This plain black t-shirt was still in perfect condition, except for a hole! So, I chose some nice fabric from my stash and covered the hole and made the repair into a feature.
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Meanwhile, over on my Crafty Green Poet Substack, today's post shares a collage and a poem on the theme of disappearing animals.
On Saturday we had a lovely walk around Blackford Pond (where we saw a Kingfisher, a first for the pond, at least in our experience) and into the Hermitage of Braid. Here are some photos:
I really enjoyed this book, though I did feel it lost energy and direction about half way through.
Gussie is a great character, to inspire anyone who is living with uncertainty around health issues. I wasn't sure though what age group this book is written for. Given a main character of age 12, you'd think perhaps the book is written for youngsters of around 10, but it feels too grown up and too slow moving for that age group. However, the style of writing means it doesn't feel like its written for adults, rather as a children's book that adults can also enjoy.
It's the sequel to The Burying Beetle (which I haven't read) but does stand alone.
The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley, published (2007) by Luath Press.
Yesterday we had a lovely walk around Arthur's Seat.
and lots of Vipers Bugloss
Read Admiral
In the 1940s, eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed that plants on Rum had survived the last Ice Age. But had he in fact cultivated those plants at home and planted them on the island so that he could lead groups of botanising students to find them as if they were native to the island? An amateur botanist, John Raven, believed that he had and set out to investigate.
This book examines this controversy in great detail, including the details of the fraudulent behaviour of Heslop Harrison, the personalities of both Heslop Harrison and Raven and the research carried out by the author.
As a trained Botanist and fan of the Scottish islands I found the whole story fascinating. I do wonder though whether in fact it is too long and detailed for the more general reader, though the fact that it's written by a non-botanist probably does make it more accessible than it might of been had it been written by a botanist.
A Rum Affair by Karl Sabbagh, this updated edition published by Birlinn ( 2016)
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Today's Crafty Green Poet Substack post is all about Appreciating Insects, you can read it here.
Yesterday we went along to the first of the three events that form this year's Edinburgh Canal Festival, celebrating Edinburgh's Union Canal. The festival is organised by the Fountainbridge Canalside Community Trust, which organises events and activities alongside the canal and surrounding areas.
I found the festival a little underwhelming this year, but it's always nice to walk along the canal. For some reason I only took one photo that features the canal itself! The photo below is taken from Harrison Park looking over to Polwarth Parish Church
After we had walked along the canal from Harrison Park to the Lochrin Basin, we spent some time sitting in the sunshine listening to excellent local band TrippyTakka, who deserved a much bigger audience than they got yesterday. I posted a couple of photos over on my Shapeshifting Green blog, here.
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I'm delighted to have three haiku in A Picnic Sky, the first anthology of haiku from Haiku Girl Summer, edited by Allyson Whipple. You can buy a hardcopy at IngramSpark. An E-Pub version will be available soon.
You might not think that there's enough to say about twilight to fill a hardback book, but this book is a real gem that will keep you enthralled all the way through.
As we fill the world with more and more artificial light, twilight becomes more and more precious.Sally Coulthard shows us why, exploring the scientific, ecological and cultural importance of twilight in language that manages to be both straightforward and lyrical. She shares with us wonderful gems of information such as:
"The hawkbit, a dandelion-like wildflower, closes up shop, more often than not with a pollen beetle snugly tucked inside. Come the morning, the petals reopen and the rested beetle can be on its way."
The main narrative of the book is interspersed with the author's twilight diaries.
I felt I learned a lot while reading this book, but it never feels overburdened by facts and is consistently readable and beautifully written.
The Secret World of Twilight by Sally Coulthard, published (March 2026) by Head of Zeus (an imprint of Bloomsbury).
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One of the aspects of twilight explored in the book is the twilight of the deep sea, which is the topic of a fascinating recent article on the Guardian website, which you can read here.
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My latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about the development of larch cones, you can read it here.
Today in Scotland we were given a bank holiday for some reason. I hadn't managed to do a butterfly survey yet this survey week (the survey year starts on 1 April, so this year the survey week starts on Wednesdays) as the weather hadn't been good enough. It was just about good enough this morning, so Crafty Green Boyfriend accompanied me on a survey at Lauriston Farm (Edinburgh's agro-ecology project). We didn't see a huge number of butterflies (two Speckled Woods, one Small Tortoiseshell and four Ringlets) but we enjoyed the walk anyway. The Buttercups are beautiful at the moment
We found this interesting looking (but sadly dead) moth on a pavement, and I've looked it up and it's a Heart and Dart, which I'd never heard of before.
On the final day of our holiday in Oban we went to Glasdrum, a stunning woodland nature reserve
and home to the Chequered Skipper, a rare butterfly in the UK (though I think it's more common in continental Europe). The weather was dull and damp when we started the walk and we didn't expect to see the butterfly. However, just 10 meters or so away from the information board telling us to look out for Chequered Skippers, we were incredibly lucky to see this:
There are also wonderful views from the high points of the reserve
Another of the trips we made while staying in Oban last week was to Benderloch Beach. It's a lovely pebbly beach
One of the days we were staying in Oban we took the ferry across to the lovely Island of Lismore. Luckily the weather stayed fine for the trip and we were able to appreciate the views of the misty coastline
The trip over to Lismore took about 45 minutes and there's a nice walk once you get there. You start by walking along the coast (much of this this path is boggy, but the surrounding trees and bushes are full of birds)
where we were delighted to see two Spotted Flycatchers, which are an increasingly rare sight these days (click on the photo below to get a closer view!)
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I also wrote about our trip to Oban in today's post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack.
On the second day of our holiday in Oban, we travelled to Glen Nant, a beautiful area of upland oak woodland, which also holds other trees including birch, hazel and alder.
There's a lot of Hard Fern (Blechnum spicant) which I always like to find
We're just back from a lovely (but very rainy) few days on the west coast of Scotland. We stayed in the pretty harbour town of Oban. Over the next few posts, I'll share some of our photos. Today, I'll focus on Oban itself.
The waters around Oban are famous (for us at least!) for the Black Guillemots that nest in the walls of the promenade
the woodland walk also offers good views across the water
This is the story of the scientists who rediscovered the coelacanth. This fish had only been known from the fossil record until 1938 when Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, a young curator at East London Museum, South Africa found what she suspected to be a coelacanth in amongst a catch of fish that she'd been invited to look at in case there was anything there of interest to the museum.
The book then follows the search to rediscover this unique fish for science. Outwith the scientific world, fishermen had been familiar with the fish, though it wasn't considered a good fish to catch, as it didn't taste good. Once the fish was rediscovered by science, it became much more worthwhile for the fishermen to catch it, as scientists and wealthy collectors suddenly started paying large sums of money for it.
Although I totally understand the need for scientists to study the fish, throughout reading this book, I felt the risk of overfishing to the current populations of coelacanths. It seems though, that the species' elusive habits, that hid it from science for so long, will continue to protect it.
This is a fascinating book, giving insights into both the coelacanth itself and the scientific research and rivalries around it.
A Fish Caught in Time, by Samantha Weinberg, published (1999) by Fourth Estate.
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The latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about my favourite birds, swifts, you can read it here.
As many readers will know, I regularly patrol Edinburgh's Water of Leith river, picking litter and recording wildlife. I've become even more than usual fascinated by the development of fruits on trees. I don't mean the obvious fruits, like cherries or apples (though their development is also fascinating) but specifically beech and larch.
At the beginning of May, I noticed these lovely little pom-poms on a beech tree
and today they look like this (same tree, different cones)
