Unmute - Young Voices from Lockdown edited by Kate Clanchy

Kate Clanchy is a well known British poet, who works with young people. The poetry in this book comes from students in a class that met at a school in Oxford but during lockdown continued their poetry workshops online. Kate shared a lot of these poems on Twitter (if you're interested in poetry and you follow no-one else on Twitter, follow @KateClanchy1, the poems she shares from her students are amazing).

I had really enjoyed reading Kate's Twitter stream and once I heard about this book I was determined to buy it!

This is a book full of poems that are well written and truly felt. The poets come from a wide range of backgrounds and countries and bring their varied experiences into their work. These poems speak of inequalities, loneliness, family, culture and many other topics.

Lockdown is often the dominant theme of the poems, as in The Poem in Quarantine by Linnet Drury:

.....If this poem were autumn, it

would not be dry enough for leaf fights, if it were

spring the daffodils would be stars a little worse

for wear.

The boredom of lockdown specifically crops up, as does food, and both are combined in this line from Cooking by Mukahang Limbu:

Because time is a tuna sandwich

with some pickles and I am tired of it

Family is also a major theme, given that many of these poets have been spending a lot of time with their family during lockdown:

My mother

will always be

a language

I'll never understand.

from My Mother by Amaani Khan.

Lockdown is having a definite negative effect on people's mental welfare and that is evident in some of these poems, which address that issue

...It's been a long time

since I've done something

without asking if it will kill me.

from evening run by Annie Davison.

This is a brilliant anthology of poetry from young people, who are not just 'promising' but already talented poets who have interesting, vital things to say and who know how to write poetry.

All proceeds from this book go to Asylum Welcome, a charity assisting refugees and asylum seekers in Oxford.

Only a limited number of paperback anthologies were published (and I think have sold out) but you can buy Unmute on Kindle here.

Brilliant Birds

We really notice all the birds that are around in the local cemeteries when we take our #DailyExercise walk.

Here are some of the best photos Crafty Green Boyfriend has taken recently

1. Long tailed tit. This individual was flying around near the seeds we scattered on one of the gravestones. 

2. bullfinch: this handsome male was sitting in a bush in a garden that borders onto one of the graveyards

3. stock dove: this species is often overlooked as without looking closely you could think it was a freal pigeon, but its black eyes and relatively uniform plumage are distinguishing features

What birds have you seen recently in your garden, from your window or on your #DailyExercise?

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The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating. In England, the police advice is that you can drive to a location before walking or jogging as long as you spend more time exercising than driving, the advice from Police Scotland however, seems to be that you should not drive to a location to exercise and should only exercise very locally.

#DailyExercise in the Sunshine

It's lovely and sunny at the moment and we've been enjoying our latest #DailyExercise walks in the local community park and the two nearby cemeteries. Here are the highlights of our most recent walks.

There are some lovely leafy paths in both of the cemeteries - perfect for social distancing as well as nature spotting

It was just along this little path that we were able to watch this chiffchaff as it searched for food on the leaves (the first part of this bird's scientific name Phylloscopus means leaf examiner, which is a very apt name!)

Lovely to finally see an orange tip butterfly in one of the cemeteries, we had expected to see one earlier, given that this cemetery has a good amount of garlic mustard which is this butterfly's food plant. Here the orange tip is in amongst the green alkanet, which is beautiful at the moment

There's a beautiful cherry tree in one of the cemeteries which is in full bloom at the moment

and a lovely crab apple tree in the other cemetery which is just starting to bloom

One of the cemeteries has all both nettles and the two species of dead nettles, here the nettles and white dead nettles are together, you can see how similar the leaves are (the nettles are in the background and don't have any obvious flowers)

and here we've got red dead nettle and white dead nettle together

Daisies are very common and easy to overlook but many of them have lovely red edges to their petals

There's a lot of this horsetail around in one of the cemeteries and also in the park

and I've found one (but so far only one) yellow poppy

Given how many soitary bees there are in the community park, we really shouldn't have been surprised to find a dark edged bee fly there today, given that it lays its eggs in the nest holes of the solitary bees.

I've rarely seen bee flies before this year and given comments online it seems it's a good year for them generally.

What are you seeing in your garden or on your permitted #DailyExercise route?

**

 The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating. In England, the police advice is that you can drive to a location before walking or jogging as long as you spend more time exercising than driving, the advice from Police Scotland however, seems to be that you should not drive to a location to exercise and should only exercise very locally.

Insects enjoying the sunshine

We've had lots of sunshine recently (after a very wet winter, we're having a very dry spring and need some of those traditional April showers!). The insects are enjoying the weather though. On our #DailyExercise walk a couple of days ago, we were delighted to find this ten spot ladybird in one of the cemeteries

The ten spot is a very varied species (so varied it doesn't even always have ten spots!) you can see how many forms there are of the one species here.

We've also seen these tiny little Nomada bees in the park (I don't know what species they are, if you know, please feel free to let me know in the comments). Edited to add: I think these are Marshem's Nomad bees (Nomada marshamella) as the description fits and this species is known to occur in Edinburgh and known to parasitise Andrena species of bees including Andrena scotica, the chocloate mining bee that also occurs in the park (and which I've blogged about in recent posts).

There are sometimes lots of hoverflies about, this is a marmalade hover fly, the most common species in the UK and generally quite easy to identify with its pretty stripes (though there is also a dark form that is confusing to find!)

I post all my hoverfly sightings in the UK Hoverfly Facebook group and they then get identified (if I can't do that myself), verified (where I have been able to identify, I'm not always right about it, still learning!) and then recorded.

North Merchiston Cemetery seems to be very popular with butterflies, here's another peacock

and another tortoiseshell

What interesting insects are you seeing in your garden or on your #DailyExercise route?

For Nature Notes. 

**

The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating. In England, the police advice is that you can drive to a location before walking or jogging as long as you spend more time exercising than driving, the advice from Police Scotland however, seems to be that you should not drive to a location to exercise and should only exercise very locally.

Friendly Robin, nesting blue tit and interesting Insects

Our #DailyExercise walks through a local park and two cemeteries continue. Yesterday we met this beautiful robin

and we watched this blue tit going back and forth to a hole in a tree where it obviously has a nest - one time it was going in with a large clump of either nesting material or food in its beak (click on the photo for a closer view!)

This male chaffinch was very bold

The sunshine brought out a lot of insects, including this peacock butterfly, which seemed to be somewhat the worse for wear and also smaller than normal (possibly it didn't get enough food as a caterpillar and so couldn't grow to full size?)

and over the last couple of days we've seen a lot of hoverflies including this Syrphus sp

There are hundreds of species of hoverfly and once you start to look closely you realise just how many differnt species there may be in one small area. If you have a garden, look out and see how many species you can see! So far in the two cemeteries we've seen at least five species, probably more (some species are very similar and hard to tell apart and many are so small it's very difficult to identify them). Hoverflies are harmless insects, they don't bite or sting, but they mimic insects such as bees as wasps.
 
There are loads of dandelions in the cemeteries, which are great for insects. Some of them have already started seeding

 

There's a beautiful cherry tree in one of the cemeteries, which is lovely just now

and the cherry blossoms on our street are also at their best at the moment

**
The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating.

International Bat Appreciation Day

Yesterday was International Bat Appreciation Day. 

Bats are fascinating creatures, being the only group of mammals that can truly fly. They also harbour a lot of viruses, many of which have then moved into human populations (including Ebola, Lyme disease, Rabies and corona viruses, including possibly the virus responsible for the current COVID_19 pandemic that is sweeping across the world.

There is a lot of misinformation circulating about the links between bats and COVID_19, which poses a threat to bats by fuelling unfounded fear in people. However bats are not to blame for this pandemic.

Peter Daszak, President of the U.S.-based non-profit Ecohealth Alliance, says that even if bats are the origin of the cirus, they are not to blame for the pandemic. "It's not bats. It's us. It's what we do to bats that drives this pandemic risk," Daszak said. ".....We don't need to get rid of bats. We don't need to do anything with bats. We've just got to leave them alone. Let them get on, doing the good they do, flitting around at night and we will not catch their viruses" This is a quote from an excellent article on the NPR website, you can read the whole article here.

There's another good article on the Nature website here.

Science Focus states that bats pose no bigger risk than other animals in this article.

Bat Conservation Trust has prepared a comprehensive guide to COVID_19 and bats, which you can read here.

We should conserve and protect bats and their habitats, not demonise them.

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An excellent book to read about diseases that originated in animals and then transferred to humans is David Quammen's Spillover, which I reviewed here.

#DailyExercise continues

We continue to enjoy our walks through a local park and two cemeteries. A couple of days ago, we met this lovely blue tit

and the day before we saw this chiffchaff (though possibly it's a willow warbler, they're very difficult to tell apart by sight and both species are present in both the cemeteries we visit)

There were a few butterflies around including this lovely small tortoiseshell from one of the cemeteries

and this peacock from the community park behind the supermarket

We continue to regularly see bee flies (Bombylius major)

and were very happy to see this seven spot ladybird yesterday

We're still watching the horse chestnut tree as it slowly comes into leaf and the flowers develop

 The sycamore leaves are starting to unfurl too, they always look wonderful

and the white cherry blossoms are in bloom

We have also noticed a good number of interesting gravestones in the two cemeteries, I've posted a selection of these over on my Shapeshifting Green blog, here.

 **

The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating.

Beautiful peacock butterfly

We saw this absolutely beautiful peacock butterfly today in the wee park behind the supermarket,

though we saw hardly any butterflies in the cemeteries despite the sunshine.

The few flowered leeks are in full bloom now

as are the elms

while the sycamores are starting to leaf and flower

and the coltsfoot are already starting to turn

It was lovely to see two Bombylius major bee flies 

and this Syrphus sp hoverfly

***
The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating.