The Nightingale by Sam Lee

 

In many ways this is a wonderful book. It shares the science about Nightingales and their decline in the UK, along with information about conservation successes (he mentions Isabella Tree's excellent book Wilding, which outlines the work she has done with her husband at the Knepp estate, you can read my review of that book here). Lee is also interested in our cultural connections with Nightingales and shares legends, songs, poems and folk tales from across the world. The book ends with a call to the reader to join in nature conservation activities, which, these days particularly, is a vital addition to any natural history book.

Author Sam Lee is a folk singer and has collected songs from communities such as Gypsies and Travellers. he makes the connection between the loss of these traditional songs as the singers die with the loss of the Nightingales' songs in the UK as the species becomes rarer and rarer. 

The book is copiously illustrated with beautiful paintings and line drawings of Nightingales. 

Two things spoiled it for me. I found the author's writing style to be often odd and ungainly (though I know many critics have praised his writing). I also felt there could have been better editing. One painting appears twice in the book and one literary extract that we are promised just never appears. 

Still, it is a book that will probably inspire almost any reader to want to find out more about these wonderful, nocturnal songsters or even to join one of the author's own Nightingale events, where he takes audiences and musicians into the woods to sing and improvise music with Nightingales. (Find out more about these events here).

The Nightingale by Sam Lee, published (2020) by Penguin.

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My latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about wildfires and you can read it here.  

Arthur's Seat

We always love walking around Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh and it's sad and terrifying how often it's being hit by wildfires these days. The latest fire, which was on Salisbury Crags, adjacent to Arthur's Seat started on 19 July and took days to be put out. it's now out, but the site has been extensively damaged as you can see from the photo below, with the blackened areas on the Crags being a very sobering sight. 

 Luckily we've had a fair amount of rain since the fire was put out, but wildfires are becoming more and more common as climate chaos takes hold (wildfires are still raging in the Cairngorms in northern Scotland and across large areas of France and Spain, to mention just a few.)

We walked our usual route round to Dunsapie Loch, where there were a lot of Canada Geese, a couple of Mute Swans and a few Mallards. 

We were delighted to see this female pheasant with her two chicks 

watched this Kestrel for a while

There were some insects to watch too, including this Common Wasp busily eating a slug  

and several bees, including this Buff Tailed Bumblebee 

The thistles are already shedding their thistledown, which makes for some nice photo opportunities

Hopefully there won't be more wildfires, but rising temperatures and lack of rain make them more likely. If you're out and about in hot, dry weather, don't light fires or use barbecues and dispose of cigarettes carefully. Many wildfires are started by human carelessness and human induced climate change will often make them spread.

Posted for Nature Notes.  

Patient Property by Kirsten Cliff Elliot

Patient Property is a collection of haiku and tanka about Kirsten Cliff Elliot’s journey through leukaemia. These poems cover all aspects of her cancer journey, from diagnosis to remission. I particularly noticed how often how she ties her experiences, thoughts and feelings with the natural world. Spiders' webs appear in more than one of these poems:

storm clouds

can hope be caught 

in a spider's web? 

 

The spider's web suggesting the confusion and uncertainties surrounding chronic illness.

 

The compression of language in these short form poems means that so much can be said in so few words, while also encouraging re-reading, which deepens the meaning. 

 

between breaths

following the white

of this butterfly  

 

These poems read in sequence offer a moving insight into Kristen's journey.  

 

The book comes with an introduction from the poet along with a Foreword by Owen Bullock and an Afterword by Patricia Prime.  

 

Patient Property by Kirsten Cliff Elliot, published (2019) by  Velvet Dusk Publishing. 

 

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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book direct from Kirsten in exchange for the last copy of my own poetry book. 

 

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The latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about animal migrations, you can read it here.  

 

 

 

Robin's Pincushions

 I was very pleased to find these Robin's Pincushion galls on a wild rose bush today. 

These strange looking growths are galls, caused by the larvae of Diplolepis rosae, a tiny gall wasp. Inside each gall there are lots of grubs, which feed on the gall over the the winter and emerge in spring as adults.

I've been making more postcards!

 A few posts back, I shared some of the postcards I've been making to share through Postcrossing. Here are some more, all made using craft supplies from second hand shops and paper scraps.  

I only send handmade cards to Postcrossing members who specifically say they're happy to receive handmade cards and have a stash of unused vintage postcards that I'm sending to other members. Wondering what to do with the stash of vintage cards is what prompted me to join Postcrossing in the first place! 

Saughton Park in Edinburgh

 

Yesterday we had a lovely walk round Edinburgh's Saughton Park which lies alongside the Water of Leith. The bridge over the river at the entrance to the park is often a good place to see Otters, though we didn't see any yesterday! However, the little island in the middle of the river was looking very vibrant with a variety of plants in bloom, including the pink Hairy Willowherb which you can see in the photo below. 

It was cloudy and very windy when we started our walk, but once the sun came out we were happy to see several white butterflies (probably a mix of Small Whites and Large Whites, we didn't get close enough to tell which they were). There were also a reasonable number of bees, including the Buff Tailed Bumblebee in the photo below 

posted as part of Nature Notes.  

Between the Echoes by Angus MacMillan

 

 A few weeks ago I attended the launch of Angus MacMillan's memoir 'Between the Echoes' which was held at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. It was a very enjoyable event and I bought a copy of the book, and even spoke haltingly in Scottish Gaelic to the author who kindly signed my book, despite my lack of ability to speak the language (we did lapse into English very quickly). 

I've just now finished reading the book, which is a beautifully written evocation of growing up in Lewis, one of the Hebridean islands where Scottish Gaelic is still spoken and the Gaelic culture still hangs on, though much less so than it did even in the author's childhood. 

The book is divided into sections and looks in turn at memories associated primarily with water, earth, fire and air. The personal anecdotes are well chosen to highlight both the freedom that the author and his friends had in growing up in a rural island community and the strong sense of community where neighbours would regularly visit each other and doors were left unlocked. Also a sense of "feeling at home on the earth":

"being fastened to the world by it's colours and shapes, and the bodily feelings created by the natural world and its contours, in the form of grasses, rocks, mud, water, slopes and hollows. Inanimate things are imbued with life, or given an entirely different imagined existence: lumps of soft peat shaped into birds and planes, sticks transformed into swords; puddles become lagoons for sailing matchstick boats"

The book ends with a chapter entitled 'Of Place and Home' which outlines some of what has been lost.  Many of the Gaelic speaking islanders have left for education or work, and have been replaced by non-Gaelic speaking incomers, which has diluted the central role of the Gaelic language itself. (Tellingly, perhaps, the author himself no longer lives on Lewis.) Culture has changed too, a Gaelic 'ceilidh' used to be an informal gathering of neighbours, where there might be storytelling and music, but now, the ceilidh is a paid for, ticketed event centred on traditional Scottish dancing.

Between the Echoes by Angus MacMillan, published (2026) by Islands Book Trust.  

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My latest Substack is all about butterflies and birds along the John Muir Walkway, with more detail than in my recent post here. You can read the Substack here.