Tree Following August Update.

For Tree Following this year, I've chosen a magnificent old cherry tree in North Merchiston Cemetery in Edinburgh. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I started walking round this cemetery every day for our #DailyExercise during the first UK lockdown last year. And we're still doing the same walk regularly, though not quite as often. 

There hasn't been much rain recently here in Edinburgh, but my cherry tree still seems to be thriving

I couldn't see any cherries on it though! It's slightly late in the season though and maybe they've all been eaten. Though I didn't see any cherries or stones round about either. Maybe it isn't a fruiting cherry... 

Although a lot of the vegetation in the cemetery looks very dry at the moment, trees like this cherry provide shade and help keep the soil slightly moister for plants like this Rosebay Willowherb

The cemetery is full of beautiful trees, some of which I have already 'followed'. The sycamore in the photo below is looking particularly resplendent at the moment and may well become my tree for next year!

In a Suburban Garden

We visited Crafty Green Boyfriend's Mum's garden at the weekend. The nasturtiums are in full bloom and the bees are loving them, including this Common Carder Bumblebee 

Meanwhile, the Common Frogs were enjoying the pond. Just minutes before I took these photos, a Common Wasp had buzzed this frog's head then suddenly snap! No more wasp and a well-fed frog!  

There were also a few very small froglets running around, but they were impossible to catch on camera!

In the Dells

 Most weeks, I carry out a river patrol for the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. The area that I patrol stretches from the Trust's Visitor Centre up to Colinton Village and back, picking litter, recording wildlife and chatting to people as I go. It's a lovely walk through areas of riverside woodland and more open meadow areas, with some wildflower meadows, like the one below, on the site of a former watermill, which the trust has planted with mostly wetland plants

Even alongside the river, much of the vegetation is looking very dry, as we have had very little rain this summer.

However, we aren't in such a bad situation as places down in the south of England, where hosepipe bans have recently been instigated, in an effort to combat the strain on water supplies. There are issues beyond the lack of rain in many areas too, as many water companies are extracting too much water from rivers, or allowing too much extraction. (If you're on Twitter and interested in finding out more about the state of England's rivers, follow Feargal Sharkey, former singer with the Undertones, now keen angler and river campaigner.)

Despite the dry conditions though, the birds in the Dells seem to be thriving. I saw and heard lots of young birds, including long tailed tits, coal tits, chaffinches  and robins. Also, two nests of Sparrowhawks seem to have fledged youngsters successfully this year, judging by the loud calls in the areas where they have nested for the past 15 years or more. I only saw one sparrowhawk in Spylaw Park, somewhere over the trees in the background of the photo below (the bird isn't in the photo!)

You never know what you're going to see, here is an interesting growth on a tree stump, I think it's a slime mould (perhaps the slime mould known as False Puffball or Moon Poo?). 

Pretty in Pink (and a few other colours)

Yesterday we had a lovely walk. We started by walking through Inverleith Park. 

The marshy area of Inverleith Pond is currently beautifully overgrown with the Purple Loosestrife and Hairy Willowherb offering a wonderful splash of pink

Swallows, House Martins and (I think) a Sand Martin were flying above the pond, too quick to catch on film (too quick to identify with certainty in the case of the Sand Martin!). There were several birds on the water too, including a wonderful family of Mute Swans 

these Mallards

 

 

 

and this coot 

We then walked into the Botanic Gardens. 

where the Hydrangeas are looking particularly beautiful.

Hillary and Malibug Beach by Mary Cohen, William Dandurand and Elizabeth Revel

 

Hillary is a ladybug (or ladybird as we would call her on this side of the ocean!) Hillary has featured in a number of books written by Mary Cohen, William Dundarand and Elizabeth Revel working as a team with Dundarand providing the illustrations. 

In Hillary and Malibug Beach, Hillary and her family are going on holiday to Malibug Beach. Here, Hillary is challenged by local beach goers to a game of volley ball before she is allowed on to the beach. She finds out that some visitors have been littering the beach, and the volleyball is the locals' way of restricting access to the beach. 

After the appearance of a green comet causes the ladybugs to mutate, Hillary embarks on an adventure including learning to surf, exploring Malibug Beach and meeting mermaid ladybugs.  

It's an engaging story, with some nice meditations on nature:

"Out on the horizon, the sky and water met. They seemed to enjoy the comfort of how they were not the same, but how the sky rested on the ocean. They were like friends who liked and needed each other".

It's lavishly illustrated, but although the photography element of the artwork is beautiful, the cartoon ladybugs irritated me, I expected ladybugs to look more like, well, ladybugs, not humanoids with ladybird wings. But I'm not a child and I don't have children, so I'm not the target audience. 

This might be a nice book to introduce children to ideas around the human impact on the marine environment. 

Disclaimer: I was sent a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Wild Carrot

 Wild Carrot has to be my favourite Umbellifer plant, especially at this time of year, when many of the inflorescences are going to seed. These plants are in Edinburgh's Comely Bank Cemetery 

I love the way that the inflorescence folds up once it's gone to seed 

In the centre of most inflorescences of this plant, there is a red flower, which you can see in the photo below. The red flower is just to the right of the Batman hoverfly (Myathropa florea) which seems to have a particular liking for Wild Carrot.

The Hidden Corner of Old Calton Cemetery

 My work continues, surveying wildlife in the cemeteries managed by the City of Edinburgh Council. Yesterday, I visited the northern section of Old Calton Cemetery. The southern part of this cemetery is one of the well known, historical cemeteries in the centre of the city (you can read about my visit there in this post) while the northern section is hidden away, with the entrance being on a side street. The cemetery was cut into two when Waterloo Place was built - you can see the southern section across Waterloo Place in the photo below 

The two sections of the cemetery are very different. The southern section is full of decaying old monuments and mausoleums, while the northern section is much smaller. It has three lovely Lime (Linden) trees along the wall

and wonderful views across to Calton Hill with its follies and monuments 

There's a fairly good variety of grasses and flowering plants here, though not many insects and the only bird I saw was a woodpigeon!