Newington Cemetery

 A few years ago, I was employed to carry out wildlife surveys of all of the council managed cemeteries in Edinburgh, a job I really enjoyed. I still try to visit cemeteries whenever I pass. One of my favourites is Newington Cemetery and as I was in the vicinity yesterday, I took a wee wander there. One of the things I love about this cemetery is how it feels like a natural woodland but also it feels well managed, helped by the fact that not too many of the gravestones have been vandalised or pushed over for the sakes of health and safety as is the case in many of our older cemeteries. 

 

There are lots of beautiful trees in this cemetery, including this magnificent cherry

Lots of birds were singing and flying around and I made notes of them all for the BTO's Birds in Greenspaces project which you can join here, if you're in the UK. 

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This week's Crafty Green Poet Substack post is out now, all about haiku and nature, you can read it here. 
 

RSPB Spotlight - Puffins by Euan Dunn

 

 This is a beautiful book taking a close look at the Atlantic Puffin, familiar to many people who have visited the coastal cliffs of the UK among other countries. Illustrated with a wealth of photos, the book looks at vasrious aspects of the puffin's lifestyle from courtship to raising the chicks, foraging for food and colonail living. There are chapters too on the many threats to the puffin, from ocean pollution to overfishing. 

This is a great book for anyone interested in this very charismatic bird species!  An ideal book to review on 14th April - World Puffin Day. According to 2023’s Seabirds Count, the latest seabird census, 23% of Puffins have been lost from the UK in the past 20 years. They now feature on the Birds of Conservation Concern Red List and are at risk of global extinction.  

RSPB Spotlight Puffins by Euan Dunn, published (2014) by Bloomsbury.  

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I'm delighted to have a haiku in the latest issue of Sense and Sensibility. You can read the whole issue here.  

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A collage of mine has been included in the University of the West of England, Bristol book art exhibition 'The Mountains are Calling'. You can read about the exhibition here and see the artworks on Instagram here. (I'm not on Instagram so can only see a few of the pictures and mine might not be included yet, but will be there by the end of July). If you're in Bristol you can also see all the artworks on display until the end of July at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol.

Grey Heron

We had a lovely walk along the Water of Leith on Saturday and were very pleased to see two Grey Herons fishing, surprisingly close to each other. Though not so close we could get them both in the same photo! Here's one of them

 

Easter Monday in The Figgate Park

 The weather has been lovely today, certainly nice enough to enjoy an easter Monday walk round Edinburgh's Figgate Park. The willow trees are looking lovely 

 

and the Norway Maple's beautiful flowers are out at the moment, I was lucky to find these ones hanging at a suitable level to take easy photos

There were plenty of birds around, which I have recorded for the Birds in Greenspaces project, but only these Mallards were willing to pose for the camera - the male was being very protective of the female, keeping an eye out while she ate 

Spring Flowers in the Hermitage

Easter weekend weather has been very changeable indeed, we've had rain, high winds and snow! On Friday we did have a lovely walk by Blackford Pond and through the Hermitage of Braid. It's lovely to see so many flowers in bloom, including Marsh Marigolds at Blackford Pond 

 and Wood Anemones alongside the Braid Burn 

We were busily making lists of all the birds we saw, to take part in the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology)'s Birds in Greenspaces project. This project is running through the summer, asking people to share their observations of birds in urban greenspaces, such as parks, cemeteries and local nature reserves. We saw plenty of birds on Blackford Pond including Mallards, Tufted Ducks and Little Grebes (also known as Dabchicks). In the Hermitage alongside the Braid Burn we saw and heard several species including Great Spotted Woodpecker, Goldcrest, Long Tailed Tits and Chiffchaffs. I've now added all our sightings to the Birds in Greenspaces website and look forward to cintinuing with the project throughout the summer. Anyone in the UK can join in! 

 

How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley

 This is an excellent book from Tristan Gooley, the self styled Natural Navigator. The idea isn't to learn to recognise different species of trees, but to look at how trees grow the environment affects individual trees from the roots to the leaves. We learn how to look at trees in a whole new way and how to recognise, for example, signs that the trees are growing in poor soil or that they've been affected by high winds. 

It's a fascinating book and more elegantly written than earlier books I've read by the same author. I can definitely recommend it if you're interested in finding out more about how trees interact with the world around them. 

How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley, published by Hodder (2023).  

Read my tiny reviews of other books by Tristan Gooley:

How to Read Water. 

The Natural Navigator.  

 

By the River

 It was a lovely cold and sunny day today for a walk along the Water of Leith. 

I checked up on the larch cones that are developing nicely, they're at their most beautiful at the moment 

Regular readers may notice that a recent post about non-native daffodils having been planted in amongst Ramsons along the riverside has been removed. Although I did not accuse the trust that looks after the river of planting the bulbs, I had suggested that they might have done, given their enthusiasm for planting bulbs along other sections of the river. The trust has asked me to remove the post, after assuring me that they didn't plant the bulbs.