In search of great crested grebes

The first birdwatching sight that got me excited about birdwatching was seeing a pair of great crested grebes dancing on a reservoir near where my parents live, when I was about nine.

A few years ago Crafty Green Boyfriend and I visited Linlithgow in early March and were delighted to find about 20 pairs of great crested grebes dancing on Linlithgow Loch. Every year since then we've visted the town in early March in the hope of seeing the grebes dancing.

Today we saw four or five great crested grebes (two of which are in this photo)

and several little grebes

 
and none of them were dancing. The weather may not have been ideal, I certainly wouldn't want to be dancing on such a windblown and choppy Loch under dull grey skies!

We did see a lot of birds though, many of which were asleep like this pochard

These young mute swans welcomed us to the Loch.

and these coots were showing off their funny feet as they wandered round the grass.

What colour is a tufted duck?

Now clearly the male tufted duck is black and white, or is he?

Look carefully at the photo above and you may notice the hint of green in the feathers on his back and on the very top of his head. So, sometimes the tufted duck is black, white and green. But wait, what's this

The tufted duck above has clearly got a purple cheek!

It all depends on the angle of the light! The tufted duck, like many other birds, has irridescent plumage (you can find out more about this type of colouring by scrolling down in this article).

Thanks to the tufted ducks on Lochend Park for showing their true colours yesterday.

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Meanwhile, the pussy willow is now properly out and is beautifully soft and smooth to the touch.

The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane

In this book Robert MacFarlane takes us on a tour of the British Isles looking for our remaining wild places. He starts by seeking out wildnerness, remote areas of wild weather and (relatively) untouched nature, camping on ice and mountain peaks.

He soon comes to realise though that wild places aren't just wilderness, but those areas where nature reclaims the land from humans:

That margins should be a redoubt of wildness, I knew, was proof of the devastation of the land: the extent to which nature had been squeezed to the territlry's edges, repressed almost to extinction. But it seemed like proof, as well, of the resilience of the wild - of its instinct for resurgence, its irrepressibility. And a recognition that wildness weaved with the human world, rather than existing only in cleaved off areas, in National Parks and on distant peninsulas and peaks.....

This is a book to open readers' eyes to the wildness that is all around as well as an introduction to some of the most remote areas of wilderness left in our islands.

The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane, published by Granta

The author Robert MacFarlane recently wrote a brilliant article about wilderness and language, which you can read here. 

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It's World Book Day today - a celebration of reading and an opportunity to encourage children and young people to develop a reading habit!

Spring?

It was snowing yesterday and was very cold. Today is warmer but there is still some snow around. Lovely to see wild garlic showing well in Colinton Dell (by the Water of Leith) today, some of it poking through the snow.

Also lovely to see the first celandines of the year, growing in a less snowy part of the Dells

Lots of birds singing too.....

beaded curtain tie-backs

I recemtly made these beaded tie backs with beads from an ugly necklace that needed to be restrung plus a few beads and hoops from my stash.

The're now in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop, you can see them here.

You can see the other beaded curtain tie backs I've made here.

White God - a film review

Teenager Lili is sent to stay with her estranged father, who isn't happy about looking after her or her dog, Hagen. He eventually throws Hagen out into the streets and Lili is unable to find her beloved pet, despite wandering round for ages.

Hagen is having adventures of his own, meeting up with other strays and learning how to find a living from market stalls and refuse piles. Then he is captured and trained as a fighting dog. After he kills another dog in a fight, he escapes and leads a pack of strays and abandoned dogs on a mission to punish the humans who have mistreated them.

This is a gripping and sobering film about human mistreatement of animals. It also acts as a metaphor for human mistreatment of groups of people considered to be undesirable. (I think it has a particular resonance with the political situation in Hungary, the film's country of origin, but I don't know enough about Hungarian social issues to comment specifically on that.)

The funny thing is, anyone watching the dogs (who collectively won the Palm Dog Award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival) chasing round the streets can tell that these aren't dogs on a killing rampage, they're just domestic dogs enjoying a nice run with their friends, look at all those wagging tails! Which makes the viewer happy that no dogs were harmed in this film and doesn't detract from the drama!

White God is showing at Edinburgh's Filmhouse cinema until Thursday 5 March.

Lauriston Castle Gardens

Lauriston Castle has beautiful grounds overlooking the Firth of Forth. The highlight is the Japanese Garden, which is a haven of tranquillity.

Through the gates you have a lovely view of Cramond Island in the Forth.

There are water features and gravel gardens, it really is very pretty and well worth a visit.