The Hunt for the Golden Mole by Richard Girling

I thought this would be the author's travelogue on his journey to find the Somalian Golden Mole. Well it is, but he takes a lot of digressions on the way! 

The Somalian Golden Mole was first described in 1964, based on a few bones found in an owl pellet by Professor Alberto Simonetta. Since then, no trace of it has ever been found again. 

Richard Girling sets out to see the evidence of the mole's existence and to ponder why such an insignificant species should matter, and along the way looks at the history of our human relationship with wildlife. We are told how many animals have been driven to extinction, not helped by the fact of how often capturing wild animals for zoos would lead to animals dying in transit. He talks about the history of conservation organisations and their work in the field and the importance of the Red List of endangered animals, which can act as a driver to enhanced conservation measures for imperilled species. There are many species that have rarely been seen, and yet for many of them little effort is put into finding them and securing their existence. Trophy hunting is a huge risk to big game species and yet the rangers who are employed to protect the animals are at a great disadvantage compared to the hunters, many rangers are killed in their line of work. 

The author makes the point that: "[c]onservation cannot succeed without popular support, and people as well as animals need to see the benefit", later adding "the tourist is a vital link in the chain of virtue that keeps animals alive and strengthens local communities". He makes a good point, but omits to add that it needs to be the right kind of tourism. He looks in some detail at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy  where tourism brings in income for local education and other community projects. 

We're introduced to moles as a group of animal quite late in the book, and told that golden moles are not actually related to European moles, with interesting details about how scientists, particularly in the last, would base their ideas on relations between species on superficial resemblances, whereas nowadays, we can investigate the similarities in the DNA to clarify family trees. 

He talks about reintroducing species to areas where they've been lost and emphasises the importance of the right habitat still being available if such reintroductions are to be successful. 

Finally, after all these digressions (fascinating, but still, definitely digressions) the author gets to meet Professor Alberto Simonetta himself, and in fact is allowed to handle the bones of the only known Somalian Golden Mole. The professor makes the point that we need to conserve insignificant species "precisely because we don't understand their value.... we have no idea what we might be losing."

The Hunt for the Golden Mole by Richard Girling, published by Chatto and Windus (2014)

 

Making the First Christmas Cards for the Year

As long term readers of this blog will know, I make most of my own Christmas cards, though often I forget to post photos of them here. This year, I've chosen mostly simple designs, made, as ever, from upcycled materials - card stock and embellishments bought from second hand shops. Crafting like this, while not, strictly speaking, recycling, does use materials that otherwise might end up in landfill. So, I'm using these cards as an example of rescuing materials from landfill to fit in with the 'Rescue Me' theme of this year's Recycle Week. So, here are a selection of the cards I've made so far for this year's Christmas. 

This week's post on my Crafty Green Substack is also about Recycle Week, focussing on house clearances.

Rescue Me! Recycle Week 2024

For 21 years, Recycle Week has been celebrating recycling and encouraging people to recycle as much as they can. This year's theme is 'Rescue Me' which aims to rescue recyclable items from ending up in landfill. 

If you have any items that you don't want, think first, can you re-use it? Could you:

* sell it on line? 

* donate it to a charity that would directly use the item in its work? 

* give the item to someone you know?

* donate the item to a second hand shop?

If you can't use the item in any way, and it couldn't be sold in a charity shop, then find out how it can be recycled in your local area. (Different places recycle different things in different ways, contact your local council to find out what happens in your area).

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am committed to re-using materials in the crafts I make. I buy craft supplies from second hand shops, my particular favourite being bags of unsellable jewellery, which include broken items that can be taken apart, and the pieces used to make new items. 

I'm currently clearing out the house of a close friend who died recently. It's a sad task, but I'm trying to make sure as much of her belongings get re-used as possible. I'll be writing about that in tomorrow's post on the Crafty Green Poet Substack. 

Autumn loss

 

 

early frost -

our first autumn 

without you

**

A couple of people close to me have died this year, my Dad in March and a good friend of mine a few weeks ago. So it's sad times here. 

I wrote a post about green funerals over on my Substack blog, which you can read here.

Figgate Park today

 We had a lovely short walk round Figgate Park this morning. The weather has been very changeable today with several heavy showers of rain, but we managed to time our walk to co-incide with the dry times! 

The rowan trees are beautiful just now! Different species and varieties of rowan trees have different coloured berries. I particularly like the contrast between the yellow berries and red leaves on this rowan

We made friends with this Grey Squirrel, who was particularly unafraid of us 

It was a lovely autumn walk

Thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend, who took all the photos in this post.

In the Office

The rain has stopped.
From my desk, I watch
October sunlight play
on the white walls
of the football stadium
across the car-park.

Upstairs, someone else’s boss
moans about the weather
‘It’s raining cats and dogs
and dark as winter’.
I am my own boss
free to watch the slow movement
of sunlight across white walls
as geese fly overhead
winter on their wings.


Originally published in the seemingly now defunct Work Literary Magazine.

Rainy Season haiku

no rain

in this 'rainy season' -

silent lightning 

 **

Inspired by my time in Malawi, where the rains failed in my second autumn.

First published in The Mamba, Issue 14, the journal of the Africa Haiku Network.