Beautiful Bluebells and more in Dalkeith Country Park

 We always like to visit Dalkeith Country Park when the bluebells are in full bloom and we were very lucky with our trip yesterday. The bluebells were definitely at their best. 

as were a host of other Spring flowers, including Ramsons (Wild Garlic) 

(Wild Garlic is a favourite of foragers, to the extent that it is disappearing from many areas in the UK. If you do forage this plant, as with any other foraging, please do not uproot it and take only as many leaves as you need. Even better, forage Few Flowered Leek which is an invasive species, taking over from Wild Garlic in many places, but tastes just as good.

 The photo above shows Few Flowered Leek in bloom).

Other flowers in bloom included Wood Anemones 

 Wood Sorrel

Greater Stitchwort

and Lesser Celandine

Dalkeith Country Park is also rightly famous for its ancient oak trees

While we were walking around we were fascinated to find a group of solitary bees. There were two species here, one a larger species, a mining bee probably Andrena clarkella

and a smaller species of parasitic nomad bee (probably Nomada goodeniana)

The nomad bees were hanging around the nesting area of the mining bees, waiting for a chance to enter the nest holes. (Mining bees don't live in hives, but excavate individual nest holes where they lay their eggs, the parasitic bees then also lay their eggs in the same nest holes. There are usually a lot of nest holes of the same species in a small area, but the fact that each bee makes its own individual nest hole is why these species are known as solitary bees). 

The Running Hare by John Lewis Stempel

The Running Hare is a closely observed study of the wildlife of farmland. The author, having become disenchanted with conventional farming, takes on a field 'Flinders' with consent to farm it chemical free for a year to allow wildflowers to come back and in their turn to attract insects and the birds that feed on them.

The author has an intimate relationship with the land, a life as a farmer and an understanding of how farming can be carried out in harmony with nature, he talks about the importance of untidy corners where nature can be allowed to get on with its own thing. The book includes the author's memories of the farmland wildlife of years gone by (for example: Lapwings once being abundant in farmland, now all too rare a bird and Corncrakes in English farm fields in the 1970s, the Corncrake being a species now restricted to certain remote areas of Scotland.) We are given details of farming methods, close observations of weather and its effects on wildlife. Some of the writing is beautiful, such as the description of Starlings in winter "wearing Winter's starry night on their feathers" though sometimes the author tries too hard: "a mouse-shoal of House Sparrows" just doesn't work for me.

Modern farming methods have not been kind to wildlife, particularly the use of chemical herbicides and pesticides, which have been shown to have been responsible for the decline in species such as the Grey Partridge. Flinders Field is just one small part of the agricultural landscape of the area and not enough to make a large scale difference. A Skylark returns to the field but: 

"...it does not nest in the field of the rising corn. I guess its song fails to travel far enough for a mate to hear it".

We need more farmers to farm in true harmony with nature, but more than that, farmers need support from government to be able to farm in harmony with nature. 

The Running Hare by John Lewis Stempel, published (2016) by Doubleday. 

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 Right now is a pivotal moment for nature and farming. The UK Government is considering how to balance budgets ahead of its Comprehensive Spending Review in June. The farming budget – the biggest pot of funding for nature – is in the firing line. But any cut now would be a disaster for nature and farming. Please consider signing the RSPB's petition to protect funding for farming and nature here. 

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There's always so much to see in nature, particularly in Spring. My latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack blog outlines some of nature's highlights that can be seen in and around Edinburgh at this time of year. You can read it here. 

Cloudy Easter Monday

 We visited Lauriston Farm today, one of the sites I survey for butterflies. The weather hasn't been good enough to survey over the past week or so and, though we thought when we left the flat that the weather might just become good enough, it ultimately wasn't (too cold and overcast).

However, though we didn't see any butterflies, we were very impressed by the birds we saw and heard. I was particularly happy to see Meadow Pipits, not an uncommon bird, but one I rarely see. Two of them were chasing each other round the fields and then one of them flew right up into the air singing then flew down again onto the fence. The Meadow Pipit is well known for this song flight and is not to be confused with the superficially similar looking Skylark, which stays up in the air, singing for long periods of time. We also saw the first Swallows of the year and a small group of Linnets.

The Hawthorn is starting to come into bloom, always a lovely sight at this time of year. 

Cherry Blossoms at Lauriston Castle

 Every year we visit Lauriston Castle at around this time to enjoy the cherry blossom in the Japanese Garden. The trees were just about at their best when we visited yesterday. Here are some photos. 

 

There are plenty of other things to admire at this time of year too. The Weeping Willow by the pond in the Japanese Garden is lovely

as are the Pieris bushes

 Bluebells are in bloom in the grounds of the castle too

and the Norway Maple trees are in bloom 

Hopefully the cherry trees will still be fully in bloom for next week's Sakura Festival at the castle. 

 

haiku

warming seas—
coral reefs weep
with algae

originally published in cattails.  

**

read updates on the state of Australia's Great Barrier Reef here. 

 

Jungle by Patrick Roberts

 

Subtitled How Tropical Forests shaped World History, this is an ambitious history of tropical forests from prehistory to the present. 

The earliest chapters looking at prehistoric tropical forests and how they co-evolved with early animals, including dinosaurs and the first mammals were definitely the best. Later chapters dealing with early human inhabitants of the tropical forests felt too brief and could have been used as the basis for entire books. The later chapters focussed too much on issues that don't seem central to the topic. For example, the details about slavery in the tropics were fascinating and, in themselves, vital to know, but might not have needed to be expanded on so much in a book specifically about forests. I would have been more interested (in the context of rainforests) to know more about the functioning of human societies that have long lived in rainforests. The author makes a very important point that we can learn from these societies, but seems a little naive in the extent to which he thinks we could recreate ancient settlement patterns in the modern world where there is so much population pressure on tropical areas.

A central and vital theme is climate change. The book outlines how the changing prehistoric climate affected rainforests and considers how current, human-made climate change is altering rainforest habitats today, with devastating consequences for wildlife and humans alike. 

Another vital theme is how globalisation affects rainforest environments across the world. Crops such as bananas and coffee, palm oil and chocolate all grow in tropical areas and their cultivation often leads to degradation of vital rainforests. Equally important is the effect that introduced, non-native plants have had on tropical environments.

Initiatives to protect tropical rainforests are vital and are given a good discussion in this book, although I did sometimes feel the overview here was too pessimistic. (I'm pessimistic myself about the future of tropical forests, so it's perhaps unfair of me to hope that the author of this book should be able to offer more optimistic solutions to the issues.) The book ends with a call to action for everyone to do what they can to protect rainforests and to raise awareness, plus a very comprehensive bibliography and references section. 

Overall, this is an excellent book for anyone wanting an overview of the importance of tropical rainforests. The first several chapters in particular.

 Jungle by Patrick Roberts, published (2021) by Penguin. 

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 My short story Dressing My Daughter is now featured in issue 253 of Open Book's Unbound newsletter. You can read the story here and find the questions and writing prompts inspired by the story here. 

Azaleas, Rhododendrons and Hairy Footed Flower Bees

 We visited the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh yesterday, hoping to see the azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom and we were not disappointed!  The gardens have a wide range of species of azaleas and rhododendrons from across the world. Here are photos of just a few of them.

 

 

We were also delighted to see over 30 female Hairy Footed Flower Bees! I've never seen so many of this species of bee before and I've also never seen the females before, which meant we took a while to realise what we were seeing, as they're so different from the males. (To see a comparison of the males and females visit this link).