Robin

 

autumn sunshine -
the robin's song
changes key 

 

previously published on Haiku Seeds.  

Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian

 

I first came across Lev Parikian via his excellent Six Things Substack, which includes his 100 Birds posts, which are clearly related to his book Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? 

As a youngster, Lev Parikian was an avid birdwatcher. He also told lies about his birdwatching success.  One hundred and thirty species ticked off on his list? It was really more like sixty. When he turned fifty, he decided to go birdwatching again.  He would aim to see two hundred British bird species in a year. And this time he wouldn't lie.

This book details the author's rediscovery of the joys and challenges of birdwatching. The narrative skillfully blends information with personal anecdote, plenty of humour and vivid descriptions such as this observation of a group of Canada Geese: 

"A squadron of eight birds organising themselves into formation, calling to each other in fervid excitement, a frenzy of organised chaos coming together at the last second as the final goose slots into place. They churn the water and the air, sending their fellow waterfowl scuttling for cover.... I'm struck by the everyday beauty of the spectacle." 

This sighting of a common bird is what really sets Lev off on his ambition to see 200 birds in Britain in one year. Two hundred seeming like a manageable target. So each chapter tells of a month's birdwatching, his visits to various bird reserves around Britain and his meetings with conservationists and bird experts. There's a list of birds seen that month at the end of  each chapter so you can follow his progress as he goes along. He's not just ticking birds off a list though, he's learning about their behaviour, the evolution of flight and birdsong. As a conductor he's particularly interested in music, but admits to finding birdsong challenging (which I think is something most of us can relate to!). 

His enthusiasm always shines through, he's always as delighted to see a common bird as a rarity and has little time for the type of birder who'll ignore a whole flock of lapwings in pursuit of a rarity. He also makes the point that a birder from the 1950s would wonder where all the birds have gone, lapwings nowadays are almost a rarity themselves. 

One of my favourite parts of the book is where he visits Edinburgh and discovers the wonderful place for birds that is the Water of Leith (one of my favourite birding places). 

"The Water of Leith is twenty-five miles long. The odds against there being a dipper on this short stretch must be ooh look, there's a dipper."  

 This is a very entertaining and informative book for anyone interested in birds, particularly anyone who grew up enjoying birdwatching and who has lost the habit. Reading this will definitely make you want to get back out into the field.  

Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian, published by Unbound.  

.  

Waterbirds enjoying the Rain

 It was raining most of the day on Saturday but that didn't stop us enjoying a wander around Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Gardens. This family of Moorhens seemed to be happy with the weather

 as did this Mallard mother and her duckling (she seemed to only have one, I'm guessing she must have lost a few to predation from gulls and other predators). 

 

Nesting Lesser Black Backed Gulls

I love watching this nest from our living room window. The Lesser Black Backed Gulls nested later than usual this year as they first had to get through an extended territorial dispute with a painr of Herring Gulls. But they kept the Herring Gulls off this prime nesting spot and now have two chicks. 

We'll watch the chicks as they grow up. Once they get to a certain size, they'll leave the small nest site and drop down to the flat roof, that you can't see in the photo but which sits in between the roofs that you can see. This flat roof offers a perfect nursery for the chicks and they'll spend many a happy hour chasing each other round and then resting in the shade. Lesser Black Backed Gulls have nested at this site for many years now and always provide great entertainment! 

**

It's time to vote for the Woodland Trust's Tree of the Year! There are ten trees to choose from, each with its own story - trees that have inspired poetry and music and trees that have seen historical events. Find out more and vote here. 
 

A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare

 

Swallows are wonderful birds, one of our most familiar summer migrants (though not as common as they once were). 

In this book, the author aims to follow the approximate route taken by a migrating Barn Swallow from South Africa to South Wales. He travels overland and only rarely sees swallows, so the book is mostly about the experiences of travelling across Africa, interwoven with occasional sightings of swallows, details about their biology and habits and the place of swallows in religion, folklore and literature. The author comments on local customs, political borders and environmental degradation (particularly deforestation). 

He notes that birdwatching as we in the UK know it, is a 'luxury' and not something that people across Africa generally engage in, though he does meet some swallow experts and fans along the way and learns some local names for swallow, including Nyankalema the Zambian name which translates as 'the one that never gets tired'. 

Swallows meet with many perils on their journey, including needing to cross the Sahara, storms, collisions with traffic and predation. Yet every year they return to our shores to delight us. 

"they seemed to delight in chaos, charging zig-zag into space, which was at once empty and full, as though playing chicken with physics."

A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare, published (2009) by Vintage.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare, published (2009) by Vintage.  

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! 

fledgling haiku

newly fledged blackbirds
in the garden —
shadow of a cat

**

originally published on Haiku Girl Summer. 

 

A few days in and around Perth

 We had a lovely few days away in and around Perth last week. The very changeable weather didn't stop us enjoying a few walks. The highlight was going to the Tay Reedbeds, with the aim of finding Bearded Tits (now also known as Bearded Reedlings). There's a lovely walk from the village of Errol, which takes in the reedbeds and the surrounding area:

 

We were lucky enough to see a couple of Bearded Tits, though we didn't get a close up view! We also saw and heard: Yellowhammers, Reed Buntings and Sedge Warblers. After a lovely lunch in the cafe in Errol, we had a quick visit to the Cistern Green Wildlife Garden and Community Orchard, which is a lovely greenspace. 

On another day we had a lovely walk up Kinnoul Hill, which we visit every time we're in Perth. The walk is a lovely mix of woodland

scrubby heathland  

and amazing views over the River Tay (the silvery areas near the river are reflections from the polytunnels in fruit farms)

We had a couple of walks along the River Tay, which runs through the centre of Perth

 

 

and visited a couple of local parks

 We were impressed by the wetland area in the main Perth park

where we became surrounded by feral pigeons, even though we weren't feeding them

Some of the pigeons were very pretty 

We were very happy to find a good number of House Martins and Swifts flying around above the river in some places. 

Perth is always a nice place to visit, as well as the lovely walks, it has a good selection of cafes and restaurants and a good museum and art gallery. 

**

I'm delighted to have a poem included in the Ekphrastic Review's selection of responses to a work by Severine Gallardo.  

You can read my latest Substack post, the first in a series about 30 Days Wild, here.  

 

Weekend Walk round Arthur's Seat

 

Arthur's Seat is one of our favourite places for a weekend walk, not least as there are a number of different walks to do on the hill. Yesterday, we enjoyed a sunny morning walk and were back home in time to avoid getting wet in the (much needed) rain that fell for most of the afternoon. 

One of the most wonderful things about Arthur's Seat is that Ravens nest there and yesterday we were lucky enough to see three of these magnificent birds, though only one deigned to be photographed

Lots of flowers are currently in bloom, including Viper's Bugloss 

and Cow Parsley

 and Birds Foot Trefoil 

In the middle of the photo above you'll see a Seven-spot Ladybird. There were a huge number of these lovely insects around yesterday, I've not seen so many of them since the heatwave of summer 1976, which is famous for the huge number of Seven-Spot ladybirds seen everywhere. 

With it being Spring, some of the water birds had youngsters with them, we were delighted to see this Mute Swan family with four cygnets

and two families of Mallards, one of which had three very young ducklings 

As we were getting towards the end of our walk, we met this magnificent male Pheasant

heat haze haiku

skylarksong—
blue butterflies flutter
in heat hazed fields

 

originally published in Haiku Girl Summer.  

**

May is the perfect time to take a walk, so that's what I wrote about in my latest Crafty Green Poet Substack post, which you can read here.

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael McCarthy

 This a beautiful, but sobering book about the UK's Spring migrants, which make up about a quarter of all our bird species. 

"If we could see it as a whole, if they all arrived in a single flood, say, and they came in the day instead of the night, we would be truly amazed." From this opening onwards, this is a celebration of the wonders of the birds who visit our shores to breed and who then leave again to escape our winters. It's also a call for us all (not just birdwatchers) to notice these birds again and to conserve them before they disappear from our skies. 

The book looks at not only the natural history of several of our migrant songbirds, but also considers their cultural impact, from the immortalisation of Nightingales in poetry and song, to our contradictory feelings about Cuckoos being both the harbingers of Spring (due to their song) and their being symbols of deception (for laying their eggs in other birds' nests).

The author travels throughout England and visits Gibraltar (a crossing point for many species migrating from Africa to Europe), in search of migrant songbirds, meeting scientists, conservation workers and gardeners. He also outlines some of the biology involved in migration and some of the history of how scientists learned about migration from Aristotle's early observations, to Gilbert White, the first person to really record detailed notes about the arrivals of local birds in his Natural History of Selbourne, published in 1789 and coming up to date with a brief history of bird ringing (banding in the US) and how that has helped work out migration routes. 

The largest part of the book focuses in detail on selected species of the UK Spring migrants, including Swallow, Wood Warbler and Turtle Dove. His writing is full of enthusiasm and wonder, the joy of listening to the songs of these migrants, because their songs are such a part of our experience of the natural world in Spring. I love the description of listening to the Sedge Warbler as he mimics a variety of other species of birds, so well that at one point McCarthy looks around for the passing Greenshank and has to be reminded that the sound is coming from the Sedge Warbler. 

There are stories of conservation efforts throughout the book, including Edward Mayer, who spends most of his time campaigning to conserve Swifts, including installing swift nest boxes on buildings across London; and the villagers in Worcestershire who got together to record and conserve the Spotted Flycatchers in their area. 

The final two chapters look in more detail at the threats facing out Spring migrants, from loss of nesting sites here, through the lack of insects and other food sources to the degradation of the habitat in the birds' wintering grounds and the effect of climate change on the timing of natural events (many caterpillars no appear earlier than they used to, but the migrants aren't able to alter their journey times to keep up with the peak supply of their food sources). Bird surveying is highlighted as being vital if we are to understand what is happening to bird populations. 

"Over thosands of years [these birds] have inspired us to poetry and prompted us to proverbs, they have been the source of a vast treasury of European folklore, legends and literature, and they have been so woven into the fabric of our culture as to become part of the continent's idea of itself. A Europe without its Spring-bringers is almost as unthinkable as a Europe without its cathedrals."

Yet, with the numbers of so many of these migrant birds plummeting as they are, are we actually approaching a time when we will find ourselves saying goodbye to the cuckoo? 

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael McCarthy published (2009) by John Murray Press.  

Hawthorn in Bloom

 I did a butterfly survey today at Edinburgh Agro-ecology's project at Lauriston Farm. The weather was perfect for butterflies, warm and sunny with not too much wind. The farm is looking particularly lovely at the moment with all the Hawthorn trees and hedges being in full bloom 

It was lovely to see so many small insects on this Dandelion flower

This used to be the standard situation for dandelion flowers, they used to be always covered in small insects, but these days this is a rare sighting, many dandelion flowers these days have no obvious insects on them, which is a sad indication of the decline in insect numbers. As insects decline so do the birds and other animals that feed on them. Some insects are more well liked than others, most people like butterflies for example! On today's survey, I saw a good number of butterflies, but the only one that wasn't a species of white butterfly was this rather faded looking Speckled Wood 

I saw and heard a lot of birds, including: Reed Bunting, Skylark, Meadow Pipit; House Martin; Swallow and several Whitethroats (in fact I don't think I've ever seen or heard so many Whitethroats in one place). I also was interested (and saddened) to find this dead newt - probably a Palmate Newt. I had no idea there were newts at the farm! 

Although this sunny weather that has lasted for most of the year so far is lovely and great for butterflies, we desperately need more rain. There have been wildfires across the country (and Scotland is not a country where wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem!) and fire warnings are in place. Rain isn't forecast for Edinburgh for at least another week.  

The beautiful East Lothian Coastline

 Yesterday we decided on an impulse to go to Dunbar in East Lothian to walk along the beautiful coastal path there. The weather was perfect and the views were as stunning as ever. 

 

If you look across the water, you can see Bass Rock in the distance, famous for its large colony of Gannets (which are responsible for the white colour you can see in this zoomed in photo)

We only saw one Gannet during our walk, but we were very impressed by many of the other birds we saw. A decent sized colony of Kittiwakes nests on cliffs just outside Dunbar. These are lovely members of the gull family, who helpfully call their name: Kittiwake! In the photo below you get some idea of the colony 

and here is a close up of  three of the birds which gives you some idea of the messiness of the nesting area

Kittiwakes aren't the only birds nesting in good numbers on this stretch of coastline, we were delighted to find ourselves surrounded by more Sand Martins than we've ever seen before! These birds, related to swallows, nest in holes in the cliffs, you can see several nest holes in  the photo below - the birds themselves are much trickier to capture on film as they move so quickly! 

There is also a good variety of beautiful flowers in the area too, including Thrift (sometimes known as Sea Pink) 

Birds-foot Trefoil 

and Ribwort Plantain 

So if you're looking for beautiful coastal scenery or wonderful wildlife, Dunbar is definitely a great place for a day trip. 

Magpie Nest

 This beautiful creation is the work of a pair of Magpies. They had carefully made this nest in a conifer tree at the edge of  Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother's garden. I even watched them carrying some of the larger twigs into the tree. But then a couple of days ago the nest fell out of the conifer, landing on top of the eating apple tree in the garden. Crafty Green Boyfriend then removed it from the apple tree and placed it on the garden bench. The local fox has been playing with some of the twigs in the nest, but still, you can see it is a wonderful creation. 

a closer look shows the different layers to the nest, with the lining being made from very fine vegetation

 I hope the Magpies are able to make another nest in which to raise their young, though no doubt the other birds in the neighbourhood would be pleased to not have another generation of Magpies in the area to potentially steal their eggs ...