Vultures

Scrawny necked, ugly birds of death,
feeders on carrion and rotting things.

Somewhere in Nepal,
they leave their dead for you,
on ice-cold mountainsides,
and watch you take the flesh,
the bones,
the heart,
the soul


Heavenward.

***

Today is International Vulture Awareness Day.

New bracelet in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop

I like to browse in second hand shops and since I started making jewellery, I've always looked out for the cheap bags of broken jewellery that some second hand shops sell. Often the jewellery isn't actually broken, but just things that haven't sold, which I then either keep or pass on to friends or gamily (or even another second hand shop). The broken jewellery is great as a resource for making my own jewellery.

I made two of these bracelets from a broken necklace plus brand new fastenings

One of these is now in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop, you can see it here.

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Meanwhile, I'm delighted that two of my bracelets have been featured in two separate Etsy Treasuries. For those who don't know Etsy, Treasuries are selections of items from other Etsy sellers, in both cases here chosen by Rhian. So thank you Rhian and you can see the treasuries here and here.

Seasons Change

I was brought up to think that the seasons changed at the beginning of months - so Autumn officially started a couple of days ago on 1 September. However, in reality I beleive that the seasons change when they want to, and in fact that seasonal change is different for different parts of the natural world. For birds for example, autumn started in the middle of August, to find out why, you can read Michael McCarthy's recent Nature notes in the Independent newspaper.

It certainly felt like autumn today along the John Muir Walkway. The flowers in the verge are mostly turning to seed, still looking beautiful though

The poppies have not only mostly turned to seedheads but are mostly now ripe,

with their holes opened to let out the seeds

I only saw a few bees today and all of them were motionless, resting on flowers. This green bottle fly though was buzzing around though I was pleased when it kept still on the scentless mayweed so I could photograph it

and the whitebeam berries are ripening

***
I'm delighted that two of my bracelets have been featured in two separate Etsy Treasuries. For those who don't know Etsy, Treasuries are selections of items from other Etsy sellers, in both cases here chosen by Rhian. So thank you Rhian and you can see the treasuries here and here.

Life Lessons from Grandpa and his Chicken Coop by Jacob Paul Patchen

Subtitled 'A Playful Journey through some Serious Sh*t' (asterix the author's own) this is a humorous look at growing up in a family where Grandpa happens to keep chickens.

We start with a young Jacob, preparing to play army in the woods,

'..for those who have never had the pleasure of playing army with me in the woods, let it be known that I am pretty much invincible. Matter of fact, I am invincible. I have just too many force fields, extra lives and magic sticks.'

We find him smearing what he thinks is camo paint onto his face and hands only to find out it's actually his mother's cleansing mask. She then captures the moment on camera and sticks the picture on the fridge so he never forgets.

From here we follow Jacob through his early life, full of traditions and love, as he grows up. focussing on the importance of his grandfather Charlie's chicken coop and his chickens, who were free range during the day.

With dramatic descriptions of collecting eggs, the evening herding of the chickens from their roost trees to the coop, protecting the chickens from predators and cleaning out the coop, the book offers an entertaining account of looking after chickens, and the life lessons to be learned from this.

Along the way the book also touches on aspects of rural living including responsible gun ownership and sustainable rabbit hunting

'We killed only what we would eat, we did not waste, we killed quickly and humanely, and although the thrill of the hunt was definitely there, we all still experienced a respected sadness in the taking of an animal's life.'

but most importantly it describes one extended family's philosophy of helping each other and always being there for the people they love.

Well worth reading, Life Lessons from Grandpa and his Chicken Coop is available here.

Disclaimer, I received a free e-book to review.

Treacle and the Scottish Wildcat

I think there are days when Treacle thinks he is a wild cat, he loves nothing better than to hide behind the oatcake box (standing in for a heather plant) and then suddenly pounce on a sock, or one of the balls we've made for him from recycled foil (standing in for a mouse).

However, Treacle is just a domestic cat. A sometimes adorably affectionate and playful and sometimes infuriatingly loud and demanding domestic cat. But definitely not a Scottish wildcat.

Today Treacle was browsing the internet and he found the shiny new website for Scottish Wildcat Action (he almost put his foot in my lunch as he was reading he was so engrossed). He was very upset to find that there may be as few as 35 pure bred Scottish wildcats in the world. Numbers may be significantly higher than that, but it's very hard to tell as the Scottish Wildcat interbreeds easily and frequently with domestic and feral cats.

Treacle would like all readers of this blog to visit the Scottish Wildcat Action website and find out more about this beautiful rare animal of the Scottish Highlands.

Hoverflies from Peebles and Calder Wood

As I said in my earlier post about our trip to Peebles, going through my photos brought up even more species of hoverflies than I had at first suspected! Here they are, as discovered in just one small area. All species identified (or id confirmed) by UK Hoverfly Group.

Episyrphus batteatus

 Meliscaeva cinctella

 Scaeva selenitica (probably)

Syrphus species 

Eristalis horticola (as photographed by Crafty Green Boyfriend) 

We also saw some interesting hoverflies in our recent trip to Calder Wood, in West Lothian, these have also been identified by the UK Hoverfly Group.

Eristalis pertinax (probably)

 Epistrophe grossulariae

 

 Episyrphus balteatus

 Cheilosia illustrata

Hoverflies often mimic bees and wasps. There are over 200 species of hoverflies found in the UK.Some of the species are very distinctive when you 'get your eye in' others are very similar and tricky to identify. I think they're very beautiful insects though and I really enjoy finding out more about them.

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There are still a few places on my Tuesday evening adult education creative writing workshop at Tynecastle High, starting 22 September.Details here.

Calder Wood

We had a lovely walk round Calder Wood in West Lothian today. It's a beautiful area of mixed woodland

with some wonderful individual trees

Some impressive fungi too, these are blewits

this is the remains of a stinkhorn that had been eaten by fungus gnats

this a turkey tail

and these we don't know, but we liked the green colour

Lots of luzula sylvestris in the undergrowth too, lovely to see

There were lots of hoverflies and other insects around too, I still need to try to identify everything though!