Leopard Falls at Midnight

 The moon illuminated mountains and whales fighting for survival in the receding oceans. The scales fell from my eyes.

Midnight, the very last hour. Can we save those giant whales, the leopards or even the palm trees lurking on the shores of our imaginations?

Moons spin, clouds fall. We are all too caught up in the unreal world before our eyes, clouding perception.

It's midnight, wake up, people! Watch the leopard falling from the sky, floodlit by the dying moon. And try to tell me it's not too late.

**

Previously published in Visual Poetry Volume 9, Chapter 11 where you can the whole chapter and see the artwork that inspired it all.

Tree Following August Update

 This year for Tree Following, I've chosen the beautiful cooking apple tree in Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother's garden. You can read the post where I introduced the tree here. 

The tree is around fifty years old and produces a lot of apples (last year was a bumper year and I gave apples to colleagues, neighbours, students in my writing classes as well as friends!). The apples are excellent in apple crumble or just stewed and eaten with custard or added to porridge. 

Here are some photos of the tree from the beginning of July

The apples are developing well! There's likely to be a good harvest this year, though possibly not as good as last year which was a bumper year!

The tree has several main branches that emerge from the trunk

The young plum tree in the garden also looks as though it will produce a lot of fruit again this year

For Tree Following.

Pretty in Pink

We had a lovely wander round Inverleith Park today. There were plenty of birds on and around the pond. 

It was nice to see that the Moorhens had young ones with them - can you see the young moorhen hidden away in the photo below? 

There were also Mallards, Mute Swans and a couple of Tufted Ducks on the pond. Swifts and House Martins were flying low over the pond, catching insects. The vegetation around the pond is currently dominated by pink, with Purple Loosestrife in full bloom 

and Hairy Willowherb 

We had been given free tickets to the (otherwise very expensive) Foodies Festival which was happening in the park, so we walked round there and enjoyed tasty wraps and gourmet roast potatoes and bought some locally brewed ales and locally made chocolate brownies for later. (If you do go, though, beware of pleasant women bearing trays of free Feta cheese who tempt you with free olives and then guilt trip you into spending too much money on olives). The festival includes a good variety of food stalls, including vegan options for both humans and dogs, cookery demonstrations and a live music tent.

Lots of Birds but not many Butterflies

 

I'm currently doing regular butterfly surveys at Lauriston Farm Agroecology Project. The aim being to find out how the rewilding aspects of the project are helping improve biodiversity in the fields. To produce the best results, butterfly surveys are best done in warm, sunny weather. At least today was dry and relatively warm, but it wasn't raining, as it has done many days during the last month or so. (Some people claim that this means the UK isn't experiencing climate change, but we are! We had a severely hot and dry June and many places across the world at the moment are experiencing severe heatwaves, and forest fires caused (or certainly made worse) by these heatwaves.)

The vegetation all around me was wet from recent rain and this, combined with the dull weather, meant that I didn't see many butterflies. However, there were lots of birds around! A flock of over 50 Goldfinches and at least one Linnet were feeding in the thistles, while over 20 Swifts with several Swallows and House Martins were feeding on aerial insects. 

And everything looked lovely decorated with the recent rain, including these sweet peas at the edge of one of the growing areas: 

and these cornflowers in the 'Unexpected Garden' area of the project

The fields have wonderful views over the Firth of Forth and you get a clear sighting of Inchmickery Island. During both World War I and World War II the island was used as a gun emplacement. The concrete buildings make the island look (from a distance) like a battleship. The island is now a bird reserve. 

National Moth Week

 Over the past 12 years, National Moth Week has happened across the world in the last week of July. This year's national moth week finished yesterday, so I missed it! 

However, when we were walking along the Water of Leith on Saturday (see yesterday's blogpost for photos from the walk) we saw this lovely moth (click on the photo for a closer look)

I looked in my moth book and online, but couldn't identify it myself, so I put the photo into the Edinburgh Natural History Facebook Group and was told it's a Dunbar Moth. 

Moths are often underappreciated, many people think they're all dull, night-flying insects or annoying pests that eat your clothes. There are many beautiful species of moths, and several species can even be seen during the daytime.

Have you seen any interesting moths recently?

Water of Leith - Roseburn to Stockbridge

Yesterday we went on a lovely walk along the Water of Leith from Roseburn to Stockbridge. 

This is a pretty stretch of the river, though it gets very crowded around Dean Village and Stockbridge, two areas of Edinburgh (and the river) that are very popular with tourists. 

Otters are quite often seen in the Water of Leith, but just up from Dean Village, there is the one spot in the city where you can actually guarantee seeing an otter:

This otterly adorable statue has been there for years, but not many people know about it! 

There's quite a lot of River Water Crowfoot in the river at the moment. This is a beautiful plant when in flower, though very easy to overlook otherwise. 

We were surprised to find patches of River Water Crowfoot growing in the weir at Dean Village. You'd expect the water here to be flowing too fast for the plant to establish itself 

but there are several patches here, and they seem to be well rooted in the rocks above the weir

Plenty of other plants are currently in bloom along the river, including Hairy Willowherb

We were lucky to get our walk in when we did, because it started raining as we were eating lunch and rained on and off for the rest of the day.

Homemade Bookmark

 I made this bookmark yesterday from leftover pink wool - there was almost exactly the right amount of wool to weave through the plastic mesh that is the base of the bookmark. The piece of mesh had been sitting around for ages, with me wondering what to do with it, then I realised it's exactly the right size for a bookmark and this is the result.