Notes from a Muddy Weekend Walk

It's a lovely sunny day today! Crafty Green Boyfriend and I decided to walk up Wester Craiglockart Hill. We hadn't really thought about how muddy it might be after all the recent rain.

It was tricky to navigate round all the mud, but everything looks lovely in the sunshine!
 

 
The wet weather has been great for all the fungi, including this yellow brain fungus

these earth stars

and these jelly ears, growing on an elder tree, which seems to be their favourite place to grow

We saw a few birds including several long tailed tits (thanks Crafty Green Boyfriend for this photo)

It's beginning to feel like Spring, but there's still snow on the Pentland Hills!

All the rabbits must have been keeping warm in their cosy burrows, this one looks as though it's been newly excavated

Redwings in the Meadows

Yesterday I passed through the Meadows and took some photos of the early crocuses and daffodils that are in bloom there. (You can see my photos in yesterday's blogpost). When I got home I read on Twitter that someone had seen several redwings in the Meadows, obviously I had been looking too closely at the flowers to even notice the birds! So, today at lunchtime, Crafty Green Boyfriend and I went to the Meadows hoping to catch up with the redwings. We certainly weren't disappointed! There were about 100 of these lovely winter thrushes flying around and Crafty Green Boyfriend managed to get some great photos. Here are a few of them.

It was lovely to see a small group of redwings, joined by a goldfinch, bathing in a puddle

Crafty Green Boyfriend also then took some photos of the daffodils

Spring Flowers

Some of the Spring flowers are already up in The Meadows in Edinburgh. Daffodils and several shades of crocuses. Lovely to see!

The Honey Bus by Meredith May

"We stepped into a mini-cyclone of bees, a roaring inkblot in the sky, banking left and right like a flock of birds. My heart raced with them, frightened and awestruck at the same time." 

At the age of five, Meredith May found herself abandoned by her parents, her father walked out on the family and her mother took permanently to bed. Meredith and her brother found themselves living with their grandparents.

Grandfather was a beekeeper, keeping hives and making honey in an old broken down bus. Meredith immediately became fascinated by the bees.

"As the bee got used to me, I got used to it. Grandpa was right. this small insect was not my enemy. I carefully lifted my arm and i could see into its eyes, shaped like two glossy black commas on the side of its head. Fear gave way to fascination as I studied how it was put together, so small, so perfect."

This fascination stayed with her the rest of her life, giving her an engrossing hobby, which helped her to cope with the very difficult life she was living, and lead to her keeping bees of her own today.


I really enjoyed the insights into how bees live, particularly this description of scout bees (that search for new locations for hives):

"the bees gather a list of addresses from various dancing scouts and go inspect their options. They fly into the advertised locations, taking measurements, checking the security of the entrance and feeling for drafts. They make their decision and return to the hive to dance with the scout whose home they prefer. As the energy and excitement builds, one scout reaches a tipping point of support, a consensus is reached and the entire swarm takes off with the queen to that scout's specific location."

This memoir isn't just about the bees themselves, it also explores the life lessons Meredith learned from the bees. As such it often feels as though she is imposing adult thinking onto her much younger self, but nevertheless it is an inspiring and moving book.

The Honey Bus by Meredith May published (2019) by Harper Collins. 

A Storm on Arthurs Seat

High winds and rain were forecast for today but we went for a walk round Arthurs Seat anyway. The weather was very changeable during our walk, varying from driving snow and hail

to glorious sunshine

and back again.

We enjoyed seeing the birds at and around Dunsapie Loch, including this Canada / greylag goose hybrid

this leucistic carrion crow

and this mute swan

We were delighted to see that the grey herons are already back on their nests on Duddingston Loch (click on the photo to get a bigger view of this, there are several herons on nests in the trees on the island)

and the whole Loch looked beautiful in the sunshine

The water level of the Loch is noticeably higher than and some of the surrounding land is flooded.

Melting

Blue 

slips 
from the skies 

drips
from the icebergs 

pools
in the oceans

**

Previously published (Autumn 2018) in Panning for Poems, the quarterly journal for micropoetry from Poetry NI.  

While over on the Beach Hut, you can read my poem Gulls (which was posted on this blog in 2015). 

Falter by Bill McKibben

Subtitled Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? this is a hard hitting, sobering analysis of our current ecological crisis, the state of technological progress and whether solar technologies and large scale non-violent direct action can help us. Written by the respected environmental campaigner Bill McKibben.

The first part of the book looks at the state of the environment. It reads like a catalogue of doom.

The increasing severity of forest fires across the world combined with droughts and selective logging is changing the world's forests into carbon emitters rather than the carbon sinks they naturally are. Even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today, the world's glaciers will still be set to disappear by a third in the next few decades. As ice sheets melt, they cause the earth to move, literally causing earthquakes. A severe heat wave in Russia in 2010 caused the world wheat price to rise dramatically and is considered to be one of the triggers of the Arab Spring. Warmer temperatures mean more plant pests, additionally affecting food supplies. We may see 200 million climate change refugees by 2050. The list continues. It's all meticulously researched, horribly fascinating and depressing.

The book then looks at political philosophies and corporate vested interests and the effects these have on the climate crisis. There is also a long section on genetic engineering and how this potentially changes the meaning of  life.

Just as everything starts to feel as though there's no point in continuing, the last section turns to the beacons of hope that McKibben sees in solar technologies and non-violent direct action. He goes into some interesting detail about the increasing efficiencies of renewable technologies and the optimism of non-violent direct action. But there is no mention of the necessary deeper changes we need to see in the way that politics and industry work, the larger, deeper reform that we need if we are to succeed.

I felt this was a book that was too grim and offered too few genuine far reaching solutions (not that solar power and direct action aren't important but they need to be part of something bigger, more systemic). I don't think that the style of this book will win new converts either. People who aren't already engaged need stories that start from where they are and offer them realistic pictures of where they can go and how they will benefit themselves.

Falter by Bill McKibben published by Henry Holt and Company. Printed on 100% post consumer waste recycled fibres (which is pretty impressive).