Orchids and Butterflies

 Today I carried out a butterfly survey on Corstorphine Hill for the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Before I saw my first butterfly, I noticed how beautiful the Common Spotted Orchids were! 

 

Their leaves are very spotted, which is how they get their name 

I was also pleased to see several butterflies during the walk: 4 Red Admrials; 9 Ringlets and 5 Small Skippers. Butterflies are generally in decline so it's good to see these numbers, even though years ago, you would have hoped to see more. 

 

The Small Skipper (see above photo) is a butterfly that has been able to move northwards into Scotland as a result of climate change. 

Seven Spot Ladybirds are having a great year this year (How many ladybirds can you see in the photo below?)

I was also happy to see this field of Lady's Bedstraw: 

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My latest Substack post is now live! The last in my series celebrating The Wildlife Trusts' 30 Days Wild campaign, it focuses on art and nature. You can read it here. 

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I was surprised but very happy to win the Gaelic section of the Scottish Book Trust's most recent 50 Word Short Story Contest. You can read my story (with an English translation) here.  

Lots of Insects for National Insect Week!

This week is National Insect Week, an opportunity to highlight the small creatures that are all around us and far more important than most of us give credit to! 

Insects are well known to be in decline, scientific surveys tell us so and my own experience has shown far fewer insects around than there were even just a few years ago. Today, however, when walking along the Water of Leith for my weekly volunteering session of picking litter and recording wildlife, I was very impressed by all the insects I saw.  

I saw at least six Red Admirals

along with a good number of Speckled Wood Butterflies (who were flying too quickly for my camera). 

I saw lots of hoverflies, mostly Banded Hoverflies (Syrphus sp) 

This pretty insect below is a plant bug Grypocoris stysi, (click on the image for a closer look)

 and the fly below is Poecilobothrus nobilitatus. Several of these flies were fluttering around low in the vegetation and in the muddy ground. (Again click on the image for a closer look). 

I also saw lots of bees, mostly Buff / White Tailed Bumblebees, but also Tree Bumblebees and Common Carders.  

Edinburgh's Canal Festival and a canalside walk

We went along to the Canal Festival on Saturday. We started by walking through Harrison Park, past the Harrison Park branch of the Grove Community Garden. 

We were early for the actual festival so we walked up the canal for a while. 

The Meadow Sweet is in full bloom alongside the towpath

as is the Tufted Vetch  

There were a lot of ladybirds alongside the towpath, and a few hoverflies including this Footballer Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) 

We walked as far as the Water of Leith Visitor Centre, and this pretty Feral Pigeon posed for photos, under the aqueduct where several of these pigeons nest. 

 

Walking up from the river back to the canal, we noticed this lovely clump of Kidney Vetch, alongside the steps.  

We then walked back along the canal to the festival, where we enjoyed browsing the stalls. The festival this year was split into three, some of the stalls are in Harrison Park, some are outside Boroughmuir High School and some are at the city end of the canal, separated by some construction work that's going on alongside the canal. So it wasn't quite the same event as it has been in the past, but still worth popping in and it's always nice to walk along the canal! 

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I enjoyed reading the latest issue of Folk Ku journal from King River Press and am delighted to have two of my haiku included https://kingriverpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/folk-ku-issue-5-water_may-june-2025-pdf-edition.pdf

 

Nature inspired Collage

I've been working on a few collages recently, most of them are still in progress! I've been adding items gradually over several weeks to the collage above, and I think it is now finished, though I may change my mind! It's made up of: a piece of wrapping paper, a cutting of a Wood Warbler from a nature magazine, and a number of stickers and paper ornaments from my stash, mostly acquired from second hand shops. 

Three Nature related Art Exhibitions

 

I found the time today to visit the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh's Dundas Street. The main exhibition featured the beautiful landscapes and floral paintings of Swiss born Pascale Rentsch, now based in East Lothian. You can see the paintings from the exhibition on the gallery's website, but as with most art, they really gain from being viewed in a gallery. She has a wonderful way of capturing light and a slightly abstract approach that conveys the moody Scottish weather and landscapes very well. The exhibition also includes a small display of Rentsch's art tools and materials and a short video of her talking about her practice. There's another slightly longer video on the homepage of her website. 

Downstairs in the Gallery is an exhibition celebrating 20 Years of the St Judes design studio and publisher This features various works from artists associated with St Judes. I particularly liked this collaged bunny and other collages and fabrics from Mark Hearld and the linoprints of Angie Lewin. Alongside this exhibition are other works from artists and crafters not associated with St Judes, including willow sculptures from Lizzie Farey, and ceramics from Katie B Morgan, Terry Shone and Jill Fanshaw Kato. 

The gallery also has a lovely garden at the back, though the photo above is from my last visit to the gallery. You can see more photos of the gallery garden in this post. 

I also popped into Stockbridge Library to see the Painting with Plants exhibition by Julie Galante. This lovely little exhibition is probably not best served by being tucked away at the back of the library with chairs and other library furniture being arranged in front of it, making it difficult to get a really good view of the art. The paintings are lovely, featuring inks made from over 100 species of plants, including foraged plants and food leftovers (such as onion skins). 

All these exhibitions are on until 28 June.  

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Meanwhile, over on Substack, I've posted the third of the series of posts about The Wildlife Trusts' 30 Days Wild campaign. You can read it here.  

Lauriston Farm Agro-ecology Project

Lauriston Farm has been the site for Edinburgh's Agro-ecology Project for a few years now. Their aim is to engage the local community in growing a range of crops and rewilding the area. I've been carrying out butterfly surveys on the farm for the last couple of years. Sadly, there aren't usually that many butterflies to see, as populations of these beautiful insects are declining. However, there are often good numbers of other insects to see in the farm fields, including today this Batman Hoverfly (Myathropa florea)

The birdlife on the farm is amazing. For the past couple of weeks, when I've visited, I've been surrounded by House Martins and Swifts, I'm pretty sure every Swift in Edinburgh feeds above the fields here! The presence of these two insect-eating species must be proof that the insect populations are, in general, doing well here. I also regularly see and hear a variety of other birds including: Skylarks; Meadow Pipits; Reed Buntings; Willow Warblers; Chiffchaffs. There are always several Goldfinches, today I saw a parent Goldfinch being followed around by two youngsters. I didn't see any Swallows today, though they are nesting in at least one of the barns on the farm. I've heard a rumour that there are also Sedge Warblers on the farm, but I've yet to see or hear them! 

Riddled with Life by Marlene Zuk

This is a fascinating book about parasites, both those that cause human disease and those that affect animals and plants. The book was published in 2007 and so does not address the COVID-19 pandemic, but does offer warnings about the potential of avian flu to become a pandemic in humans. 

The book discusses the evolution of human disease and interesting topicss such as anti-biotic resistance and some approaches for warding off illness, but my particular interest (especially when writing a review for this blog) was in the parasites that affect non-human organisms. 

Parasites are everywhere and co-evolve with their hosts, often becoming less severe in their effects as time goes on. An interesting case study offered to show this is how myxomatosis declined in effectiveness at reducing the plagues of rabbits that caused havoc in Australia after they were introduced to the continent. At first all the bunnies dies once they were infected but soon 5% of infected rabbits were surviving, and continuing to cause problems for the native flora and fauna as well as for agriculturalists. 

Because disease is everywhere, animals have evolved ways of demonstrating their health to potential partners, this is a possible explanation for such seeming extravagances as the peacock's tail or the nightingale's song. A male who is able to put his energies into creating the most beautiful song or plumage is less likely to be hosting lots of parasites (the author details studies, some of which she was involved in herself, to show the correlations between birds' plumage, songs and other characteristics and parasite loads). Studies have also shown that some birds use aromatic herbs in their nests, to reduce the number of fleas living in the nest materials and that chimpanzees can rid themselves of intestinal parasites by ingesting particular types of leaves.

Into the future, climate change may make some parasites more dangerous as warmer temperatures make reproduction easier. This has already happened with a roundworm that infects the lungs of musk oxen as their arctic homelands become warmer, meaning that the roundworm that used to be relatively benign is now present in such numbers that it kills significant numbers of the oxen. 

This review just gives a very brief taste of the book, which is fascinating and well worth reading if you're interested in parasites and disease. However, some details are definitely not for the squeamish! 

Riddled with Life by Marlene Zuk, published (2007) by Harcourt Books.