Woodland and Farmland

Today, I was researching a walk for my next session of guided birdwatching walks. I started at farmland in the Liberton area of Edinburgh, walked through part of the beautiful Hermitage of Braid and then came back into the Liberton farmland at a different point. The walk gave me new perspectives on areas I already know individually and it was the first time I'd woven them into a round trip. At the beginning of the walk, one of the fields was full of fieldfares, such beautiful big colourful thrushes! At the entrance to the Hermitage, I noticed a lot of birds in the bushes at the top of a small hill. I noticed that some of them were blue tits, one was a treecreeper but others seemed to be siskins, but I couldn't get a good view. Then another birdwatcher told me that there were better views if I went up a flight of very muddy steps, which I did and yes, what a wonderful view I got of these lovely active little birds!

I then carried on into the Hermitage, where there are some striking rock formations with a kestrel hovering above!

Then a steep walk up towards Braid Hills, passing a very large flock of chaffinches (which I checked for bramblings, but no luck!) then over a path by a golf course onto a main road with lovely views that leads to the farmland again. On the farmland, I found hedges full of finches - greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches and bramblings! Oh and found several clumps of snowdrops on bloom and a couple of clumps of lesser celandine in bud.

Bird haiku

high waters -
the first song this year
from the song-thrush.

*

snow -
a carrion crow preens
on a chimney pot

new lamb at Gorgie Farm

We visited Gorgie City Farm today! We were delighted to catch sight of this little lamb! It's a Suffolk breed lamb, they always lamb early. The Ryeland sheep are due to start lambing in March. Next door to his pen was a private children's party where bunnies and guinea pigs were being passed from hand to hand, so the lamb was being left in relative peace.

We were also impressed to see a series of carrier bags being used as planters - a nice example of recycling.

Near the entrance to the Farm's Herb Garden is a lovely alder tree. So, for Tree Year, here is a photo that shows the beautiful male and female catkins on this tree. You can see photos of the tree in Spring here.

We also bought some vegetables from the farm's produce stall, which you can read more about here.

As ever, red text in this post, includes hyperlinks to pages where you can find out more.

In the media

photo by Elise Le Mer, Whole Earth Foods

Here's a photo of me in the recording studio speaking to a local radio station during my recent day in London as part of my prize for winning the Whole Earth competition. I haven't got links to any of the radio shows and I don't yet know if the podcast has been taken by anyone, but there's an article in the Edinburgh Evening News, which you can read here.

oriental style giftwrap

This is the wrapping for the chopstick bag I made for my sister for her birthday. It's made from reused wrapping paper and part of a page torn from a Japanese poetry journal that I reviewed a while back. Finished off with string from a broken curtain tie. You can see the chopstick bag itself on Flickr here.

The Secret Mandarin by Sara Sheridan

This novel is the fictionalised account of botanist Robert Fortune's mid nineteenth century expeditions through China to find tea plants and to do a bit of spying on the side. I found the botanical elements of the story fascinating (a long time ago now, I did a Botany degree!). I can understand totally Robert's botanical obsessions:

It was in the library , in fact, that Robert kept his yellow camellias. The flowers had cuased great excitement when he had found them, or at least, possibly found them., for Robert had boughty the specimens for five dollars and they were untested - the buds were as tight as tiny cricket balls and the prized yellow flowers only a promise as yet unseen. He became quite obsessed, positioning and repositioning the plants each morning so they had the best light of the day. On one occasion when I came into the library, I found him searching with a large magnifying glass around the side of the buds for a mere wisp of yellow.

And how upset is he going to be if the camellias turn out not to be yellow after all?

In this novel Fortune is accompanied on his journey by his sister in law, Mary, a fictional character, who is running away from disgrace. It is perhaps predictable that the two fall in love, but I thought the development of their relationship was beautifully managed (from outright dislike to deep passion). I also thought that both characters developed as individuals through the journey, as they experienced extreme hardship and danger.

The novel is also very insightful about gender relationships and the relations between the UK and China during the time period.

The Secret Mandarin by Sara Sheridan published by Avon, a division of Harper Collins

Trees along the River of Stones

River of Stones has been a project to share 'small stones' of observation on our blogs through the month of January. I've enjoyed taking part, both writing my own stones here and reading other people's stones on their blogs. I'm generally a very observant person (though I'm also easily distracted and if I'm internally writing a poem all sorts of things can pass me by!) and quite good at taking notes but the River of Stones has helped me to improve in both areas.

Some people will continue the River of Stones with another month in July. I won't do that though - I've felt some of the 'stones' I've shared here have not been polished enough to want to share in ordinary circumstances and the 'stones' sometimes have felt to be cluttering the blog over the past month. So I will keep my future stones in a notebook and only share them (here and on Twitter) if I feel they merit it.

Another project I recently signed up for is Tree Year. I chose a hornbeam as my primary tree to study for this but this tree has been badly damaged in the winter storms and now has been partially cordoned off as the footbridge it grows next to is closed for maintenance work! So my study of this fascinating tree will be somewhat curtailed! Although I have chosen other trees too (a cherry tree across the road from our flat and a group of hawthorns alongside the Water of Leith) what i may well do is just blog about any trees as and when inspired.