The Silence by Gillian Clarke

The Silence begins during the silence of lockdown, from which a variety of voices emerge. 

The book progresses with poems on topics including the poet's childhood, war and its aftermaths, and the changing seasons:

leaves I saw born in Spring,
first green syllables,
burn russet, amber, gold, 

from October 

Throughout, the poet shares precise observations of the natural world around her, with often surprising descriptions:

as sky remembers blue like a sudden thought

from November  

or imbuing nature with spiritual value: 

'On the ash tree spire
a blackbird holds his world
with his psalm to summer.' 

from The Silence 

Clarke generally focuses her eye on nature rather than environmental issues though Was it For This? reflects on war and contains the following:

'Now war is poisoned air, the screaming sky'

and goes on to mention places recently and currently affected by war including Kiev, Aleppo and Gaza. 

There's a lot of repetition in the poems, which has been hailed by some as echoes that add to the overall reading, but I have to admit that I found most of the repeated phrases annoying rather than anything else. Overall however, I found it a very impressive collection.  

The Silence by Gillian Clarke, published (2024) by Carcanet.  

Autumn in the Hermitage of Braid

 Yesterday we enjoyed a lovely walk round Blackford Pond and through the Hermitage of Braid. The autumnal colours were particularly beautiful, especially the beech trees. Beech has a bit of a bad reputation among ecologists being a non-native species, but it is undeniably lovely in autumn as you can see in the photos below. 

 

We didn't find as many fungi as we had hoped to find, but there were some, including, as seen in the photo below,Common Puffballs with Candlesnuff in the background

and a closer look at Candlesnuff in the photo below  

A few Grey Squirrels were running around too

Shared for Nature Notes.  

The Unexpected Truth about Animals by Lucy Cooke

Lucy Cooke is a well known broadcaster, and founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society, with a Masters in Zoology and a love of quirky facts about animals. This book brings together many fascinating facts and myths that she has gathered about groups of animals that have often been misunderstood, including bats, eels, sloths and beavers. 

Each chapter examines a different group of animals, looking at the ancient myths that people used to tell themselves about these creatures and the scientific experiments that have been done to find out facts about how each animal lives. Some of these experiments would now be considered cruel by modern standards, but that isn't pointed out. (I have no problem with the presentation of cruel experiments that shaped scientific knowledge if the cruelty is addressed, scientific ethics have changed after all). 

I found the author's jaunty sense of humour irritating, particularly her seeming need to add 'amusing' comments to almost every paragraph. This book is worth reading, but nowhere near as good as An Immense World by Ed Yong, which deals with similar topics and which I (very briefly) reviewed here.  

The Unexpected Truth about Animals by Lucy Cooke, published by Penguin. 

Fungi in the Dells

 Most weeks I do a patrol of Colinton and Craiglockart Dells alongside Edinburgh's Water of Leith. I often pick litter, and always record the wildlife I see. Today, I spent some time looking at fungi, and here are a selection of what I found. The photos aren't all of the best quality, unfortunately, as the light wasn't great for taking pictures. First we have a Collared Earth Star with a coral fungus in the background.

 The tiny little fungi in the photo below are, I think, Steely Bonnets

the fungi below are, I think, Common Ink Caps  

and the weird jelly like fungus below is possibly Tripe Fungus (but I'm really lost with this one!)

If you're able to identify any of the species that I've struggled with above, please let me know in the comments!  

The Dells are great for fungi all year round and my favourite fungi I've found there are the Larch Bolete, which I found a month or so ago 

and the Scarlet Elf Cups that appear in late winter 

Autumn Colour at Saughton Park

 Yesterday morning, we had a brief walk at Saughton Park, before the storm came in. The autumn colours are looking beautiful - I always particularly like rowan trees at this time of year.

We had a good view of a Grey Heron on the Water of Leith, which flows through the park. Unfortunately the photo isn't great, as I had to angle the camera awkwardly, to avoid a fence blocking the view of the heron! 

Just downstream of the heron, we saw a large rat, maybe destined to be supper for this or another heron. 

 

Autumn haiku

 

 

secrets
you never shared -
falling leaves

 

haiku originally published in Shadow Pond.  

**

This week's post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about apples, you can read it here.  

Autumn Colours at Linlithgow Loch

 We had a lovely day trip yesterday to Linlithgow, just a short train journey away from Edinburgh. Whenever we visit the town, we walk round the beautiful loch. Here are some of the photos we took yesterday. 

Linlithgow Palace (the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots sits near the loch and can be seen from anywhere on the perimeter path 

 

The autumn colours were beautiful, especially in yesterday's bright sunshine 

 the water was sparkling 

 

and most of the male Mallards were back in breeding plumage, after their early autumnal moult (during which their so-called eclipse plumage means they can be mistaken for females). Their heads were really shining in the low sun

There were also several pairs of Tufted Ducks on the lock

and a family of Mute Swans 

 As it's fungi season, we kept an eye out for toadstools and were happy to see this arrangement of fungi, lichens and moss on a fence post

Shared for Nature Notes.