Autumn Colours

 I'll continue posting about our recent visit to Dumfries and Galloway in the next few days, but for now here are some photos of today's autumn colours and high waters of the Water of Leith in Colinton and Craiglockart Dells here in Edinburgh. One of several places in our city to enjoy the autumn colour!

Two Nature Reserves near Wigtown, Scotland's book town

 We had a very enjoyable break in Dumfries and Galloway, staying in our favourite hotel Friars Carse, a spacious country house hotel, set in it's own extensive grounds with walks along the River Nith and lovely views over wooded pasturelands. 

 

In these COVID times, it's important to feel able to socially distance from other people and the hotel is spacious enough to allow that and the area is full of great places for country walks where you'll hardly meet anyone all day (and it's also an area where people you pass on the footpaths will happily move to a decent social distance to let you pass).

On the first day of our trip we visited Wigtown, Scotland's Book Town. It's a delightful place, full of bookshops. 

We made friends with this elderly cat, who had been sitting in the middle of the road until it came running towards us to make friends

We then went for a walk starting from the centre of the town and going down to Wigtown Bay Local Nature Reserve, where the River Bladnoch meets the River Cree

 

It was lovely to see some late season butterflies such as this red admiral 

 

 

and some wonderful trees, shaped by the winds

After lunch we popped over to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve at Crook of Baldoon. Another lovely place for a walk! 

There were good numbers of birds around too, including a few little egrets, which are still an exciting sight in Scotland, as they've only relatively recently started visiting. 

We were also delighted to see a flock of twites in the hedgerows

It was lovely to get some sunshine too, after a long wet summer. The paths were all muddy though and from a climate chaos point of view the unseasonably high temperatures are worrying.

Tree Following October Update

We've been away for a few days, having a short break in our favourite hotel near Dumfries (an area which currently has low rates of COVID infection and a spacious hotel with adequate social distancing). I'll update on that trip in the next few days, but first I realise I'm behind schedule with the Tree Following update so here it is! 

 The tree I've chosen to follow is a horse chestnut in one of the local graveyards which we have walked through almost every day since lockdown began and since it was relaxed (and now has been tightened again). A lovely tree to study and here's the latest: 

The fungi under the tree were pretty impressive early in September - you can see just how many there were in the photo below

Taking a closer look 

I realised just recently that I haven't shared a photo that gives any sign of the wider area beyond the graveyard, so here is a view over the graveyard wall, framed by the horse chestnut tree 

Looking up into the canopy at the end of September, we could see that the leaves were definitely beginning to turn. 

I also thought it mght be interesting to include in this post a couple of photos of another horse chestnut tree. This one is in Craiglockart Dell, along the Water of Leith where in normal times I volunteer once a week to look after the river and the walkway. Over recent weeks, lockdown restrictions eased for a time, allowing me to carry out my volunteer tasks again so i took these photos of the tree

looking up into the canopy, just before autumn colours came in 

the remains of a squirrel feast on the conkers! 

Thanks to SquirrelBasket for hosting Tree Following!

One Season in the Taiga by Vadim Ryabitsev

 

This is a fascinating and engrossing story of Ryabitsev's ecological studies of willow warblers and the very similar arctic warblers in the forests of the Urals in Russia. 

In this short book, the famed ornithologist outlines the details of a three month summer field trip he made with his colleague Sergey. The account gives a detailed overview of the fieldwork itself, life in the camp and information on what happened after the trip, from writing up the report to a longer term overview of developments around the study area (which doesn't bode well for the species that were studied). 

Ryabitsev writes in a very engaging style and the reader gets to know individual birds as personalities as well as getting detailed scientific insights into the daily life and ecology of the warblers and other creatures in the area. The study focussed on the territorial behaviour of the two species of warbler and reveals how the two species interact and compares their nesting habits and their food sources.The writing makes clear how painstaking the research was and how closely the scientists observed everything the birds did:

'A warbler building a nest conducts itself in a very characteristic manner. Flitting like a butterfly just above the ground, it discerningly selects the building material suited to its engineering strategy. Sometimes it seems as though any herbage from anywhere will do, even from just around the nest, but another time the female will fly off a hundred metres, then rummage around, select a piece of plant material, throw it away then fly to another spot and choose something else.'  

The interactions between birds are fascinating and at times the book reads almost like an avian soap opera. 

We find out about ringing birds, the strange way time passes in 24 hour daylight, the challenges of working surrounded by biting insects and the ecology of the wider area.

This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in ecology or birds, it inspires the reader to get outdoors and pay more attention to the small details of what is going on around us in the natural world.

The book is illustrated by Ryabitsev's beautiful line drawings. 

One Season in the Taiga written and illustrated by Vadim Ryabitsev, translated by G H Harper, published (1998) by Russian Nature Press. (out of Print)

Two Families at Blackford Pond

 We visited Blackford pond yesterday and were delighted to see the mute swans have a healthy family, with several cygnets having grown to full size. Here are a couple of my photos of one of the adults with one of the youngsters 

There's also a lone adolescent swan, one of last year's youngsters, that was sitting in the grass, yesterday 

(You can tell it's not quite mature by its pale beak). 

Someone recently filmed this young swan causing a bit of a stir on the pond (see this tweet!)

The other family is the rat family, in fact there might be two rat families, Crafty Green Boyfriend took this photo

Of course rats are part of nature, but they're a desctructive part of nature and are likely to have eaten eggs and nestlings of some of the ground nesting birds on the pond. They probably live there in such large numbers because people leave too much food around for the birds and the rats eat all the extra bread (which shouldn't be fed to the birds at all) and seeds. 

After we had walked round the pond we continued on past Midmar Paddock 

through the Hermitage of Braid and into the small park at the edge of the Hermitage

which now is home to a small orchard 

the bare soil here will be planted with native wildflowers to encourage pollinators to visit the trees. Just round the corner, the ivy is in bloom and several hoverflies were enjoying the sunshine, including this Eristalis sp.

Hoverflies are important pollinators and are among the species that will benefit from the new orchard once it matures.

Enchanting Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau

 

 With an introduction that outlines the history and ecology of woodland in the British Isles, this book is a collection of thirty-two woodland folk tales retold by ecologist and storyteller Lisa Schneidau.

The stories are arranged thematically, starting with Wildwoods and working through themes such as Hunter and Hunted to end with The Path Ahead. Each theme is given a short intrduction to put the stories into context. Additionally each individual story is given a brief historical note. These notes give an interesting background to the stories and add to the reader's understanding of a storytelling tradition rooted in our woodlands. 

Schneidau has told these stories to many audiences and they are designed to be read aloud. Each flows with a beautiful rhythm. Some stories focus on human protagonists, some mythical, some based on historical persons, other stories focus on the lives of animals and birds of the woodlands, and in many of them fairies and pixies play an important role. The characters in some stories are able to shapeshift - becoming different animals at will, which is both a magical ability but also seems to underline a deep connection with nature. Many of the stories emphasise the relationships between people, animals and the woods and the importance for humans to look after the woods and the creatures who live there.

Some of the stories have particular resonance for our current times, probably most clearly The Woodland Under the Sea in which the elite party instead of protecting their community against the rising seas in Cantre’r Gwaelod, today the site of a vast petrified forest which is now under the sea.  'The fertile plains, farms and woods they had once known were submerged, save for the occasional rooftop of a tall building, and all the people had perished.'

My favourite story in the book, The Green Women of One Tree Hill also contains an essential lesson about living within our ecological means. Three brothers inherit the land surrounding the three green women (the only trees now left in an area that was once abundantly wooded). This is a very moving story of the need for a good relationship with nature, and includes a beautifully written overview of the ecological history of the area where the tale is set.

Similarly, The Tree's Revenge is a cautionary tale about what happens to those who steal land and trees that don't belong to them.

Auld Cruvie is another classic tale of the need to live in harmony with nature and includes some particularly lovely descriptions - 'Jack also learned the calls and the language of the birds. He learned their alarm calls that all the creatures in the woods knew, foretelling danger. He learned their quiet contact calls of the woodland at peace. He knew the tiny chatter of the subsong when winter turned to spring, as teenage robins experimented with their new-found notes. And best of all, he learned the bird songs that set the woods alight with joy.

In Herne the Hunter the reader is introduced to Herne, a figure who we might wish we could resurrect today:

In times when England is in great need, or great danger, a shimmering figure can be seen riding through the great oak, beech and hornbeam trees of Windsor Forest at night. He wears great horns on his head and a chain at his neck. Two other hunters ride beside him, and ghostly hounds charge forward all around. He is the god of the Wild Hunt, Herne, the Horned One, and his business is to protect our land from harm.

Most of the stories have some sort of take away moral, whether it is how to live in a better relationship with nature or with your siblings or not to be greedy. The message however is always told within a story that is engrossing and enchanting and sometimes very entertaining.

I couldn't help smiling at The Giant with Seven Heads which tells the story of Jack, the reluctant hero who kills the giant with seven heads when all he wanted was to find rabbits. Similarly Pixy Led is very entertaining, particularly the wife's reaction to her husband's claim to have been stolen away by the pixies when in fact he'd been drinking in the pub.  

This is a great collection of stories to tell in a group (or in a video call) or to read quietly by yourself. 

Enchanting Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau, published by The History Press.

Disclaimer: I was sent a free e-book of this title in exchange for a full and honest review.

The difference a week makes

 There's a wonderful patch of porcelain fungi (Oudiemansiella mucida) in Craiglockart Dell along the Water of Leith. This patch has appeared at this time of year for a couple of years now. Some fungi behave differently and are much less reliable in terms of where they can be found.

Last week it looked like this: 

and this week it looks like this 

Fungi change quickly, don't they?