September Sunshine at Edinburgh Botanics

We had some nice trips out last week during our staycation week and I'll blog about some of the them in the next few days. But today I'll share some photos from yesterday's visit to Edinburgh Botanic Gardens.

The weather was beautifully warm and sunny and we spent longer than usual in the gardens. There's always plenty to see but we were particularly interested to see the Edible Gardening display plots, neat the renovated Botanic Cottage, which is an area of the gardens we don't visit as frequently as we do many of the other areas. The plots, many managed by students at the Botanic Gardens are looking wonderful at the moment

Several of the students have patches of wildflowers in amongst the vegetables

some of the sunflowers are well past their best but some are still glorious

and the whole area was buzzing with bees and hoverflies like this Syrphus sp hoverfly

a few butterflies were still flying round, including this painted lady

 while a scarecrow watches over everything

Escaping from the heat of the open garden we followed the Scottish tree trail

and visited the Chinese pond

there were no birds on this pond, but the other pond had a lively family of moorhens (thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for this photo of a very cute young moorhen)

In the cafe this young herring gull was pestering its parent

while a dunnock crept unobtrusively round the tables looking for crumbs (thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for this photo too)

So we had a lovely walk round.

The bright sunshine was great for creating lovely shadows on the buildings round Edinburgh, so I posted some 'Shadow Shot Sunday' photos on my Shapeshifting Green blog here. 

Kirkconnel Flow - a former National Nature Reserve in Decline?

Our last trip while we were on holiday in Dumfries and Galloway was to Krikconnel Flow which is a Scite of Special Scientific Interest. This reserve is mostly made up of raised peat bog, which is one of the most threatened habitats in the world, surrounded by mixed woodland.

The reserve is beautiful and always worth visiting, with a high chance of seeing common lizards

(See this post for photos of more common lizards from our last visit there in 2016, when it was hot and sunny and there seemed to be lizards everywhere we looked! We saw far fewer this year, largely because it wasn't so sunny).

It seems, sadly, that the bog area of the reserve isn't being managed as well as it should be to keep it as a peat bog - there are lots of birch saplings growing in the bog area which will eventually take over and transform the area into woodland.

 Of course woodland is a good thing, but as I pointed out above, raised peat bog is one of the most threatened habitats in the world. Last time we visited, Kirkconnel Flow was a National Nature Reserve, but no longer is. This denotification will probably be due to its not having been looked after properly and so my guess now is that it will be allowed to become woodland and this area of valuable peat bog will be lost. After our last visit to Kirkconnel Flow, I wrote to Scottish Natural Heritage about the state of the site (which was even then already lbviously in decline as a bog) and never received a reply. Another letter is due I think.

On the positive side, the woodland around the bog is still beautiful

and is full of interesting fungi and lichens

Edited to add: this is the reassuring reply I received from the Reserves Manager for Southern Scotland of Scottish Natural Heritage:

In relation to the raised peat bog, we are currently finalising funding to carry out extensive work on the bog this winter. The work will address the birch regeneration, raise the water table further along the south western side and address areas of continued water loss.  We had to make a change to our timetable in order to receive our funding through the Scottish Government Peatland Action stream, so although a bit delayed, the work will be large scale and hopefully very effective.

I took over the management of the reserves for Southern Scotland at the beginning of 2018 just at the point of de-declaration, as I understand in the evaluation process the site was seen more as an area of local rather than national interest.  Given the unique and specialist species that we have on site I can see why this may seem a bit odd, however, most importantly for the natural heritage interest, the reserve is owned by SNH and will continue to be managed as a reserve with the same objectives and responsibilities as before.   Our new CEO is committed to the protection of our wildlife habitats and has led a much invigorated approach to our suite of reserves. We secured another reserve officer to our area at the end of 2018 to cover the work at Kirkconnell Flow and the site is already showing signs of benefitting from this additional resource.

Mersehead RSPB reserve

Our next day out while we were staying in Dumfries and Galloway was to Mersehead, an RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve on the Solway coast. Like Caerlaverock (which I blogged about yesterday) it is a great place to see geese in the winter. It's also a great place for seeing smaller birds too, I remember the first time I visited in particular, the hedges all seemed to be packed full of songbirds.

The RSPB information centre on the reserve is small but welcoming

and there is plenty to see as you wander round

there are wildlife garden areas

lichens everywhere

woodland (where we saw a spotted flycatcher, but it didn't want to look at the camera so we couldn't get a photo).

the speckled wood butterflies were easier to get photos of than the flycatchers, thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for this shot

there's a beautifully decorated bird hide

which illustrates some of the birds you can see from the hide!

There is a wonderful coastal walk

Children had been making sand pictures of animals for a competition - this bee is I think my favourite of the ones we saw

 Mersehead is always a lovely place to visit, plenty to see and wonderful walks even if there aren't lots of birds around.

Caerlaverock WWT Reserve

Our second day out during our visit to Dumfries and Galloway was to the lovely Caerlaverock WWT (Wildfowl and Wtland Trust) reserve, where we were particularly hoping to see plenty of dragonflies, which we did. However there aren't many photos to share, as the WWT is holding a photo competition for photos of wildlife in their reserves, so that's where our best photos will go!

We spent the whole day here enjoying the various elements of the reserve from the wildlife garden

to the leafy lanes that pass between the hides that overlook the meadows that soon will be full of geese visiting Scotland for the winter

and the various wetlands

as well as dragonflies we saw plenty of butterflies including peacocks

there weren't a huge number of birds though as the geese haven't arrived yet.

I liked this mirror propped up against a fence

and these sheep which are employed to keep the grass the right height for the rare natterjack toads that breed in this area. They seemed to be enjoying a well earned rest as we passed them.

Ae Forest, Dumfries and Galloway

Our first trip in Dumfries and Galloway was to Ae Forest, which is a Forest and Land Scotland forest with plenty of trails for walkers, horse riders and mountain bikers. Some tracks are for shared use, but the very hilly tracks are specifically for mountain bikers who do come rushing down them at top speed so walkers need to keep away from these steep tracks (which are generally pretty well sign posted).

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I enjoyed rambling along the walking trails which pass through woodland

and some more open areas

There were lots of butterflies around while we were visiting, including painted ladies

and peacocks

 

At one point we came across an unexpexted display of historic ploughs

and this lovely bench

which includes a panel that features the river wildlife

plenty of hoverflies too, including these two Eristalis

Later that day we had an evening walk along the river near our hotel, the evening light was beautiful

It's always a lovely part of Scotland to spend a holiday, and I'll share more from our trip over the next couple of days.

A Grand Day Out at Saughton Park

Yesterday was the day of the community celebration of the newly revamped Saughton Park as organised by the Friends of Saughton Park. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I were there early to help with putting up marquees and hiding 30 teddy bears round the park for the teddy bear hunt. The event opened at 11am and the weather was mostly good, except for some early rain and some ferocious winds for much of the day.

I lead two short nature walks during the course of the event, which attracted small but interested groups. There were also garden walks (focussing on the plants in the herbaceous borders) and history walks. There was live music all day (free music!) and a large range of cakes in the conservatory cafe.
The teddy bear hunt proved very popular!

Here are some photos from the day

the hub of the event

the children's play area, before the children arrived, it got very busy later

The Phlegm, featuring Saughton Park's history expert Joe on vocals and guitar were the headlining act in the newly restored bandstand.

At the end of the event, a beautiful rainbow appeared!

We rescued all the teddy bears and they'll be stored safely and comfortably until the next teddy bear hunt.

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Coincidentally, my poem Clootie Tree was featured in this month's newsletter from Writers Abroad (Scoll down to read my poem). This poem was partly inspired by the photo prompt in their previous newsletter and partly by the tree in Saughton Park that is decorated with trainers. (Although I'm not currently living abroad I have done in the past!)

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Crafty Green Boyfriend and I were on holiday in Dumfries and Galloway last week and I'll post photos from our time away over the next few days. We're also on holiday this coming week, though it's a real staycation now, we'll be staying in Edinburgh and having day trips in and around the city. I'll also post photos from those day trips!