.

Of course, I'm not a qualified dietician, and can't guarantee this post is entirely free of contradictions (though I have tried to make it as accurate as possible). If you're really interested in finding out more, there's a good, detailed article about cholesterol and dietary fat here. And it really is complicated because cholesterol is thought to be necessary for brain health, so you don't want to cut it out of your diet altogether. There's a very good article about the benefits of cholesterol here (thanks Diana Moll for that link).

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Sea Room by Adam Nicolson

2012-01-11T21:02:00.000Z

Sea Room is Adam Nicolson's tribute to the uninhabited Shiant Islands, in the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. Nicolson inherited the Shiants from his father when he was 21 years of age.

The book is a wonderful exploration of the natural history, the history and geology of the islands. The islands have not always been uninhabited and the sections of the book that look at the archeological investigations that explore the history of past island communities are totally fascinating. The islands are currently considered too remote for anyone to want to live there though Nicolson himself stays there for short periods of time.

Nicolson knows the birds of the islands intimately:

The private winter islands are the realm of the [barnacle] geese. .... They are scattered across the grass, black and white - whte chest and head, a black bib and neck, a black back next to which the wings are barred with gray and white stripes which from a distance gives the effect of moire or ruffled silk..... perhaps four hundred of them, relentlessly pecking away at the ground beneath their feet, looking up now and then, a wary eye but then face down again to the grass, tugging at the stems, eating, eating. They are busy. This is no holiday. There is none of that standing around, displaying to each other, socialising or looking bored, which the puffins and other fish eating birds do late in the year. The goose's life is dictated by its intestines.

The book tackles the issue of private land ownership. His opinion is that the islands, which are an important nesting site for may species of bird, are probably better off for nature in his hands, because he reckons if a conservation charity bought them then the island ecology would be damaged by all the infrastructure that would be required to make the islands into a nature reserve that would welcome visitors.

Sea Room by Adam Nicolson, published by Harper Collins

I'm taking part in Brighton Blogger's 2012 Reading Challenge!

As ever, red text in this post contains hyperlinks that take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Early Spring

2012-01-10T17:18:00.001Z

the first shoots
of wild garlic in the woods
a song thrush sings.

Birds in Malawi

2012-01-08T16:02:00.001Z

The current BBC programme Earthflight is stunning (though not quite as innovative as I had thought it was going to be). It focuses on birds across the world and much of the filming is made using cameras strapped onto birds backs. The latest episode focussed on Africa (if you're in the UK, you cansee the programme again here.)

I recently blogged a little about the birds that visited my garden in Malawi, here and this TV programme brought even more memories to the fore.

One of the most stunning sequences in the programme shows the migration of the white stork up Lake Malawi. This is something that I remember seeing myself one year. We were sitting by the lakeshore, and suddenly seemingly out of nowhere a huge flock of large white and black birds flew from the southern end of the lake up towards the north. I watched them in total amazement, I didn't know at the time what they were, it was only watching Earthflight that I think I finally realised what the birds had been. But it was certainly one of those unforgettable experiences, where the name of the species is quite frankly irrelevant.

One other particularly memorable birding moment from Malawi is when I took the school wildlife club down to the weaver bird colony. The students were mesmerised by the male birds who were hanging underneath the nests, whirling round, shaking their wings.

"So the best dancer get's the prettiest girl then?" said one of the students.

I adapted this scene and transferred it to Zimbabwe and it became a scene in my short story Safari Blessings, which you can read here.

The other birds that made a particularly strong impression were the fish eagles who nested on a tree behind our house - a totally awesome bird to have on your garden bird list! There were pied kingfishers that constantly hovered over the lake, whenever I was there (and I was there a lot as I lived just overlooking the lake - you can see my drawing of a pied kingfisher over the lake here.) Around where I lived andon my travels through Malaiw, I also wonderful selection of smaller birds, various sunbirds, various finches, a hoopoe and some rollers once too.

I visited Botswana and Zimbabwe too, where one of the most memorable birding sights was seeing a secretary bird making a nest.

Cat on the Prowl

2012-01-07T16:16:00.002Z

The cat looked very embarrassed when it saw how many people had gathered to witness its humiliating failure to catch the woodpigeon....

Reusable Cloth Carrier Bags

2012-01-06T16:02:00.000Z

I posted recently about the negative impact of plastic waste on the environment. So I thought I would repost these photos of two of my reusable carrier bags, which I originally posted three years ago. The bag above was a gift from my sister and is particularly sturdy, ideal for carrying books. The bag below was given to me at a conference in Turin a couple of years ago and is one of the two I always carry in my handbag so I never need to pick up a plastic carrier bag when I'm shopping.

Remember that bags like this do take more energy to make and transport than do plastic carrier bags. So the trick is to have just a few reusable bags and make sure you use them all the time. I reckon I've used the black carrier bag in the photo at least twice a week for the past five years. And it has several years wear still in it!

Once you have your four or five reusable bags then you shouldn't keep on accumulating more of them (for example, refuse the free cotton carrier that is given out with purchases at certain events, just as you would refuse a free plastic bag at the supermarket).

Vintage Sea by Marion McCready

2012-01-04T15:29:00.000Z

Vintage Sea is the first poetry pamphlet from Marion McCready (who blogs here).

I read the book a week or so ago and flicking through now to write this review, I'm immediately drawn to Becoming Spring, which despite its title perfectly describes the type of very wet Scottish weather we've had today:

All week I am water, cloud, rain, river
Sodden skirts cling to me.

This is typical of Marion's poetry, rooted in the landscape and experience of Scotland. The poems are full of imagery and characters who remain almost at the edge of vision, not explained, just there (The Herring Girl, The Cockle Picker's Wife, the family in The Red Road.)

My favourite poem is We Met by a Charm of Crossbills and not just because it is for me the most beautiful poem in the book but because as a birdwatcher, I'm very envious of the whole experience, I've never seen even one crossbill and would love to see a whole charm of them.....

The blood birds kiss the air
as they fall from cone to cone,

their warp of mandibles
freeing the fruits, shucking the shells

Vintage Sea by Marion McCready published by Calder Wood Press.

I'm taking part in Brighton Blogger's Reading Challenge 2012.

Big Garden Birdwatch - 28/29 January 2012

2012-01-03T18:38:00.000Z

I grew up in suburban Manchester and loved watching the birds in our garden. There were blackbirds, song thrushes, robins, blue tits, great tits and lots and lots of house sparrows and starlings. My parents still live in the same house and the garden is still full of birds. The species have changed though, there are now lots of goldfinches (attracted by the nyger seeds my parents put out for them) and very recently redpolls have started visiting in some number (also attracted to the nyger seeds). Also there are a lot more crows these days, including the occasional jay and lots of magpies. House sparrows have declined (as they have across most of the UK) though last time I visited, there were lots of house sparrows, I hadn't seen so many there since I was growing up. My parents always take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, but often complain that the most interesting species don't turn up that day!

As an adult, I have mostly lived without a proper garden. When I lived in Malawi we had bougainvillea growing over our verandah and a small vegetable patch outside under a papaya tree. A fish eagle lived in a tree behind our garden and several birds visited, including a beautiful kingfisher who must have lost its way from the nearby Lake Malawi (though it wasn't a pied kingfisher, which was the prevelant lake species, in fact I never found out what species it was). Also in Malawi, though in someone else's garden, I saw the only hoopoe I've ever seen (though there was a rumour when I was a student that a hoopoe visited Edinburgh every summer).

Where we live in Edinburgh there's a pretty bush in front of the garden where a dunnock skulks, sometimes joined by a robin. Behind our building there is a shared backgreen with a vegetable plot, some well looked after gardens and some bramble patches. Some of the neighbours put out bird feeders. I've seen several species out there, robins, blue tits, song thrushes and dunnocks. One Christmas Day 50 fieldfares appeared from nowhere and took over the whole backgreen then next day had disappeared again. In summer, swifts constantly fly about over the nearby roofs.

Our backgreen has several problems from the point of view of the Big Garden Birdwatch:

a) we can't see the area from our flat
b) there's no pleasant sitting area in the backgreen
c) there's no part of the backgreen that has unrestricted views over the whole of the area
d) one of the neighbours who lives in one of the blocks that also uses the backgreen has a habit of coming out into his (very poorly looked after) garden whenever I appear and standing there, with his fierce dog, until I leave. This is off putting (to say the least!)

But if like me you don't really have a garden for the Big Garden Birdwatch, you can still join in. Just go along to your local park and record the birds you see there. It's fun, good exercise and you'll be helping the RSPB to keep up to date records of birds in the UK.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Inspired by Nature

2012-01-02T14:39:00.001Z

You can read my guest post on this over on the Poetry Space blog here.

Arthur's Seat

2012-01-01T16:18:00.008Z

It's an Edinburgh tradition to walk round Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags on New Year's Day. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I have joined in the tradition for several years now. Today the weather was beautifully mild, though very windy. We had a great start to our birdwatching year seeing a total of 21 species (almost twice the number we saw last New Year's Day and not bad for a wee walk round Edinburgh). One of the stars of the show was definitely the kestrel that was hovering nearby almost the whole time we were walking (though it could have been more than one in fact).

The other stars were the redpolls, a bird that I hadn't seen for years until they turned up in my parents' garden in our recent visit there and then here they were on Arthur's Seat, making a real mess as they fed on the alder catkins. You cansee the little red head patch quite nicely in this photo.

We also saw a very acrobatic crow, swooping and diving in the air, at one point flying almost upside down. It's behaviour and in fact its shape made us think it was a raven (and we know there are ravens on Arthur's Seat) but it just didn't seem big enough compared to the other crows that were around. We finally decided it must be an adolescent rook, which (I think) is more likely to indulge in aerobatic displays than is a carrion crow and is more like a raven in shape (certainly as regards the tail) than is a carrion crow. So a slight mystery there, but it was fascinating to watch.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other web-pages where you can find out more. All photos by Crafty Green Boyfriend and if you click on them you can see them in a larger size.

Brilliant Birding

2011-12-31T15:04:00.003Z

We went up Corstorphine Hill today. It's a lovely place to walk and usually offers some good birdwatching (along with moments of great anticipation of seeing something rare as you can hear the animals and birds in the nearby Edinburgh Zoo!).

Today's birding treat was a kestrel! This used to be the most common bird of prey in the UK, when I was growing up, any motorway trip in my parents car would have at least one kestrel hovering alongside the motorway. These days they're much more unusual, and buzzards have increased in number and are now our most common bird of prey.

This kestrel really put on a show for us. It sparred with a buzzard, got into a long and exciting chase with a magpie and hunted some long tailed tits. I'm glad it didn't catch a long tailed tit while we were watching, as those are a particular favourite of mine (and we got some lovely views today!).

Later, a buzzard flew very close over our heads, and we got a real sense of how big a bird it really is!

Crafty Green Boyfriend said he saw what might have been a green woodpecker in a scrubby area of trees. If I'd seen that it would have been an extra bird for my year list, and exciting too as I haven't seen a green woodpecker for a few years and rarely see them at all in fact. However I was very pleased to see a great spotted woodpecker high up in some trees and all in all it was a lovely day of birdwatching.

Especially as it didn't start raining until we had left the hill....

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Year of Birds

2011-12-29T15:18:00.002Z

Inexplicably, this has been the first year that I've kept a year list of all the bird species I've seen. It's been a great year, I've seen 95 species (I had originally counted 98 but this had included recording one species twice and two unconfirmed species). I've seen a number of birds for the first time this year (tree sparrows near Cammo Country Park near Edinburgh; a shoveller at the Figgate Pond in Edinburgh and a greenshank at Cramond, Edinburgh). I've also seen a few species for the first time in many years (including wonderful sightings of spotted flycatchers at both Biggar in the Scottish Borders and in the beer garden outside the Arran Brewery on the Isle of Arran and lots of redpolls on the feeder in my parents' garden in Manchester.) I've also had some very special encounters with birds that perhaps I see quite often but not in such number - I was stunned this summer by the numbers of swallows and house martins flying over the River Esk in Musselburgh; also in Portobello and Dumfries.

One of the most notable features of my year list is that most of the birds have been seen in or very close to Edinburgh.

So, what have been your favourite bird sightings this year?

If you're in the UK, remember that the Big Garden Birdwatch is coming up soon, and I'll be blogging about that in early January.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Today along Water of Leith

2011-12-28T21:17:00.004Z

The weather was wet and very windy today, but that didn't stop us from walking along the Water of Leith as I do every week and Crafty Green Boyfriend joins me when he can. There were lots of fungi on display today, this one being the most beautiful, thanks CGB for the photo!

Part of my task as a volunteer with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust is to collect litter. I regularly collect two carrier bags full on my trip round Colinton and Craiglockart Dells. I think there is less general litter than there used to be when I started doing this a couple of years ago, though there are possibly more large collections of litter, eg from barbeques (which I report rather than try to collect myself, in the same way as I don't run up or down the steepest banks by myself to collect litter, river patrollers are advised on health and safety considerations after all!).

At this time of year, with the undergrowth dying back, litter appears that has been hidden for the past six months, in amongst the branbles etc. Today, I found just about the most disgusting thing ever (and believe me, given the number of plastic bags full of dog poo that stupid people hang in the trees, this has to be pretty disgusting). I picked up a discarded beer can with my litter picker and turned it upside down to get rid of any rainwater that had gathered in it and out fell the partially decomposed remains of a drowned mouse. Yuck!

What an awful way for a mouse to end its life and a buzzard or fox was deprived of a snack too. Really, it isn't that difficult to carry litter to the nearest bin or to take it home.

If you want to be distracted from the image of the decomposed mouse, I posted some moody photos of the wonderful architecture on Edinburgh's Calton Hill on my Over Forty Shades blog here.

Trollhunter

2011-12-27T16:44:00.003Z

This Norwegian film was part of this years' Edinburgh International Film Festival and I hadn't gone to see it as it didn't immediately appeal to me. However, Crafty Green Boyfriend saw it on it's first release after the festival and told me it would be a film I would enjoy. "It's got a strong conservation message" he told me, which is perhaps stretching a point but it is a film worth seeing.

Trollhunter follows a group of Norwegian students as they film a mysterious hunter who slowly lets them into his life as a troll hunter. They find places where trolls have caused devastation, destroying forests and killing tourists. The hunter is contracted to kill all trolls that have escaped their territory and are disturbing humans. The Government Wildlife Services, although they fund the hunter, publicly deny all possible knowledge of the trolls and bringing in obviously fake bear carcasses that they then leave in the area so that the bears can be blamed. The local bear hunters (who know their bears much better than do the bureaucrats) are not at all convinced!

The film is shot using hand held cameras to very good effect, the shaky camerawork adds to the atmosphere and tension in the film (though it can make for slightly queasy viewing at points!). Although the plot is simple, it moves along very well. The beautiful Norwegian scenery adds a lot to the film, being dramatic and often mist shrouded.

Despite the troll hunter being very outspoken in warning the students that trolls aren't like they are in fairy tales, the fairy tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff is incorporated into the film very effectively.

Conservation minded viewers will find themselves thinking about the way we treat large predators, should in fact the trolls be conserved despite being so dangerous? Are there ways that the local human populations could co-exist with the trolls?

But mostly its a well made and entertaining safari into the dark and scary Norwegian Woods.

When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

2011-12-26T14:20:00.004Z

How could I resist a novel called When God was a Rabbit? It's well worth reading too, though make sure you have a hanky ready as it's a very emotional experience.

The first part of the novel follows Eleanor Maude as she grows up with her family in the south of England (starting off in Essex and moving to Cornwall). The second part sees her as an adult. All through the novel, the details of Ellie's life are set against the events of the time, many of which impinge on her life (the Queen's Silver Jubilee in terms of the street party she attends, the falling of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in a far less benign way). A lot of Christmases are celebrated in the novel, which make it an ideal Christmas read.

While she is a child, Eleanor has a big rabbit, that she calls god. Given the title of the novel I had expected god to be more of a central character than he is. I also felt that god was banished too much to his hutch and not given enough attention, for example I suspect that his hay wasn't changed as often as it should have been.

Aside from my lagomorphic concerns though, this is an excellent novel, about loneliness and fitting in and about how life can change unexpectedly, giving second chances where you might not have expected them. Winman has a great eye for detail, there are some lovely descriptions for example of the river near Ellie's home in Cornwall. Ellie is also a character who is very much at home in the natural world.

So definitely a book I would recommend, just don't expect the rabbit to be centre stage!

When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman published by Headline

Christmas Special!

2011-12-25T10:29:00.001Z

I wouldn't normally blog on Christmas Day, but I'm totally delighted to have one of my poems chosen as the Christmas Special over on Sabotage Reviews. You can read it here.

Hope you're all enjoying Christmas!

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-24T10:05:00.001Z

Have a wonderful Christmas!

There's a seasonal poem over on Bolts of Silk today. You can read it here.

The photo above is from two years ago, we're having a very mild winter this year so far!

haiku

2011-12-23T21:29:00.001Z

dancing to the beat
of the street musicians -
a grey squirrel.

Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh

Midway - the land of plastic

2011-12-22T09:15:00.004Z

Midway is one of the most remote islands on earth, populated by amazing birds, including albatrosses. But Midway is in crisis, due to the plastic waste that sits in the Great Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean. Albatrosses that nest on the island now routinely collect plastic rubbish to feed their chicks, many of whom die, their stomachs full of plastic.

It's a tragic story and one that points up the global effects of our addiction to plastic (and our inability to re-use it or to dispose of it safely).

Photographer and film maker Chris Jordan and his team visited Midway to film the heartbreaking story of what plastic pollution is doing to the island and its wildlife. You can watch a trailer of the film here and read more about the project here. The film is still in production but looks as though it will be unmissable when it's released.

There are many ways you can reduce your plastic use, for example:

1) refuse plastic carrier bags - carry a reusable bag with you (and incidentally avoid picking up loads of reusable bags, as it takes as much energy to make every reusable bag as to make about 50 plastic bags. Once you've got three or four reusable bags make sure you carry them with you and use them all the time)

2) avoid products wrapped in plastic or made from plastic

3) Don't buy bottled water - carry a reusable water bottle with you. Give Me Tap is a project that started in Manchester and is spreading across England. They have established a network of pubs and cafes that will let you refill your water bottle from their taps. Don't be tempted to buy a bottle of water and reuse that, as the plastic in bottles can leach into the water and then into your digestive system.

4) Pick litter while you're out walking in the countryside. Ironically, the best container to put the collected litter in is a plastic bag, but often you will find stray plastic bags along the path that you can use in this way.

5) Make art out of plastic waste! Olympia Dumpster Diver's blog is full of ideas for making arts and crafts out of plastic and other waste material. Do make sure that you are using waste plastic for your art though, buying new plastic items to make artworks would be missing the point...

3) join in campaigns for example to ban the plastic bag in your city, county, state or nation. For example, in Edinburgh there is Ban Plastic Bags Edinburgh.

4) become informed! There are lots of good resources out there. One of my favourite anti-plastic blogs is My Plastic Free Life (formerly Fake Plastic Fish). There are also a number of organisations concerned with reducing plastic use, such as the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

What are your top tips to reduce plastic use, especially during the festive season?

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Tree Year - Winter

2011-12-21T11:40:00.004Z

Some of you may remember that I've been 'studying' some trees for the Tree Year project. (You can see all my Tree Year blogposts here). Tree Year actually ended earlier this month, but that passed me by and I had been thinking of the project on a calendar year basis. Anyway, here are my trees in their winter guises.

One of the cherry trees opposite our flat.
The group of hornbeams alongside the Water of Leith.

Reading Challenges

2011-12-20T13:21:00.003Z

This year, as some of you may know, I've been doing two reading challenges over on my Over Forty Shades Blog:

The Italy in Books Reading Challenge - you can read my reviews here
The LGBT Reading Challenge - you can read my reviews here

Both challenges were very efficiently organised by Brighton Blogger, so a big thanks to her for all her hard work (including organising prizes, of which I won more than one!).

In 2012 Brighton Blogger will be organising another reading challenge. This time it has an open theme so you can read any kind of book you want to read! As long as you review it on your blog! You can even take part if you don't have a blog. You can find out more and sign up here. I'll be continuing to review the types of books I usually review on this blog - poetry, fiction and non-fiction that broadly have an environmental theme.

In other news, I was delighted to receive two copies of the Poetry Space competition anthology Green Spaces, with my poem Cows in Meadow Flowers appearing on p25. You can order copies of the anthology here.

I also recently received in the post a set of these lovely postcards which I won in the Christmas Giveaway at Dosanko Debbie's Etagami Notebook. If you don't know Debbie's blog, why not pop over and browse her beautiful Japanese inspired poetry and artwork.

Monday Bunday at Gorgie Farm

2011-12-19T13:17:00.000Z

We visited Gorgie City Farm recently, and you can read more about the trip here. In that post, I promised to share photos of the farm rabbits and so here they are!

Daisy

Driftwood (he was found abandoned on a beach.....) Crafty Green Boyfriend and I sponsor Driftwood, you can read more about that here.

Louie

When I worked for the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, I was based at Gorgie Farm and got to know the bunnies pretty well! They were always split into two warring factions, Driftwood, joined up with Daisy and her daughter Sugar against Louie and Lily. Driftwood used to be particularly aggressive towards Louie (whose ears have never quite recovered) and any attempt at bonding the whole group just never worked.

On recent trips to the farm, we have hardly seen the bunnies at all! So we were really happy to see them all getting on so well on this visit! (Though there was no sign of Sugar at all!).

Louie and Lily have a serious discussion
queueing up for an advice session with Daisy

The waterways of Edinburgh

2011-12-18T13:03:00.001Z

We had a lovely walk yesterday along part of the Union Canal and part of the Water of Leith. Here are some of the highlights.

The canal was frozen! Chunks of ice were floating over large parts of the water and some sections were frozen solid. Not solid enough for even ducks to walk on, though. Certainly nowhere near as solid as it was the last two winters, but it offered some nice photo opportunities.

The cygnets are growing up now!

It was a beautiful clear day and the light was wonderful by the time we got to the Water of Leith.

The sunset was particularly beautiful.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

The Good Seed Bistro

2011-12-17T10:21:00.004Z

Last night Crafty Green Boyfriend and I ate out at our favourite restaurant and I thought it was time to give it a review!

If you live in Edinburgh and haven't yet eaten at the Good Seed Bistro, you're missing a treat. This small, cosy and beautifully decorated bistro serves an interesting range of Italian inspired food.

The ever changing main dishes includes a variety of taglietelle, my favourite of which is probably the chocolate, or maybe it's the lemon..... The taglietelle is served with various sauces, not always vegetarian. So last night I had the gnocchi, as I often do. I generally find gnocchi elesewhere to be too heavy, but the Good Seed does a lovely light gnocchi. Last night's gnocchi was served in a light but rich four cheese sauce and came with a small bread roll. There's a nice selection of side dishes, my favourite of which is the courgette, though Crafty Green Boyfriend always goes for the chips (which are excellent).

There is always a wonderful selection of desserts at the Good Seed. They make wonderful cheesecakes (including a delicious lemon and ginger) though there was no cheesecake on the menu last night. Instead I had the cardamon cake, which was a delicious light sponge with a subtle flavour of cardamon. The lemon and rosemary cake is I think my favourite dessert I've ever eaten here.

In addition to all this, the Good Seed uses organic and locally sourced produce when possible and offers dairy free and gluten free options (I would imagine vegan options would be available if you ask, they have certainly in the past made vegetarian versions of dishes for me).

The Good Seed is in Dalry Road, not far from Haymarket train station and is open for lunch and supper. In the afternoon you can pop in for coffee and dessert! Check their opening hours over Christmas though as I think they're going to take quite a bit of time off.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Christmas Star from Bunny Felt

2011-12-15T10:44:00.002Z

Crafty Green Boyfriend's Mum has given us a lovely little Christmas tree! I've decorated it with recycled gift ribbons, an old silver earring (!) and two fairtrade wooden birds that I've had for years. On the top of the tree is a wee star that I made this morning from felt that I made a while ago from the shed fur of Anya, the pet rabbit we used to have. I cut out a star shape in cardboard and then cut round that on the felt. I sewed in three tiny red beads as added decoration. You can make bigger stars of course and use other things, such as wee buttons, as decoration. This felt is not very good quality (I never quite perfected the felting technique!) and its also very thick so the star is pure felt. If the felt is better quality and thinner then you would probably want to make a cardboard star and sew two separate felt stars to it. You can find out how to make felt from pet fur (rabbit is best, but cat also works well) here.

sheep's wool

2011-12-14T15:23:00.000Z

I had read somewhere recently that sheep's wool is sometimes categorised as agricultural waste, which I found appalling. I think it purely refers to low grade wool that can't be used for clothing, but even so, to think of this wonderfully versatile natural material being treated as waste is really quite sad. So I browsed the internet and came up with the following information:

An illustrated History of British Wool from the Seven Sisters Sheep Centre
A brief outline of British wool production
a good article from the BBC about using lowgrade wool in compost and insulation

Of course sheep themselves appreciate their wool coats that keep them warm and cosy through the winter. The sheep in the photo are some of the Ryeland Sheep at Gorgie City Farm.

Gorgie City Farm

2011-12-13T14:20:00.004Z

We've just got back from a lovely few days staying with my parents in suburban Manchester. Our train journey down was badly delayed due to the high winds and flooding of a few days ago but it's a beautiful route through the Lake District and the bad weather added drama to the scenery! It was of course nice to spend time with my parents and we also had some good birdwatching, including a trip to Blackleach Country Park which is very close to my parents' house. My parents garden is a great place for birdwatching - for the first time I saw redpolls on the bird feeders joining the more regular goldfinches and many other species.

Today Crafty Green Boyfriend and I had a wee trip to Gorgie City Farm. The bunnies were on fine form, they've had a history of ganging up on each other, but they seemed to be getting on fine today and all ran round their grounds quite happily. I'll share photos of them on Monday (for Monday is, for bunny bloggers at least, always Bunday!)

Meanwhile here is an example of some very creative repurposing in Gorgie Farm Cafe. Each table had a menu covered in a different repurposed cover from a vintage vinyl LP.

I also noticed that the Farm cafe has started selling lovely handmade earthenware pottery from Frog Pottery.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more. Though the Gorgie Farm website isn't always working at the moment!

Winter arrives

2011-12-07T17:19:00.004Z

I had a lovely walk along the Water of Leith yesterday. The weather was clear and bright but very cold with a lot of paths still icy from the day before. There were good numbers of birds around, including two herons, which are one of the few birds i ever try to take photos of, they're big and slow moving so make ideal subjects! Here are just a few photos to give a flavour of the day.

I'll be offline for a few days now, back next week!

Haiku and haibun update

2011-12-05T13:59:00.003Z

I'm delighted that one of my haiku came third in the recent Sketchbook kukai (haiku contest voted on by the participants). Another of my haiku came joint sixth. Thanks for everyone who voted for me! You can read all the haiku here.

I am also delighted to have a haibun in the first issue of A Hundred Gourds, a lovely new journal devoted to haiku, haibun and similar poetic forms. Yu can read my haibun here.

haiku

2011-12-04T14:02:00.000Z

early light
the first snow dusts
slate roofs

*
snow covered lawn -
filling the bird feeder
every half hour

The Heavy Bag by Ross Wilson

2011-12-03T18:09:00.004Z

Ross Wilson (no relation) is a poet who was also a boxing champion. Not surprisingly then there are quite a few poems about boxing in his first chapbook The Heavy Bag.

I have to admit boxing is not a topic I generally pay much attention to. I felt The Heavy Bag was the most effective of the boxing poems here, the language is particularly punchy and straightforward while the short line length adds to the sense of physical exertion that runs through the poem. We also find here a hint of the supressed anger that boxing can help relieve:

"The bag twists and turns into a boss,
colleague, banker, politician....
a shape shifting shadow,"

This collection also includes poems about unemployment, factory work, Friday nights in town and two poems that touch on nature. Shell Bay tells the story of a family walk where the children learn by exploration:

"Wee hands turned treasures scopped from sand
and studied the hollow inside:
the absence of something forgotten
when zipped into the soft shells of their dreams."

The Other Side of the Hill describes a climb, with a scene familiar to anyone who climbs hills:

"And just when we thought: the top!
The horizon ran away
like a tormenting tease,
holding up more hill."

It's good to read poetry that is grounded in vivid real experience and this collection isfull of such poetry.

The Heavy Bag by Ross Wilson published by Calder Wood Press

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher (who also published my chapbook).

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Bank Hoiday Birding

2011-12-02T16:51:00.004Z

It's a bank holiday in Scotland today so Crafty Green Boyfriend and I went for a birdwatching wander round Edinburgh. We started at the West End, where right in the city centre, 20 or more waxwings were enjoying flying around the trees and eating the berries.

We then wandered over to Arthur's Seat and had a lovely walk there! We had heard there had been a mandarin duck that had recently visited Dunsapie Loch on Arthur's Seat. We saw no sign of that ornate bird but we did see this goose, which quite frankly is a bit of a mystery.

I'm not an expert on geese but ...

The white around the beak and the size suggests white fronted goose (the lack of black bars on its underside would indicate juvenile). The pale ring round the eye suggests lesser white fronted (which you might expect to have more white round the bill). The legs suggest pink footed. So what is it? Any ideas?

Bunny Calendar

2011-12-01T14:10:00.000Z

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) used to make a lovely rabbit calendar, but a few years ago they discontinued production, due they claimed, to lack of interest (and despite me putting in a request every year to every SSPCA shop I can visit, they still claim lack of interest!). So for the last few years we have had to make do with a kitten calendar, and much though Crafty Green Boyfriend and I love kittens, they're not bunnies!

So imagine my delight to win a copy of the beautiful Bunspace calendar in a competition over on Jade's Zen of Bun blog! The calendar features photos of 90 adorable bunnies (including on the front cover a black and white one who looks a bit like our old rabbit Anya did). Mr Mick (Jade's bunny and the star of her blog) is in November.

So thanks to Jade and Mr Mick for this lovely gift (which arrived along with a signed photo of Mr Mick!). And for lots of photos of the beautifully disapproving rabbit that is Mr Mick, remember to pop over to visit Jade's blog.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other websites where you can find out more!

Watery Abstracts

2011-11-30T07:22:00.000Z

These are just some of the abstract type photos I've recently taken of waterscapes. I took the first two photos at Cramond and photos 3 and 4 at Cammo.

for Watery Wednesday

A couple of photos of birds

2011-11-28T19:44:00.006Z

I thought I'd share Crafty Green Boyfriend's photo above, just to show the sheer number of birds that were around at Musselburgh Lagoons when we visited recently. The waders in the photo are bar tailed godwits and there are also gulls including herring gulls and black headed gulls. Everything in winter plumage of course.

Meanwhile below is another photo I took of the Canada Goose that seems to think it's a mute swan, which I previously mentioned here.

for World Bird Wednesday

NaNoWriMo

2011-11-28T15:15:00.002Z

So I've finished NaNoWriMo early, I had written my 50000 words by midmorning today. It felt like a real achievement! It's been hard work but I've been lucky to have had plenty of time to work on this and was determined from the start to try to finish early. So what have I learnt from the experience?

a) Although to date I have mostly written haiku, short poems and flash fiction, I have proven now that I can at least write enough words for a much bigger piece of work.

b) Just writing with the aim of reaching a given total word count is liberating, as it means you just write without worrying about the quality.

c) at the same time just writing like that means that I didn't get stuck on polishing the first paragraph to perfection only to find myself left with nothing to add to the one perfect paragraph (having said that, the first paragraph is probably the best paragraph in the novel!).

d) but oh, this isn't a novel. Not at all. It's a very rough first draft, which, with a lot of editing and polishing, may one day resemble something like a real novel that people might want to read. (So that's what I'll be doing over the next year or so!)

e) It's useful just to write through the plot dilemmas, in this draft I have characters talking about where they want the plot to go, at one point a character actually says she wishes the author could sort out a particular aspect of the plot (hang on a minute, maybe I should keep that! It could be a nice post-modernist twist to the novel!?)

f) I had always thought that I would find research so tedious it would put me off ever writing a novel but in fact I really enjoyed the research aspect. I think it would be more tedious for me if it was historic research where you need to get all the facts as accurate as possible. Given that my novel is speculative fiction set in the far future then I have a lot more freedom to do what I want with my research. (I've had great fun with extrapolating some elements of the contemporary world into the future!)

So now I'm going to catch up on all the research information I identified but never got the chance to read properly then I'll start looking at the 'novel' in a few weeks time and get it into some kind of decent shape.

And I won't keep talking about it, promise!

How was NaNoWriMo for you?

Blood in the Mobile

2011-11-27T20:59:00.004Z

Blood in the Mobile is a hardhitting documentary about how mobile phones (and other consumer electronics products) contain minerals such as coltan, which are mined in the Congo. The mines employ child labour and are guarded by military and paramilitary organisations which profit from the mines by taxing the workers and demanding payment from anyone who wants to go into the mine (for example to make a documentary film.) Armed conflict in the Congo over the last 15 years has cost the lives of over 5 million people. 300,000 women have been raped during the conflict. The conflict is funded by the taxes and charges mentioned about and the selling of minerals.

The director of the film Frank Poulsen travels to the mines in Congo to see what conditions are like there. (There is a really harrowing scene down the mine.) He also travels to Finland to try to talk to decision makers within Nokia, the largest producer of mobile phones in the world to see what they are doing to make sure that their phones don't contain minerals from conflict areas of Congo. Nokia are very evasive, they don't say where their minerals come from and in fact spend much of the film denying that it is possible to trace minerals through the supply chains. (despite the fact that German scientists interviewed in this film have devised a way of doing just that - surely Nokia with their large resource and development budget must be able to pay these scientists to trace their minerals?).

Every Nokia employee interviewed in the film whined about how difficult it is to make a difference and assured the film maker that Nokia is doing all it can. Somehow I doubt that they really are.

It is likely that there is no mobile phone in the world that can be guaranteed free from conflict minerals. To do your bit to change this, you can write to your mobile phone company and ask them what their stance is and encourage them to source conflict free minerals. In addition you can take the actions on the Blood in the Mobile website.

You can also do your bit by considering whether you need a mobile phone at all and if you conclude that it is actually essential to your life, then only replace your phone if it breaks, rather than buying the latest hot new model, as I believe is what many people do these days.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Birds on a Blustery Day

2011-11-26T18:07:00.004Z

I had heard via Edinburgh Wildlife (@wildedinburgh on Twitter) that there were snow buntings and long tailed ducks around Musselburgh recently, and though I don't agree with twitching (travelling long distances to see rare birds) I did think that jumping on the 44 bus which runs directly from our flat to Musselburgh to see two birds i've never seen before was okay.

Anyway Crafty Green Boyfriend and I hopped on said bus and travelled to a very blustery, windswept Musselburgh. We walked along the River Esk, where we saw this lone pink footed goose, (in exactly the same spot it had been in last time I was in Musselburgh with my birdwatching class, when I had used it as a compare and contrast exercise with the superficially similar greylag geese that are found on the river in much greater numbers).

There were also alot of Canada geese on the river. Plus a few redshanks and five turnstones. We then walked along part of the John Muir Way along the coast. The wind was wild and the waves were high. I could scarcely keep my binoculars to my eyes it was so windy, so there may have been long tailed ducks hiding in the waves, that I just didn't see. We did however see eiders and goldeneyes on the sea.

We then visited Musselburgh Lagoons where we sat in the bird hides (and particularly uncomfortable bird hides they are too, all concrete seats and no roofs!). The views were magnificent though. There were large numbers of waders (oystercatchers, curlew, bar tailed godwits, knots and dunlin). There were also good numbers of two pretty species of duck - teal and wigeon. Then one lonely lapwing. Crafty Green Boyfriend took several photos of the birds on the lagoons, but they were too far away to come out well enough to share here (much better to follow the links in the text and find out what the birds look like from the RSPB website!)

The walk back into Musselburgh was even more blustery than the walk out had been! But even though we didn't see the birds we had hoped to see, we were very happy with those we did see!

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other websites where you can find out more.

haiku

2011-11-25T10:20:00.000Z

fallen leaves -
the ivy covered tree trunks
alive with bird calls

Water of Leith update

2011-11-22T20:39:00.002Z

I had the most wonderful view ever of a kingfisher today. I was walking along the Water of Leith in Colinton Dell when I noticed the colour of a kingfisher out of the corner of my eye. It then landed on a branch overhanging the river, just very close to where I was standing. It turned to look at me, 'bowed' then dashed off, flying downstream in a flash of turquoise.

*******

I was very pleased that Greener Leith posted my recent blogpost about the public meeting about the tree felling that is happening as part of the Flood Prevention Works along the Water of Leith. You may have read the post on this blog, but you can read it on Greener Leith here.

Tree felling was stopped yesterday at Canonmills as it seems the specific trees to be felled are subject to tree preservation orders and cannot be removed. The original plans for the Flood Prevention Work had committed to saving those specific trees. Some trees have already been felled along the river, this can't be avoided unfortunately if flood prevention is to be provided, as there is no natural flood plain alongside these parts of the river and the protecting walls can't be built without removing trees. Once the flood prevention works are completed two trees will be planted for every tree that is felled.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Oceans - a film

2011-11-21T21:05:00.002Z

Oceans was shown today as part of the French Film Festival at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh.

Oceans is a visually stunning documentary of the life to be found in the world's oceans. There are some amazing shots:

shimmering cuttlefish; sea slugs looking like underwater flying carpets; supermodel fish species posing on the coral reefs; enormous blue whales leaping from the sea; sea turtles emerging from their nests and making their way to the sea and having to survive the attacks of frigate birds to get there; a mass mating of crabs; small fish cleaning the teeths of larger fish; an adult walrus cuddling its offspring and many other wonderful sights.

There isn't much narrative and what there is, is unfortunately less impressive than the visuals. On the one hand there is virtually no information in the narrative, so we are not told the species name of anything that appears on screen (now blue whales are probably recognisable to a fair proportion of people prepared to turn up to a French language documentary about sea life, but cuttlefish less so and some of the species of weird looking fish are possibly unknown to all but well informed marine scientists). On the other hand there is a lot of heavy handed environmental preaching in the narrative, which is probably counterproductive. Far better to either have the film with no narrative at all, just beautiful music, or get someone like David Attenborough to do a properly informative voice over.

As ever, red text in this post contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

You've Been Trumped

2011-11-20T20:51:00.004Z

You've Been Trumped is a brilliant film that on Friday deservedly won the audience award at the Take One Action Film Festival. It's a film I had hoped to see earlier in the year, but better late than never, I saw it today and here's what I thought.

You've Been Trumped is a documentary film about Donald Trump's project to build 'the world's best golf course' on an area of rare sand-dunes which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Aberdeenshire. It's a very well made documentary that is at once heartbreaking, inspiring and entertaining. There is beautiful footage of the dune system as it used to be, a vibrant, beautiful areaof wilderness that not only was wonderful for wildlife (hence the SSSI designation, which issuppposed to offer protection against development) but also was a popular place for local people to walk. The film also shows the bulldozers ploughing roughshod over the land, destroying the ecosystem, which can never be restored, due to its uniquely fragile nature. The resulting golf course is one that local people are unlikely to be able to afford to play on, even if they were to want to. (Interestingly, some American golfers who were interviewed in this film as they played on the golf course at St Andrews said that they would not be interested in playing on Trump's course, and they are the target audience).

The film focusses on how local people are being affected by the development - the construction has caused locals to lose their water supply for weeks, has demanded that they pay for fencing and has built sandbanks round their houses to hide them from view of the rich Americans who will be playing on the golf course. A number of local families had been threatened with compulsory purchase orders on their homes, though Trump did back down on this after a demonstration.

The local police are shown to very definitely be on the side of Trump, they harrassed and arrested the film makers and took the side of Trump in every conflict with the local people.

The film also shows some of the positives that rose out of the whole debacle including some excellent arts projects, including these photos by Alicia Bruce.

I've followed the development of this golf course over the years (this link takes you to all the posts I've written that mention the subject). I am still shocked as to how a Scottish Government that claims to support local democracy, be concerned for the environment and be working for an independent Scotland can overturn local decisions (the Aberdeenshire council originally refused planning permission for the course) and basically sell Scotland's natural assets to the highest bidder to create a golf course (as if Scotland doesn't have enough of those already) that will be marketed to rich foreigners.

Rachel Fox wrote a really good review of You've been Trumped on her blog here.
The You've Been Trumped website is here and their facebook page is here.
The Tripping up Trump campaign has a website here.

Some cinemas have refused to screen this film, claiming lack of audience interest (Trump has been putting out propoganda saying the film isn't worth seeing and there's no audience for it). If your local cinema claims that there is no interest in seeing You've Been Trumped, prove them wrong and ask them to screen it.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Autumn at Cramond

2011-11-19T19:37:00.007Z

The beautiful (and frankly entirely unseasonably warm) weather continues! We had a lovely day at Cramond today. There were lots of curlews and oystercatchers in amongst the sheep in the fields, though we only got a photo of one of the sheep.

The tide was well out on the Firth of Forth so a lot of the birds were quite a distance away, but we saw more oystercatchers and curlews as well as a fair number of redshanks.

The mouth of the River Almond was quite quiet for birds, though there were a lot of gulls and several species of waders further out and a wee bit upstream there were three mute swans (and a Canada goose who seemed to think it was a swan) and a lot of mallards.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Calvet the film released to UK cinemas

2011-11-18T18:33:00.004Z

Some readers of this blog may remember that I reviewed the Edinburgh International Film Festival this summer. One of the highlights of the festival for me was Calvet, a moving biopic of an amazing artist, Jean Marc Calvet.

I'm delighted to hear that Calvet is now being released at selected cinemas across the UK, starting with the Cameo in Edinburgh, at 18.40, Thursday 24 November. You can see the full listing of screenings here.

Here is the review I posted back in June:

Jean Marc Calvet is a self taught French artist, currently living in Nicaragua. Calvet is a biopic of his amazing lifestory. The film is basically an extended interview with Calvet, interspersed with scenes from the places he has lived, views of his amazing artworks and abstract, impressionistic interludes.

Calvet was born in Nice, France, in 1965. He had a hard childhood and an early career as a bodyguard to the stars, a French Legionnaire and a vice cop. He then abandoned his partner and young son to take a shady job in the USA, which led to him absconding to Central America with huge amounts of cash he had stolen from his employer. He hid out in Costa Rica and at one point hid in his house on a coke binge that lasted months. The film gives a brilliant and disturbing recreation of the hallucinatory paranoia he was experiencing at this time. During a particular hallucination he literally found some paint and started throwing it around the house. He realised that this formed a sort of emotional release and he started to paint on a regular basis. At this point he was seeing it as purely a therapy, it was months or years before he began to see himself as an artist.

When he had overcome his problems and moved to Nicaragua, Calvet decided to search for his son. I found this part of the film a bit tedious, involving as it did a lot of getting lost in little streets and asking the neighbours if they knew Calvet's family. However, tedious is probably how it felt in reality at times and there is an emotionally satisfying conclusion to Calvet's attempt to reconcile with his first family.

Calvet is now married with a daughter and he is a successful and prolific artist.

You can find out more about Calvet the film here. You can Like the film on Facebook here. You can see a previewof the film here.
You can find out more about Calvet's art here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Flood Prevention along Water of Leith - update

2011-11-17T13:02:00.004Z

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I were at last night's public meeting at Stockbridge Library to hear about the tree felling associated with the flood prevention work along the Water of Leith.

The Water of Leith Conservation Trust have worked with the contractors of the flood prevention team to ensure that the natural environment would be as little damaged as possible as a result of the work. The trust have been really good at sharing information about the flood prevention plans with volunteers. The trust, Edinburgh City Council and the contractors have regularly updated people who live in the affected areas. However, when I recently saw the felled trees along parts of the river and read about how many trees in total are going to be felled I panicked more than a little bit. I didn't remember the discussions or plans ever indicating this amount of tree felling.

The same point was brought up by several people at the public meeting. The council engineer and the contractor at the meeting didn't actually approach people's concerns in the best way. Rather than directly and immediately addressing the issue about trees, they chose to give a presentation about the history of the flood prevention plans. They went into a lot of detail, which was interesting, but anyone who has been in Edinburgh and concerned about the flood prevention plans over the last ten years or so, would be aware of the outline of these plans and though it was useful to hear it again, it lead to a lot of impatience in the room.

The presentation did highlight the fact that if flood defences are to be built alongside the Water of Leith in the centre of Edinburgh, then in most places there is not the room to allow for natural flood prevention measures. The river is closely bound by housing, offices, roads and gardens along much of its course in central Edinburgh. One area that was a potential sink for flood waters has had housing built on it since the flood prevention plans were first put forward, despite the council overturning the plans, the Scottish Government had stepped in and said the housing should go ahead (housing built on a flood plain in times of increasing floods and rising sea levels?!). So that is a problem that could have been avoided. Another problem is that Scottish Rugby Union who have their ground at Murrayfield by the river, would not allow the council to use part of their fields as natural flood defences, despite it being ideal for the purpose (I've spoken to an engineer on the project who is puzzled to say the least about that decision, which was upheld by the Scottish Government I think).

Most parts of the river in central Edinburgh, as I say, though don't have potential for natural flood prevention measures. Mathematical modelling was used to decide what degree of flood protection was needed. The design chosen will protect against the effects of a once in 200 year flood incident (remember that with the changing climate what is now a one in 200 year event in the future becomes much more likely). The plan is that existing walls near the river are to be knocked down, metal barriers are to be sunk to a great depth below where these walls ran and then the walls are to be rebuilt in concrete and then clad in stone of the same type as the original stone. The river will not be canalised (apart from areas where it already canalised), as in most cases the walls don't run exactly alongside the riverbank but are at a distance.

This is where the problem with the trees come in. The work in fitting the metal barriers and replacement walls needs access. Trees get in the way unfortunately. The trees that get in the way are being removed. Lots of trees. This is really upsetting and a great loss to local biodiversity. However, if we are to prevent floods then this work needs to be done (though obviously it would have been better if housing and offices had never been built on a floodplain in the first place....). When the work is completed, all the trees will be replaced - two new trees will be planted for every tree that is removed. (Why the contractor and the spokesperson from the council didn't say this right at the start of the meeting, I don't know. It would have prevented some of the bad feeling that run through most of the meeting, judging from the delighted reactions from some people in the room to hearing this announcement). The trees will be planted with the help of the Water of Leith Conservation Trust and with local residents associations, who have been closely consulted all along the way. (Some people at the meeting have had their houses flooded and had nothing but praise for the way that the contractors were involving them in the future restoration of the trees). Of course these trees will grow slowly, and it will be years before the area is back to its current beauty, which is really sad. However, given the circumstances I do think that everyone involved is doing the best they can.

(As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more).

Light by Margaret Elphinstone

2011-11-14T13:27:00.000Z

Light is the story of a family in the early 19th century who look after the lighthouse on a tiny island off the Isle of Man. Lucy and Diya are sisters in law and have three children between them. Their whole life is dictated by the needs of looking after the light yet their very future is threatened by the arrival of surveyors who are working for the engineer Robert Stevenson who aims to modernise the nation's lighthouses.

The novel explores how progress affects the family's life, sometimes in unexpected ways. The characters are all well drawn and have their own believable reactions to the changes that are on the way. There are many misunderstandings between the family and the surveyors, which sometimes become melodramatic.

For me the most enjoyable thing about the novel are the descriptions of nature. The reader feels transported to this tiny island in the middle of a moody sea:

A crack appeared in the northern cliffs. They passed a stack with a pinpoint of light in its heart that gradullay grew until the stack became an arch, and they could see the sea shining on the other side. Beyond the stack was a fissure full of tumbled boulders, and the dark mouth of a cave. Sea and sky were suddenly full of birds. A wild clamour rose from the crack and a plume of kittiwakes, far more graceful than the puffins, soared above the headland, riding the air currents. A thin ribbon of white fringed the rocks ahead. A scatter of rounded boulders suddenly turned into seals, which humped their way down to the water and dived in a series of neat splashes. A minute later, half a dozen heads surfaced close to the boat, watching the new arrivals with dark, dog like eyes.

Last year I really enjoyed reading another of Margaret Elphinstone's novels The Sea Road, you can read my review here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Tanka for the Western Black Rhino

2011-11-13T12:36:00.001Z

the western black rhino
declared extinct -
dark clouds gather
over the moon this too warm
November night

Tree Year

2011-11-12T17:14:00.008Z

I've said before on this blog how wonderful the autumn colours are this year. Our flat overlooks a couple of cherry trees that I have been casually blogging about for Tree Year. These trees for some reason always seem to lose their leaves later than most other cherry trees in Edinburgh. This is how one of them looked this morning - the photo really doesn't do justice to the full glory of the colours!

Meanwhile in Colinton Dell (which is an area of the Water of Leith that thankfully won't be affected by the Flood Prevention Works) this is how the hornbeams (that I've been studying for Tree Year) looked earlier this week. Notice in the first photo how some of the branches of the hornbeams are full of very yellow leaves, while others are full of leaves that are still very green!

As ever, red text in this post contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

cloudy day

2011-11-11T14:18:00.004Z

clouds lift -

two sparrowhawks circle

above the trees

Preventing Floods on Water of Leith

2011-11-09T08:57:00.006Z

Flood defences are currently being built along parts of the Water of Leith (you can read more here and here). Given that many houses by the river are threatened with flooding on an increasingly frequent basis, these defences are essential (though of course there is the argument that we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't build houses on floodplains). The City of Edinburgh Council has contracted Lagan Construction to do the work.

As a volunteer with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust, I know that the trust is working closely with the contractors to minimise disruption to the natural environment (one part of the defences work was delayed for example to allow a kingfisher pair to finish raising their family). I also know that the contractors have agreed to plant wildflower seeds and make other environmental improvements once the defences have been completed.

However, lots of trees are being cut down so that the defences can be built. These are old trees, home to lots of wildlife and beautiful additions to the urban landscape of Edinburgh. It is just heartbreaking to see these trees being lost gradually along the river between the Stockbridge and Leith areas of town. While I had been following the plans for the flood prevention scheme, I had no idea initially that so many trees would be affected. A public meeting has been called for later this week to outline the reasoning behind tree removal and the mitigation measures that will be put in place after the works are completed. You can read more about it here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to websites where you can find out more.

Raindrops on Spiders Webs

2011-11-08T18:50:00.003Z

It was a dull and drizzly day today as I walked along the Water of Leith. There are spider webs everywhere, looking like lace with all the raindrops hanging on them.

It was a good day for birdwatching too. I can almost guarantee seeing bullfinches along the Water of Leith, but today I saw seven of them all together, where before I've only ever seen four at most (and that when parents are feeding offspring). Spylaw Park was full of long tailed tits and at one point when I was closer to the river, a large flock of long tailed tits surrounded me, chattering away and flying round me. I also got three very good views of dippers bobbing in the river.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Cammo Country Park

2011-11-06T11:54:00.002Z

We had a wonderful day in Cammo Country Park yesterday. The weather was beautiful, sunny with clear blue skies but a definite autumnal chill to the air. The autumnal colours were gorgeous (it does seem to be a particularly fine year for autumn colour, the beech trees especially).
There are some amazing patches of fungi throughout Cammo, these bracket fungi are particularly impressive.

Then there were the birds! The woodland was full of blue tits, long tailed tits, great tits and coal tits. We also saw a goldcrest and a treecreeper. But it was the farm fields around Cammo that were most exciting for us as birdwatchers. We saw a big flock of small birds and quickly identified some of them as goldfinches (common but very beautiful, groups of them are appropriately called charms), yellowhammers (getting to be rare these days, but still quite reliably seen on farmland round Edinburgh) and tree sparrows!!!! I've never seen tree sparrows in my life before so I was quite excited. There were a load of them chattering away as they flew between the trees and the stubble in the fields. They are delightful birds, more elegant than house sparrows, and male and female look the same. They are one of the birds on the Biodiversity Action Plan in Edinburgh and are red listed because their numbers have declined drastically in the UK in recent years (though apparently there has been a slight improvement in the past year or so).

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more!

bonfire haiku

2011-11-05T08:18:00.001Z

It's Bonfire Night in the UK today. People across the country will be lighting bonfires and setting off fireworks. If you are making a bonfire, make sure that no hedgehogs or other animals have made a home in the wood. The best thing is to build the bonfire just before you light it so that you can thoroughly check all the wood. If you're using a fire that you built earlier you need to turn over all the wood carefully to check that nothing is hiding in it. There's good advice here.

If you're setting off fireworks, make sure your pets are indoors, because they can be scared by the loud bangs.

Here are two haiku that I've written about Bonfire night:

sparks fly
from the bonfire -
star filled sky

previously published in Blithe Spirit, the journal of the British Haiku Society

fireworks -
the herring gulls
take flight

Earth Balls (fungi)

2011-11-04T14:52:00.005Z

We had a lovely walk round Corstorphine Hill this lunchtime. It's looking at its autumnal best at the moment.

There are lots of fungi around at the moment, including these impressive earth balls, which seem to have been partially nibbled by a squirrel.

There were also a lot of birds flying around, including redwings and fieldfares - autumn must have arrived!

Playing with Water by James Hamilton-Paterson

2011-11-03T14:50:00.003Z

As I'm writing a novel for NaNoWriMo I'm trying to put myself in the right frame of mind by reading non-fiction books that relate to some of the themes found in my novel. Island living is one of these themes and one of the books I've chosen to read is Playing with Water by James Hamilton-Paterson.

This book is a memoir centred on the years that Hamilton-Paterson spent living on an island he calls Tiwarik off the coast of the Phillipines. It is an uninhabited island but one that is popular with youngsters from nearby villages as a place to play, camp and fish. Hamilton-Paterson finds a niche for himself in the local community, not least because he turns out to be an expert spear fisherman.

The author has a wonderful eye for detail and describes the underwater world beautifully, there is a particularly breathtaking sequence when he stays underwater almost too long and afterwards realises that the air he had been breathing had been tainted with oil, so his sightings became more and more dreamlike and surreal. He also meditates on the damage caused to the local ecology by the large ships that dynamite the coral reefs. He also is saddened by the fact that the local fishermen often use poisons and small amounts of explosives in their fishing, but realises that for them it is a matter of survival and making a few pennies at the local market. (Interestingly he doesn't seem to differentiate himself from the local spear fishermen, who use the most sustainable form of fishing, without reflecting that he made a choice to live there and kill those fish, while the local people have no choice if they are to stay in the area.)

He also ponders his early life (at first I had found these flashbacks annoying, because I thought that the book was meant to be a travel book, but later I realised how insightful they are).

Sadly since the book was written, the island of Tiwarik has been bought by a Japanese company and turned into a tourist resport.

Autumn Trees

2011-11-02T17:48:00.008Z

The autumn colours are magnificent this year. Beeches are always one of my favourites at this time of year and thisyear they seem to be excelling themselves with wonderful mixes of colour in the trees as you can see from these photos (above and below).

Also the hornbeams (the trees I'm 'studying' for Tree Year are looking lovely.

and footpaths and riverbanks are collaged with leaves.

I do love autumn!

For those of you who are interested in my progress with NaNoWriMo I'll be updating every few days on Over Forty Shades and every day on Facebook. I'll be posting interesting links I've found while researching the novel over on Twitter. (I've written 6 107 words so far!)

Birdwatching along the River Esk

2011-10-31T15:14:00.003Z

I lead the last of this season's Beginners' Birdwatching classes today. We walked along the mouth of the River Esk in Musselburgh and onto the shore. The river was full of geese - Canada Geese, Greylags and one lone Pink footed goose, which allowed me to do a nice compare and contrast with this species and the Greylag which are superficially similar though once you see them close together they're quite different really.

There were lots of mallards, one female goosander and a whole load of herring gulls and black headed gulls. I had hoped to see wigeon, a very pretty duck that I've seen at Musselburgh before, but there were none.

On the shore the tide was fairly far out but we did get to see a couple of curlews, some oystercatchers and a couple of redshanks among the gulls and crows. Also two pied wagtails, with their heads turning slightly yellow for winter.

As the walk came to an end a group of Canada geese glided upriver then took off into the air and flew over the bridge.

It's been a good group and we've had reasonable luck with seeing birds - but so much of it is about luck and having a group of 14 people isn't ideal in terms of minimising disturbance to the birds.

The walks start again on 20 February 2012. I'll post the details (and the link to the booking form) here when they're available.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Squirrel and autumn leaves

2011-10-29T16:11:00.007+01:00

We went for a lovely walk today through Inverleith Park

and round the Botanic Gardens.

Wonderful autumn colours and unexpectedly lovely weather (it had been grey and damp first thing and we had expected it to stay that way!) (The leaves here are from an ornamental species of beech tree).

We made friends with this delightful grey squirrel. Yes they're an alien species and outcompete the native reds, but in areas where reds haven't lived for ages and are unlikely to ever come back, it's lovely to see the greys.

We had a snack at a picnic table at the Botanics Cafe. Given that it's Feed the Birds Day today, it is perhaps fitting that robins and dunnocks were feeding off the crumbs under the tables. The herring gulls and magpies fighting over leftovers were entertaining too, though less welcome!

Blue Autumn Skies

2011-10-28T15:04:00.002+01:00

Edinburgh's beautiful autumn continues (with a slight chill in the air now).

Earlier I had got off the bus a stop early and been rewarded with a sparrowhawk flying high above me, gliding then flapping its wings three times, gliding then three more flaps. Its barred chest shone in the autumnal light.

(photos taken on Corstorphine Hill)

NaNoWriMo and a Photo Competition

2011-10-26T13:17:00.003+01:00

I was thinking about an idea for a short story, which was getting quite complicated and then I realised it is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November! So I thought, hey, why not? and signed up. So I'm currently plotting and planning my way to a novel, which will be about climate change in a future independent and fractured Scotland. The aim is to get a 50,000 word first draft completed by the end of November. As someone whose favourite literary forms are haiku and flash fiction this will be a fun challenge! Anyone else signed up for NaNo this year?

Meanwhile Crafty Green Boyfriend has been busy and would appreciate a few votes for his photo in the Friends of the Earth Christmas e-card competition (yes I know it's early!). You can see all the photos on Facebook here - Crafty Green Boyfriend's picture is the robin. You can vote for it by clicking the Like button under his photo. (You need to be a member of Facebook to vote and of course you are at perfect liberty to vote for someone else's photo!)

As ever, text in red contains hyperlins to other websites where you can find out more.

Autumnal Colour

2011-10-25T13:47:00.004+01:00

We're having a mild and often sunny autumn here in Edinburgh. The leaves are turning and we have some lovely, subtle autumnal colours. I took these photos along the Water of Leith this morning - not so much sun today, but still pleasantly warm.

Foreign Flavours

2011-10-24T07:34:00.000+01:00

I'm delighted to be part of the Foreign Flavours anthology, published today by Writers Abroad. This exciting and worthwhile anthology includes fiction and non-fiction about food and cooking abroad (including my piece 'From My Malawian Cookbook'). Proceeeds from the sales of the anthology go to the excellent Bookbus charity, which supports literacy in Africa and Latin America and recently had a book drive for Malawi.

You can buy copies of the anthology from Lulu here.

A Prickly Affair by Hugh Warwick

2011-10-23T12:17:00.000+01:00

Hedgehogs are one of the most popular inhabitants of the British countryside (this book describes them as the most universally loved animals, but the author obviously hasn't visited any bunny blogs!).

This book is a wonderful mix of natural history, animal welfare and total eccentricity. It includes an investigation into the reasons why hedgehogs are declining in the wild, whether hedgehogs have caused population declines in seabirds in Scottish islands, an expedition to China to find the very rare Hugh's hedgehog and a brief trip to the Hedgehog Olympic Games.

We meet people who have given up almost everything to set up hedgehog hospitals; find out whether hedgehogs really can harvest fruit by rolling around and find out how best to look after the hedgehogs that visit our gardens.

I imagine most people will be totally charmed by this book and will then want to observe these wonderful animals in the wild. Well in the UK, that's sadly becoming a rare event these days for most of us. If this book makes you want to help your local hedgehogs, then you can visit Hedgehog Street to find out more.

A Prickly Affair by Hugh Warwick published by Penguin

Homegrown Tomatoes

2011-10-21T11:54:00.003+01:00

We've been growing tomatoes this year for the first time. We started them late and had begun to think that we'd left it too late. Several tomatoes had formed but it seemed as though none of them were going to ripen. However, now at last some have started to turn red or at least orange. Then maybe I'll need to find a recipe for green tomato chutney for all the green ones? To be honest, I had always thought we didn't get enough sun in our windows to grow tomatoes, so getting any red ones at all feels like a greast achievement! We'll start earlier next year!

Sign Language Poetry

2011-10-20T14:43:00.000+01:00

I found out at the last minute about last night's inspiring poetry event at the Talbot Rice Art Gallery. It featured poetry from British Sign Language (BSL) poet Richard Carter. To start with Richard performed some poetry in response to some of the artworks in the intriguing Anton Henning exhibition that was displayed in the gallery. He then performed some poetry from his usual repertoire, some initially without spoken English interpretation.

BSL is a wonderfully expressive language and even without spoken English interpretation, I found it possible to understand the main themes of the poetry. I particularly enjoyed the poem Autumn where books became birds became falling autumn leaves.

After the event, I chatted (through an interpreter) to Richard about imagery in poetry and specifically about haiku. BSL is an ideal language for haiku, with its emphasis on images. In fact BSL haiku are even more pared down and compressed than English language haiku - two BSL signs can convey a haiku very well! There is a BSL haiku website here, where you can find out more and watch some BSL haiku in action.

There is a BSL poetry website forthcoming that should soon be visible here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

haiku

2011-10-19T14:24:00.001+01:00

long tailed tits
in the branches of the birch
daytime moon.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

2011-10-18T20:14:00.004+01:00

If you've ever wondered about the effects of product placement in films on consumerism, this is the film for you!

Morgan Spurlock set out to make a film that exposed the insidious nature of product placement by financing itself entirely through product placement! The result is a highly entertaining journey through the whole process of finding sponsors, coming to agreements with them about their involvement in the film and giving them their slice of screen time. The viewer sits in on the pitches Spurlock makes to the sponsors and finds out details in the ensuing contracts (such as Spurlock can only be seen to drink the juice made by the drinks manufacturer that is the headline sponsor of the film) and then the results of the contracts are clearly visible in the finished film (indeed he is only seen to drink the one type of soft drink, though he did drink a coffee from an unmarked mug on at least one occasion).

The film also looks at marketing and watches the process of advert design. Part of the film involves a discussion with high school students about how they see marketing and advertising and then a discussion with the staff from the same school around the problems of making income for the school without selling out to big corporations. This leads to the makers of the film making donations to the school in return for adverts for the film being placed in the school buses and on billboards round the school. The film itself of course fits in with the class discussions around marketing and advertising and questions the whole notions of corporate school sponsorship, so there's a nice circular thing going on there.

It's an eye-opening film, and many viewers will find themselves keeping a beady eye out for product placements in future films they watch as well as becoming more aware of the myriad ways corporations are constantly selling stuff to us. It also unearths a wonderfully bizarre product - a shampoo that can be used both by people and horses - which inspires a particularly amusing scene.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is showing at the Cameo in Edinburgh until Thursday.

Repurposed Camera Case, Take 2

2011-10-17T18:03:00.000+01:00

As I blogged here, I recently tried to make a case for my camera from repurposed fabric samples, but it turned out to be too small (luckily Crafty Green Boyfriend has found a use for it). I tried again using fabric from an old kimono, which I've already used in other repurposed items (such as this sandwich bag and this draught excluder) and the photos in this post show the result. I'm quite pleased with it! I just basically measured out the fabric around the camera and sewed it up, I didn't use a pattern or anything. I lined the inside of the flap with more of the same fabric to make it look smarter. Thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for the photos.

Blog Action Day 2011 - FOOD

2011-10-16T09:11:00.002+01:00

Every year Blog Action Day brings together bloggers from around the world to blog on one specific topic. This year the topic is food.

Today is also World Food Day, which this year focusses on the issues of price and stability in the world food markets. You can find out more about that here. If you're in Edinburgh, there's still time to get along to this World Food Day celebration.

There are many environmental issues around food, including:

In the UK, many farmland birds are in decline, due to the use of chemicals in intensive farming. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) does a lot of work on making farming more wildlife friendly. You can read about their work here. They also have an interesting article about corvids caching food, which you can read here.

Organic farming bans the use of harmful chemicals. The Soil Association campaigns for organic farming across the UK and is a certification body for organic products. In Scotland, the largest certification body for organic food is SOPA. I sometimes wonder whether there is really a need for two certification bodies. I also know that many smaller farms are put off by the price and the length of the process of becoming a certified organic farm. At least two small food producers near Edinburgh produce food that is as close to organic as you can get, but they aren't organic purely because they can't afford to become so. Many other farms, whether organic or not, as Weaver of Grass points out in the comments, do their bit to help the wildlife on their land.

Today's poem on Bolts of Silk is about food, you can read it here.

And this seems like as good a time as ever to mention the Foreign Flavours anthology due to be published on 24 October by Writers Abroad. This anthology includes fiction and non-fiction about food and cooking abroad (including my piece 'From My Malawian Cookbook'). Proceeeds from the sales of the anthology go to the excellent Bookbus charity, which supports literacy in Africa and Latin America and recently had a book drive for Malawi.

Union Canal, Ratho

2011-10-15T16:41:00.006+01:00

We had a lovely walk along the Union Canal in Ratho today. The elderberries were at their best:

as were these puffball fungi

There were lots of snails with different patterned shells, here's just one example, nicely contrasting with the lichen on the wall:

and we met these entertaining and friendly Aylesbury ducks and their friend (who looked like a mallard/Aylesbury cross)

You can see more photos of this stretch of the canal in this post.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

The Secret Animals of Castle Rock

2011-10-14T13:08:00.003+01:00

Some people in Edinburgh possibly pass by Castle Rock without ever knowing about the animals that live there. I think I've blogged before about the bunnies that live on the hill below the castle. Their population seems to fluctuate, about two years ago I once counted 30 bunnies on the hill then more recently I've been lucky to see one.

Last night we went out early evening (to see the excellent New Model Army in concert) and passed Castle Rock. As ever, we stopped to see if we could see any bunnies and we counted 10, which is much more than we've seen since the famous count of 30.

On the way back, we passed Castle Rock again. This time there were no bunnies at all on the hill. Instead we saw two young foxes. One was halfway up the hill, digging around in a ditch, the other was sitting not far from us, watching us. They both seemed very relaxed about us being so near to them. After a while, the sitting fox leapt up and joined the other one and they chased each other round, playfighting. It's the first time I've seen foxes on Castle Rock, though Crafty Green Boyfriend has seen on there recently. I'll certainly be looking out for them there in the future!

St Bernard's Well, Medicinal Garden

2011-10-13T17:19:00.004+01:00

This morning, a small group of volunteers from Water of Leith Conservation Trust gathered by St Bernard's Well to weed and plant the old medicinal garden. The weather was beautiful, mild and dry. The weeding was easy and we then had a tea break (with nice biscuits!) before starting on the planting. Robins were singing around us and a beautiful female mute swan swam slowly past on the river as we worked. We also had good views of a dipper, busily looking for food in the river.

This photo gives some idea of how the area looked to start with, pretty overgrown.

This is how it looked after we had done all the weeding (the area in the background to the right had already been planted with medicinal herbs).

And this is how it looked when we had finished!

We planted species such as sneezewort, teasels (not strictly speaking medicinal, but used in making dyes), purple loosestrife, tansy and St John's Wort. Then we planted some daffodils in a long trail in the shape of a serpent (which is the symbol of health).

It was very enjoyable to be involved in the work and I really look forward to seeing the garden develop and bloom!

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks, which take you to other websites, where you can find out more!

Hornbeam Update

2011-10-12T16:05:00.002+01:00

This is my favourite time of year for the hornbeam trees, their chandelier fruits are so vividly yellow and set off so nicely against the leaves that are still mostly green.

As many of you know, I'm following the hornbeams in Colinton Dell, by the Water of Leith, for Tree Year.

You can read all my Tree Year posts here.

For Nature Notes

Sad Day for this Squirrel

2011-10-11T12:55:00.005+01:00

I was walking along the Water of Leith today when I heard a big commotion above my head. A couple of seconds later this grey squirrel landed at the base of the tree and lay still. I thought it might have been caught up in some creeper or something but it wasn't, but something was obviously wrong with it, because after taking a few laboured breaths, it kicked its leg in the air and then died. I took the photo when I passed by again later (I have a complicated circular walk that I do every week around Colinton Dell along the Water of Leith. The squirrel died at one of the points that I pass more than once). If you look carefully you can see that the poor dead squirrel is already being taken over by invertebrates - such as the slug climbing over its back. There was also a couple of flies buzzing about.

It was so sad to see such a beautiful creature die.

Grey squirrels are an introduced species in the UK and are often unpopular as they outcompete our native (and admittedly prettier!) red squirrels. However, in areas where there haven't been red squirrels for a very long time (like Edinburgh), the greys are a welcome addition to the local wildlife as they are such charismatic creatures.

For Nature Notes

Monday Bunday

2011-10-10T13:11:00.004+01:00

I was delighted to win these snuggly bunny earrings in a giveaway over on Lavender Rabbit Hoppenings (click on the photo to make it bigger, so you can see more of the wonderful details in the earrings!). You can see in this post here, that Cooper the bunny personally chose my name to receive the prize.

These are beautiful earrings and I will wear them a lot, in fact I wore them for the first time on Saturday when we visited Gorgie City Farm! Thanks so much to Lavender Rabbits and Cooper!

Gorgie City Farm

2011-10-09T13:38:00.000+01:00

We went to Gorgie City Farm yesterday to catch up with the animals! It was a dull, dreich, drizzly day. Raindrops hung beautifully on the sweet peas.

These little piglets were playing innocently with their mother, unaware of the fact that soon they will feature in the 'Hot Dish of the Day - Pork Stew - featuring Gorgie pork' in the Farm Cafe or in some cordon bleu dish in the upmarket restaurant up the road.

The rabbits were all hidden away, sheltering from the rain.

This goat was also trying to keep out of the rain though he did show his head.

Finally we made friends with this adorable Ryelands sheep, not much more than a lamb really.

Haiku Headaches

2011-10-08T09:02:00.002+01:00

headache -
dark clouds
gather

The above is a literal haiku from observation (I have a headache, there are dark clouds outside). However, as a haiku it can be improved. For example, although most English language haiku writers who take the form seriously don't adhere to the 5-7-5 pattern of syllables (because English syllables are so different from Japanese syllables, the 5-7-5 is generally treated as an upper limit rather than strict rule) most do stick to short line / longer line / short line in 3 line haiku. So we can change it to:

headache -
thunder clouds
gather

which also makes it more dramatic. And then to add further drama it can become:

migraine -
thunder clouds
gather

Which got me wondering about how much haiku are based purely on observation and how much they're based on the writing process. Until recently, it seems to have been the received wisdom that haiku are based on simple observation and should be altered as little as possible from that observation, which should be allowed to speak for itself. However, I've seen more recent haiku which use surrealism (which I think is an intriguing element to find in haiku) or metaphor (which I don't see the point of in haiku as the juxtaposition of images is already a type of metaphor, so why add another?).

I love the simplicity of haiku and many of those I write are based purely on observation, though I alter some of them, and occasionally I write haiku out of my imagination (which I sometimes get the impression you're not supposed to admit to writing). If you read or write haiku, what do you think about all this?

Slow Travel by Mari Rhydwen

2011-10-06T14:32:00.000+01:00

Mari and her partner Allen gave up their ordinary lives in Australia to sail the Indian Ocean for two years and this book is the result. It documents their journey and their experiences in the countries and islands they stop off at on the way. Inevitably, as yachting itself is, the book is dominated by the weather - ocean storms and a period spent becalmed - and the mundane tasks necessary to keep a boat seaworthy. There are some beautiful descriptions of the wildlife:

The only signs of life were dolphins playing in the clear deep ultramarine, our first spinner dolphins. They leap from the water and spin in the air, performing airborne pirouettes like a voluntary and spontaneous circus act. They even put on night shows. Dozens of them would frolic around the boat leaving three-dimensional trails of interweaving phosphorescence, criss-crossing tunnels of flashing light like underwater fireworks.

Rhydwen is a Buddhist and interweaves into the narrative her thoughts about the spiritual nature of the mundane tasks and often long periods of inactivity. She also observes the social inequalities of the countries they visit (while being very aware of the inequalities of her own home country). She comments on the way that our current lifestyles are alienating us from the natural world and how a return to slower lifestyles could benefit us and the natural world.

This is a very readable book, conversational in tone and always thoughtful and by turns entertaining and moving. It did rather put me off ever sailing around the world though, not that that really was ever an ambition of mine!

Slow Travel by Mari Rhydwen published by Allen and Unwin

Clothes Repair

2011-10-05T12:56:00.005+01:00

I've been repairing some clothes recently - it's an environmentally friendly activity that helps save money and resources and I find it quite relaxing to do some sewing. The photo shows the buttonhole of one of my scruffy pairs of trousers that I wear round the house. The buttonhole had ripped apart, but otherwise (apart from being faded) the trousers are perfectly wearable and very comfortable. I don't know how well it shows up in the photo, but I mended the buttonhole by sewing two thin strips of ribbon round the edges. One strip on the outside and one on the inside, fastening them both firmly to the bit of buttonhole that was left. So far this is working and I'm wearing the trousers again quite happily.

The other story of repair is not so successful. My favourite summer trousers for round the house had developed acouple of small holes in the seat so I repaired them by sewing patches over them. The patches then ripped off and the original holes expanded so I patched everything up again but it all ripped dramatically apart again the next day, the trousers now have huge holes right across the seat (and it's not as though I'm putting on weight or anything!) So I think I'm going to give up and reuse the fabric to make something else!

On another topic, I'm delighted to be featured today over on Cathy Cullis' lovely blog Nevering. You can read my two my poems here.

haiku

2011-10-04T19:06:00.001+01:00

the last leaves
on the basil plant -
autumn clouds

Birdwatching Classes

2011-10-03T14:49:00.003+01:00

This is the second week of my current five week course of beginners' birdwatching classes. Today's walk started at Blackford Pond in Edinburgh. One of the great things about starting a birdwatching walk (specially for beginners!) at a pond is that there are guaranteed birds. So the group were entertained by coots chasing each other across the water, lots of mallards making a lot of noise, a pair of mute swans sailing serenely by and lots of black headed gulls entirely not living up to their name by being in winter plumage. There were also a couple of moorhens and best of all the Blackford Pond dabchicks (little grebes) gave a star performance. Usually a shy and retiring bird that dives into the water as soon as it's spotted, today three of them came quite close to shore so everyone got a really close look at this cute little bird.

We then walked into the Hermitage of Braid and along the Braid Burn (for part of the time we were following a grey wagtail as it flew upstream!) then over some fields and back to our starting point. Plenty of blue tits, great tits, chaffinches all around (though not always easy to get a good look at!) and a long tailed tit that I think only a couple of people got a view of, because it was low down in the middle of a bush. One of the disadvantages of leading a group of people on a birdwatching walk through woodland is that you can't guarantee that everyone gets to see all the birds.

I don't take my camera with me when I'm leading guided walks (to avoid being distracted from my job by taking lots of photos!) and the photo at the top of this post shows mallards at Blackford Pond in October 2009. You can see more photos of the birds and scenery in the area here.

tanka

2011-09-30T13:21:00.001+01:00

in the river
this fallen tree
so full of rubbish
and low hanging perches
for kingfishers

Autumnal Hornbeam

2011-09-29T13:22:00.008+01:00

As you may remember, I've been studying the hornbeams along the Water of Leith for Tree Year. The wonderful chandelier fruits of the tree are turning yellow just now, they're such a pretty sight!

This tree is not native to Scotland (though I think it's native to the south of England) and was planted along the river as its wood is very hard and was used a lot in construction in the years when there were mills along the river. (There were over 70 at one time!). I walk along the same part of the Water of Leith every week, as part of my voluntary work with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. So I pass these trees every week, though I haven't blogged about them as often as perhaps I had intended to when I first heard about Tree year!

For Tree Year and Nature Notes