Yet more earrings!

I made these four pairs of earrings over the past couple of days

All of them are made using beads rescued from old items of jewellery and brand new nickel free earring hooks.

They are now in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop - the large silver earrings are here, the small silver ones are here, the black ones are here and the others are here.

Mute swans

I saw this lovely pair of mute swans today on the River Esk at Musselburgh. They were closely following each others movements and I was hoping to catch them forming a heart shape with their necks as they often do during their courtship..... but that wasn't to be!

I was delighted to see a pair of gadwall on the river too, such subtly beautiful ducks, though they were too far away to capture on camera. Meanwhile at the Lagoons, a male garganey had turned up (again too far away to capture on film, but a very rare sighting for me, actually I just checked and that's the first garganey I've ever seen!)

Plus swallows, house martins and swifts above the river and the trees full of birdsong.....

Bluebell Woods at Dalkeith Country Park

Dalkeith Country Park is one of the best places for bluebells near Edinburgh and yesterday they were at their best.

Other flowers were in bloom too, including cowslips

leopards bane

and violets

Some of the paths were shut as the old stableyard is being renovated, so we discovered some new paths

but we did finally find out way to the ancient oak woods

The whole park was loud with birdsong (which is interesting, as often even at this time of year, these woods seem surprisingly quiet with birds). We heard blackbirds, mistle thrushes, song thrushes, blackcaps, willow warblers, chiffchaffs and others. Swallows, house martins and the occasional swift were flying round this open area below (you may even be able to see some in the photo if you look carefully!)

This is the best time of year to see bluebells in Scotland (possibly in England and Wales, it was a couple of weeks ago). The Woodland Trust has a list of ten top bluebells woods here, but there are many others across the country!

Gorgie City Farm

We visited Gorgie City Farm today. As you enter the farm, you're greeted by these adorable goats

this one is the lookout

this little one is demanding food

and this one seems disapproving of passers by and in fact turned out to be quite a bully

this one had found a nice place to rest though was chased out of its resting place by the bully

The photo above shows the nice landscaped area the goats have to play around in and below you see it from a different angle, showing how it fits into the local housing

the tape in the foreground above is marking off an area where the farm is constructing new chicken runs, perhaps for the chickens below, though they look quite happy where they are

This sheep seemed keen to be photographed

while this pig has a much more laid back approach, probably due to having featured in photo shoots with politicians in yesterday's Scottish Parliament elections.

It's not just farm animals, either, several jackdaws were wandering round the fields

 while in the Pet Lodge, the long haired guinea pigs play quite happily

The apple blossoms are beautifully in bloom just now

and the wildlife garden offers plenty of help for birds (see the bird tables and bird houses in the photo below)

and for insects

The farm is a lovely place to visit to learn about farming and also about other issues, such as renewable energy (see the solar panels on the roof of the education centre in the photo below)

The farm needs money to do all this work and to look after all the animals. I blogged recently about its current fundraising campaign, launched about a week ago - due to recent funding cuts, they need to raise £100,000 to stay open. Since the campaign opened they've already raised £50,000 and are halfway towards their target. They still need help though, so if you visit the farm, remember to help

To donate to save Gorgie City Farm, please text “FARM44 £5” or any other amount to 70070, visit www.justgiving.com/gorgiecityfarmassociation or send a cheque to GORGIE CITY FARM, 51 Gorgie Road, Edinburgh, EH11 2LA.
To find out how else you can support the farm, click here.

Golden Boy Bailey by Erin Frew

Early one morning, Bailey, a golden retriever, is woken up by his friend Sable, a pit bull and dragged into the outside world. Once outside he realises what a beautiful Spring day it is and is happy to join Sable on her special adventure. As they head towards Blue Pool, which is rumoured to be bottomless, they meet up with two other dogs, Logan, a labrador and Chewy, a German Shepherd, who the others are a little wary of to start with.

At the pool they swim and sunbathe and Sable gets dangerously distracted by a dragonfly. Can Chewy save the day?

The story is beautifully illustrated, with the dogs having real personality!

This is a lovely picture book for young dog lovers and is sure to encourage readers to go on their own outdoor adventures. As Bailey muses:

Every day holds something magical.....but the only way to experience the magic is to get up.... and face the day! 

Golden Boy Bailey, written and illustrated by Erin Frew, Published 2016 by FriesenPress 

Disclaimer - I was sent a free e-book of this title to review

Not all plants that spread are invasives....

The bluebells are out in Colinton Dell now

These are almost certainly hybrid plants, a cross between the native British bluebell and the Spanish plant. Many of the plants have all their flowers on one side of the stalk (a feature of the British bluebell) but they are quite sturdy looking plants (a feature of the Spanish plant) and they don't have the wonderful perfume of the British bluebell. They are spreading in the Dells, there are definitely more than there used to be. They are even carpeting the slope by the cyclepath, though not yet fully in bloom (if you look carefully you can see the blue glow in the photo below!)

This part of the cyclepath is a route I've only just started taking, as a path closure makes it difficult to take the lower path, which goes past a wonderful wildflower patch which is great for insects when it's sunny. But I'm enjoying wandering along the cyclepath

Today, just about where I took that photo above, I saw a mistle thrush chasing away a magpie. I'm guessing that the thrush was concerned that the magpie might steal her eggs.

It's not just the bluebells that are spreading. When I started my voluntary work helping Water of Leith Conservation Trust to look after Colinton Dell, there weren't many celandines here, but now there are carpets of them and this year they seem to be lasting much longer than normal

Also when I started, there was only one small patch of wood anemones, now there are two, both of which seem to be expanding

Not all the plants that are spreading are good news however. When I started this voluntary work, there was little few flowered leek in the Dells, now it seems to be everywhere. I've blogged about wild garlic (ramsons) and few flowered leeks quite recently, but now they're both in bloom and you can really tell the difference

The native wild garlic is in the background with the wide, dark glossy leaves and the large flower heads and the few flowered leek is in the foreground, its foliage already yellowing and its distinctively odd (though I think very pretty) flowers. The leeks are definitely taking over areas which before were covered in wild garlic, which makes affected areas look very different. Both plants smell quite strongly of garlic, so that stays the same! I'm not sure what the ecological effects of few flowered leeks are, as I imagine the two plants are pretty similar in terms of what eats them (does anyone have any information on that at all?). A lot of people forage wild garlic, which can leave bare areas, ripe to be taken over by the leeks. So I suggest foraging the leeks instead, their leaves I think make as nice a pesto as the wild garlic leaves do.......

Another much more destructive invasive plant is Japanese knotweed. There isn't a lot of that in the Dells and the largest patch of it recently disappeared. On the Trust's volunteers Invasive Plant walk on Monday evening, I pointed this out and congratulated the staff on having the problem under control. However, it seems that the patch wasn't treated by the trust but had been removed by contractors who had to remove a fallen tree. It seems that no-one knows what happened to the Knotweed plant when it was removed and there are fears that it was chipped down with the wood from the fallen tree, which means this little area of the Dells could face a larger Japanese Knotweed in the future. As you can see here, there are already new shoots growing from the rootstock (this is normal, you need to treat the plant for at least three years to properly get rid of it.)

 The red shoots are the Japanese Knotweed, few flowered leek is also growing in the rootstock.

The larch flowers continue to develop rapidly, which is something I love to pay attention to, since only discovering the flowers 2 years ago

And a couple of words about the birds. I had the most wonderful view of a goldcrest, which was busily looking for food, hopping from branch to branch in trees that were below where I was standing, so I had a wonderful view of the crest on its head. There were in fact several goldcrests in the Dells, singing their high pitched song. I also heard willow warblers singing, which was lovely. Willow warblers visit the Dells some summers, but not reliably every summer so it was nice to have them back. Yesterday evening I lead a birdwatching walk round Arthurs Seat and we had wonderful views of willow warblers, two of them posed for us so that I could describe how to recognise them from the superficially identical looking chiffchaff (willow warblers have paler legs and longer primary feathers in their wings). You generally need to wait for them to sing before you can tell the difference.

Voting with Nature in Mind

On Thursday, Assembly and Parliamentary representatives will be elected in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales while residents in the English cities of Bristol, Greater London, Liverpool and Salford will elect a Mayor.

There are many issues to bear in mind for the forthcoming elections. Personally although I care about many issues, top of the list for me are always environmental issues and nature / biodiversity.

Do your local candidates care about nature? If you're in Edinburgh, what do your local candidates think about the plans to smother large parts of Edinburgh's Green Belt in concrete? Do your candidates care about the value of greenspaces for our physical and mental health and well-being? Do they care about the ecological value of woodland and other green areas?

Scottish Environment Link is asking all candidates in the Scottish elections to sign up to the Wildlife Proclamation. 

The Woodland Trust is encouraging people to ask their local candidates in the elections across the UK, their views on woodland. You can find out more here.

**

Also forthcoming is the UK Referendum on whether we should stay in the European Union or leave and go it alone. Again there are many issues to take into account, but as an environmentalist, I will be strongly voting to stay in the EU. EU legislation offers strong (though not perfect) protection for our most valuable natural heritage and has also lead to improvements in water quality across the country. In addition, EU laws offer very important protection for human rights and employment rights. Yes, the EU is imperfect, but it does stop some of the worst excesses of our ignorant government. I'll write at least one longer blog post on this topic before the Referendum.