Travel Twitching for 30 days Wild

The 30 Days Wild campaign is great for encouraging you to pay attention to the nature that is all around, even in the middle of town and whatever you're doing.

Travel Twitching is a Twitter based project that encourages people to note the wildlife (specially birds) that they see when they're travelling. I love birdwatching from trains and buses, recently I've seen more swifts from the top deck of Edinburgh buses than I've seen from our own living room window (which is a sad comment on the slow decline of swifts in the area immediately round where we live).

Today I used my bus journey to Corstorphine for a bit of travel twitching. The Corstorphine Road is good for watching nature as it passes by Corstorphine Hill, the Water of Leith and lots of nice gardens. I didn't see many birds, mostly herring gulls flying by.

However at the bus stop I spent time watching a hoverfly, it looked like a species of Syrphus hoverfly, which are notoriously difficult to identify to species level. To make it even more difficult in this case, the photos I took came out so blurred they're useless.... It's probably fair to guess it was a Syrphus ribesi. I enjoyed watching it as it sunbathed then hovered to another, higher leaf where it carried on sunbathing.

I find hoverflies totally fascinating! They mimic other insects (particularly bees or wasps) and they offer a good identification challenge, without (in the most part) being too difficult. There are about 270 species of hoverflies in the UK! If you want to find out more, then the Microscopy UK website has some excellent information and photos of hoverflies. The Hoverfly UK website also has some excellent resources. Also very useful is the Hoverfly photos website.

Volunteering for 30 Days Wild and Volunteer Week

This week is Volunteers Week so today for 30 Days Wild I'm blogging about volunteering!

As many readers of this blog will know I'm a regular volunteer with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. I visit Colinton Dell along the river every week to record the wildlife and pick litter. I also take lots of photos!

This is a lovely part of the river, the walkway passes mostly through woodland

and at this time of year the buttercup meadows are gorgeous

The daisies are out in full bloom too, they are really pretty and (just like buttercups) well worth photos despite being so common

The cow parsley too, looks wonderful

Less wonderful is the amount of litter that gets thrown around in this lovely area. This is just one of the five bags full I picked today

On the positive side when it comes to litter, the situation in Colinton Dell is, in general, better than it was five years ago. There are more picnic sites full of litter these days but less general litter along the paths. There are also at least three people other than me who sometimes pick litter in the area.

Another problem can be damage to trees. In some of the open grassy areas, people will rip branches off the trees to make fires. This tree 'damage' though, seems innocuous and made me smile

Water of Leith Conservation Trust always needs volunteers to patrol the river (picking litter and recording wildlife as I do), join group clean up events, help with fundraising or work on reception. You can find out more about how to join in here.

I am also a campaigns volunteer for the Woodland Trust, taking part in some of their campaigns to protect ancient woodland across the UK. Please use the button in the sidebar to find out more about the Woodland Trust campaigns.

So why do I volunteer? I love the Water of Leith and enjoy looking after it, it's a great way of getting outdoors and learning more about how my local patch changes through the year. I also meet a lot of people in the Dells and often chat about nature and the river. The Water of Leith Conservation Trust looks after its volunteers well too! I am always keen to get involved with campaigns and woodland is something that I have a great affinity for, the campaigning with the Woodland Trust nicely complements the practical work I do for the Water of Leith!  It's definitely worthwhile getting involved in volunteering - if you're specifically interested in outdoor conservation volunteering in Scotland then the following may be useful:

The Conservation Volunteers.

The National Trust for Scotland.

Scottish Wildlife Trust.

Visiting Edinburgh's Parks with my parents for 30 Days Wild

My parents are visiting this weekend and for 30 Days Wild we've been visiting a few of Edinburgh's parks together.

Yesterday we visited Braidburn Valley Park

and Princes Street Gardens

Today we visited Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, where many of the rhododendrons and azaleas are still in full bloom and looking stunning in the bright sunshine

The main pond is also looking great after its recent draining and refurbishment

We admired the display of alpines and other plants in the newly redeveloped alpine garden

In this area too, we were able to do one of the activities specifically listed in the 30 Days website, which is to follow a bee. I had seen a very small bee in the flowers, which Crafty Green Boyfriend told me was a solitary bee of some sort (there are about 200 species of solitary bees in the UK). I then found some of the holes where the bees live(you can see two in this photo, one in the soil just to the right of the cross shape and one further to the right of that)

Crafty Green Boyfriend then used his patience and the extra zoom on his camera to capture one of the bees entering one of the holes, covered in pollen that it will feed to its young (you nay need to click on the photo to enlarge it, the bee is just burrowing into a hole near the green leaves just below the centre of the photo)

Experimenting with photography for 30 Days Wild

As anyone who reads a few of my blogposts will realise, I enjoy taking and sharing photos here. Over the last couple of days I've been taking advantage of the bright sunshine to take some more abstract photos of the natural world

I love the effects of dappled light through the trees (above and below)

I also love the way the light plays on the grass in the photo below

the sparkling sea at West Voe from our recent trip to Shetland

and the patterns on the sand on the same beach

Over this weekend, we're enjoying various of Edinburgh's greenspaces with my parents who are visiting. I'll post more about that tomorrow!

For 30 Days Wild and Shadow Shot Sunday

A Drop in the Ocean by Jenni Ogden - reading for 30 Days Wild

I read a lot and always enjoy reading stories which give clear pictures of wildlife around the world and which engage with some of the issues facing that wildlife. I enjoyed reading A Drop in the Ocean by Jenni Ogden.  Here's my review:

 

 Anna Fergusson is forced to give up a career in medical research when the funding runs out. She takes up an opportunity to live on a tiny island off the coast of Australia to look after a tiny campsite and write her memoirs. The campsite is in the middle of breeding colonies of wedge tailed shearwaters and noddy terns and is a favourite nesting site for sea turtles.

There are wonderful descriptions of nature here, from the eerie and disturbing night time singing of the shearwaters to Anna being on the beach when sea turtles come onshore to lay their eggs:

"Then I saw a dark shape pop out of the sea,  only a short stone's throw from where I was sitting. I could see her bright eye in the moonlight then her head disappeared and I stayed still and quiet. Up her head popped again, and this time her great shell followed. I hardly dared breathe as she hauled herself onto the sand and then lolloped on her great flippers up the gentle incline of the beach. Every four or five lollops she would stop, her eyelids closing over her big eyes and then she would start again. I felt exhausted just watching her. Exhausted but exhilarated." 

There are beautiful descriptions of snorkelling in the coral reefs too, poignant to read, given the current perilous condition of the Great Barrier Reef.

A section of the book takes place in Shetland, which I read particularly closely given we were just about to go to Shetland ourselves!

But this isn't just a book full of beautiful descriptions, it's also a moving story about how Anna becomes involved in the scientific studies of the turtles, becomes part of the local social circle, overcomes her fear of diving and comes to terms, finally with the death of her father. And will she be able to admit to her feelings for Tom, the team leader for the turtle surveys? Throw in a cyclone, an early birth, which Anna has to attend as midwife, health issues, family secrets and professional jealousies and this is an engrossing and satisfying tale, that will linger in the reader's mind. 

A Drop in the Ocean by Jenni Ogden, published by She Writes Press

Disclaimer: I was sent a free e-copy of this book to review. 

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Meanwhile outside the window here in Edinburgh, the blackbirds and chaffinches are singing, the collared doves are calling and the occasional swift flies past (not as many as there used to be until recently). 

Springwatch for 30 Days Wild

Springwatch started again on Monday and will continue for the next three weeks! It's an excellent programme, currently filming from the RSPB's Minsmere nature reserve. Cameras are set up across the reserve to bring us news from various bird families, including avocets, blue tits and sparrowhawks. Film crews are also dotted round the UK to bring us news from a golden eagle's nest in the Scottish Highlands and puffins on the Farne Islands. There's also some excellent footage of rabbits! The programme includes an excellent mix of science, nature observation and activities to get involved in, including the chance to take part in wildlife surveys. Then there's Springwatch Unsprung which features creative guests, who bring their perspectives from the arts to bear on nature and the environment. So these are two programmes that I'll be watching over the next couple of weeks!

It's a great chance more than anything to get up close to nature that you wouldn't otherwise see.

We had a few moments in our visit to Shetland which felt like Springwatch moments. One being our encounters with puffins at Sumburgh Head. Another was our amazing sighting of an otter on the small island of Bressay. We first noticed the otter as it was diving in the water, then it emerged with a crab in its jaws which it then took to a rock and started to eat. Once it had finished eating the crab it dived back into the water and came back up with a fish! Crafty Green Boyfriend managed to catch it on film (click on the image for a closer view)

We later discovered that wildlife cameraman and presenter Simon King (who has worked with Springwatch, but possibly for another programme on this occasion) was on Shetland at the same time as us. Perhaps the otter thought that Crafty Green Boyfriend and I were part of the film crew! It was a wonderful lengthy sighting of what is often a very shy animal (also in coastal settings usually an animal that only comes out at dusk, so particularly amazing to get these views in the middle of the day!).

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And for today's moment in the outdoors, I was appreciating the wonderful flowering trees and shrubs, including this lovely hawthorn

Go for a Walk! 30 Days Wild!

May was National Walking Month here in the UK, so what better way to start June's 30 Days Wild than with a walk! So today, as I often do, I walked from the centre of Musselburgh along the River Esk

I stopped to look at the eider creche, the ducklings are adorable, they kept diving down into the water! The females seem to be quite contented looking after the young

while the males were mostly gathered together on the beach further downstream

At the mouth of the Esk I turned onto the John Muir Walkway, which isn't necessarily an inspiring looking walk

However there are often lots of birds over the sea wall (more eiders today for a start). On the grassy side of the path there's a good chance of seeing birds such as reed bunting, meadow pipit and stonechat. Skylarks sing constantly here at this time of year.

At this time of the year there are also a lot of flowers along this walkway, it's slightly too early for the best displays this year but the Jack-go-to-bed-by-noon is already out

I took the turn off to the nature reserve. House martins and swifts were flying round the boating pond and I was amused by the pink horse in the middle of the pond.

I'm guessing this has something to do with the Musselburgh Riding of the Marches.

Turning left at the top of the boating pond, I took the path into the nature reserve itself

There's a lovely wooded path, the trees full of willow warblers and chiffchaffs (recognisable through their songs, not their very similar appearances!).

The paths lead to three bird hides, where you have a good view over the lagoons, which are unfortunately currently being drained for their annual clean and refresh

Coming back from the hides i watched three common carder bees feeding on these white dead nettles (called dead nettles as they don't sting, unlike the similar looking, but unrelated stinging nettles)

I said previously that I would interweave some photos from our recent Shetland trip into my 30 Days Wild blog posts, so here are some photos from a walk we took on Shetland atTingwall Loch

 That's Crafty Green Boyfriend in the distance, he doesn't like to have an online presence, so that's as close as we'll get!

 The loch banks are covered in marsh marigolds

 and lesser celandines

and there's a colony of arctic terns nesting on the island in the middle of the loch and a couple of whooper swans were swimming quietly round as well (thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for this photo).

30 Days Wild is a project from the Wildlife Trusts to encourage people to spend some time engaging with nature every day in June. Some of the things I'll be doing over the next month include: writing poetry, drawing bunnies, reviewing books and films and learning more about nature! I have to admit, pretty much what I blog about normally! It's not too late to join in yourself, if you haven't already signed up, you can do so here.