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. 

Digger - failure or great climate movie?

Everyone seems to be talking about Digger, the latest Tom Cruise film, about Digger Rockwell, the oil tycoon. Most reviews are bad and it's doing really badly at the box office, but I saw it yesterday and it's well worth seeing. 

It's a very difficult film to review without giving away the surprise twists (of which there are several, slowly revealed through the length of the film). However, without giving too much away, I'll say that it's a film that delivers uncomfortable truths about the world we live in and leaves the viewer questioning whether art can ever really make a difference to important issues. It's a well-made, thought provoking satire. Being satire, many of its fans find it very funny, though I always find satire less funny than it's supposed to be. I think I laughed three times in Digger, the rest of the time the satire was just too close to grim truth to be funny. 

So, don't believe the negative reviews, go and see the film. There are a couple of good reviews on Wired (both of which contain 'spoilers' so read them after seeing the film):

Everyone Hates Digger - It's the Perfect Climate Movie. 

Digger is a Box Office Flop. It might be the most Relevant Film of the Year.  

An Immense World by Ed Yong

An Immense World explores the many ways that animals perceive the world. It looks at how the senses that we share with other animals can differ between species, some species can only see in black and white, while others can perceive colours beyond the spectrum that humans can see. The human sense of smell is notoriously poor compared to that of many other species, such as dogs or elephants.

However, where this book probably becomes most interesting is in looking at the senses that other species have that humans entirely lack. For example, seals can follow the hydrodynamic wake (the swirling water currents created by the movement) of a fish from up to 200 metres away. Spiders' webs are effectively a clever extension of their senses, being sensitive to the movements of trapped prey. Bats and dolphins can navigate using echolocation, enabling them to avoid obstacles in dimly lit environments. The most powerful electric eel can incapacitate a horse.

As humans we experience the world in a uniquely human way and we cannot begin to imagine what it would really be like to experience the world in entirely different ways. Reading this book helps us to understand some aspects of what it would be like to perceive life differently. 

The book also looks at some of the ways in which human activities make life harder for many species - excess lighting at night fatally attracts insects and disorientates bats and migrating birds; noise pollution changes the way that birds communicate with each other and underwater noise affects how creatures such as dolphins can navigate. 

 

An Immense World by Ed Yong, published (2023) by Vintage