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.  

haiku for the bees

dandelion clocks —
already too late
for the bees

**

originally published on Haiku Girl Summer.  

**

I published a post today on my Substack blog. It's all about birds' nests, from the beautiful magpie nest I shared photos of here a few days ago to the swifts we hope will use the nest boxes we put up a few years ago! You can read it here. 

Jungle by Patrick Roberts

 

Subtitled How Tropical Forests shaped World History, this is an ambitious history of tropical forests from prehistory to the present. 

The earliest chapters looking at prehistoric tropical forests and how they co-evolved with early animals, including dinosaurs and the first mammals were definitely the best. Later chapters dealing with early human inhabitants of the tropical forests felt too brief and could have been used as the basis for entire books. The later chapters focussed too much on issues that don't seem central to the topic. For example, the details about slavery in the tropics were fascinating and, in themselves, vital to know, but might not have needed to be expanded on so much in a book specifically about forests. I would have been more interested (in the context of rainforests) to know more about the functioning of human societies that have long lived in rainforests. The author makes a very important point that we can learn from these societies, but seems a little naive in the extent to which he thinks we could recreate ancient settlement patterns in the modern world where there is so much population pressure on tropical areas.

A central and vital theme is climate change. The book outlines how the changing prehistoric climate affected rainforests and considers how current, human-made climate change is altering rainforest habitats today, with devastating consequences for wildlife and humans alike. 

Another vital theme is how globalisation affects rainforest environments across the world. Crops such as bananas and coffee, palm oil and chocolate all grow in tropical areas and their cultivation often leads to degradation of vital rainforests. Equally important is the effect that introduced, non-native plants have had on tropical environments.

Initiatives to protect tropical rainforests are vital and are given a good discussion in this book, although I did sometimes feel the overview here was too pessimistic. (I'm pessimistic myself about the future of tropical forests, so it's perhaps unfair of me to hope that the author of this book should be able to offer more optimistic solutions to the issues.) The book ends with a call to action for everyone to do what they can to protect rainforests and to raise awareness, plus a very comprehensive bibliography and references section. 

Overall, this is an excellent book for anyone wanting an overview of the importance of tropical rainforests. The first several chapters in particular.

 Jungle by Patrick Roberts, published (2021) by Penguin. 

**

 My short story Dressing My Daughter is now featured in issue 253 of Open Book's Unbound newsletter. You can read the story here and find the questions and writing prompts inspired by the story here. 

The Hunt for the Golden Mole by Richard Girling

I thought this would be the author's travelogue on his journey to find the Somalian Golden Mole. Well it is, but he takes a lot of digressions on the way! 

The Somalian Golden Mole was first described in 1964, based on a few bones found in an owl pellet by Professor Alberto Simonetta. Since then, no trace of it has ever been found again. 

Richard Girling sets out to see the evidence of the mole's existence and to ponder why such an insignificant species should matter, and along the way looks at the history of our human relationship with wildlife. We are told how many animals have been driven to extinction, not helped by the fact of how often capturing wild animals for zoos would lead to animals dying in transit. He talks about the history of conservation organisations and their work in the field and the importance of the Red List of endangered animals, which can act as a driver to enhanced conservation measures for imperilled species. There are many species that have rarely been seen, and yet for many of them little effort is put into finding them and securing their existence. Trophy hunting is a huge risk to big game species and yet the rangers who are employed to protect the animals are at a great disadvantage compared to the hunters, many rangers are killed in their line of work. 

The author makes the point that: "[c]onservation cannot succeed without popular support, and people as well as animals need to see the benefit", later adding "the tourist is a vital link in the chain of virtue that keeps animals alive and strengthens local communities". He makes a good point, but omits to add that it needs to be the right kind of tourism. He looks in some detail at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy  where tourism brings in income for local education and other community projects. 

We're introduced to moles as a group of animal quite late in the book, and told that golden moles are not actually related to European moles, with interesting details about how scientists, particularly in the last, would base their ideas on relations between species on superficial resemblances, whereas nowadays, we can investigate the similarities in the DNA to clarify family trees. 

He talks about reintroducing species to areas where they've been lost and emphasises the importance of the right habitat still being available if such reintroductions are to be successful. 

Finally, after all these digressions (fascinating, but still, definitely digressions) the author gets to meet Professor Alberto Simonetta himself, and in fact is allowed to handle the bones of the only known Somalian Golden Mole. The professor makes the point that we need to conserve insignificant species "precisely because we don't understand their value.... we have no idea what we might be losing."

The Hunt for the Golden Mole by Richard Girling, published by Chatto and Windus (2014)

 

The Enchanted Canopy by Andrew W Mitchell

 

Subtitled "Secrets from the Rainforest Roof" this classic from the mid 1980s celebrates the wildlife of tropical rainforests around the world. Mitchell (currently director of the Global Canopy Programme) was a pioneering arboreal naturalist, as such he was influential in developing methods for studying the rainforest canopy, by constructing walkways close to the tops of the trees. 

This beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book looks at many aspects of rainforest ecology, from the relationships between pollinators and plants to the sex lives of Orang-utans to the mystery of the Calvaria tree in Mauritius, which were all ageing and unable to produce a new generation because their seeds had originally been eaten and then excreted by the Dodo, it was eventually found that the turkey had a similar enough digestive system and so the Calvaria was saved from extinction.

Mitchell clearly shows how understanding the relationships between different organisms can be of significant benefit, not only to securing the future of the rainforests, but also in enabling local agriculture to thrive: "In the past, tropical Brazil nut farmers wondered why their trees' multi-million dollar crop began to fail, until it was shown that the carpenter bees responsible for pollinating the Brazil nut trees had vanished along with the forest that used to surround the plantation."

It is notable, that even writing in 1986, Mitchell was well aware of the fragility of rainforest ecosystems, writing, for example, that in the USA: "Olive sided Flycatchers and Grey Vireos have dropped about four to eight percent every year since 1966. It seems almost certain that this is due in large part to the destruction of forests in South America, currently estimated at over four million hectares annually." He also expands on the need for arboreal naturalists to fulfil their quest to understand the 'most complex exhibition of life on earth'.

Yet tropical rainforests are still being destroyed across the world....

This is a beautiful and fascinating book that does somehow feel like entering a lost world.

The Enchanted Canopy by Andrew W Mitchell published 1986 by William Collins.

The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure by Kathleen Rundell, Illustrated by Talya Baldwin

 

This is a beautiful book full of stunning illustrations and fascinating essays about twenty-two astonishing and endangered animals, including the wombat, the swift, the hermit crab, the narwhal and of course the golden mole.

In the introduction, Rundell exhorts us to "look, only look at what is here, and would you agree to astonishment and to love? For love, allied to attention, will be urgently needed in the years to come."

 The details shared for each species (or closely allied group of species) certainly inspire curiosity, wonder and affection for each animal. There are Greenland Sharks in the ocean that have probably been alive for over six centuries, a female may take 150 years to reach breeding age. 

Swifts are the only birds to mate in mid-air, they also fly through rain showers with wings outstretched to get themselves clean. Swifts need to catch as many as a hundred thousand airborne insects a day, which means they are acutely sensitive to the current reduction in insect numbers that is happening across the world. 

Elephants may 'bury dead members of their herd, covering them in earth and brightly coloured leaves, working together, surrounding the corpse with fruit and flowers'.

There are intriguing stories here about how species interact with humans, including the crows that brought gifts to a girl who had been feeding them since she was five and one day returned her camera lens cap to her after she had lost it on a walk. Meanwhile, Rooks (also in the Corvid family) have been trained in some places to pick up litter in return for food.

Storks inspired the early aviators and in 1822, an individual with an African spear through its neck arrived in Germany, proving that birds actually migrated (rather than spending the winter at the bottom of a lake or on the moon, as had earlier been thought).

Folklore features here too, such as the Hawai'ian belief that the ʻalalā (another species of Corvid) is a guardian of the soul. A soul needs to meet a guardian ʻalalā so they can jump into the afterlife together. The bird is now extinct in the wild and attempts to reintroduce it have been beset with problems. If this bird cannot be saved, then 'one of the ways in which humans have painstakingly and generously explained death to each other will be dead and there will be no guides awaiting the souls'

Rundell also shares the many ways in which humans are driving these creatures to extinction, including overfishing of tuna, hunting elephants and pangolins, while "noise pollution risks rendering [narwhals] inaudible and effectively mute, thereby unable to protect and teach their young - we have taken their silence and replaced it with a nightclub roar." 

The golden mole, which isn't actually a mole, is the only iridescent mammal: "under different lights and from different angles, their fur shifts through turquoise, navy, purple, gold....... but the golden mole is blind... unaware of [its] beauty, unknowingly glowing."

This is a book to treasure, along with all the wonderful unique lifeforms described in its pages.

I have a copy of the hardback which was published in 2022, but it is now also available in paperback. 

The Golden Mole by Katherine Rundell, illustrated by Talya Baldwin, published (2022 in hardback) by Faber.

Leopard Falls at Midnight

 The moon illuminated mountains and whales fighting for survival in the receding oceans. The scales fell from my eyes.

Midnight, the very last hour. Can we save those giant whales, the leopards or even the palm trees lurking on the shores of our imaginations?

Moons spin, clouds fall. We are all too caught up in the unreal world before our eyes, clouding perception.

It's midnight, wake up, people! Watch the leopard falling from the sky, floodlit by the dying moon. And try to tell me it's not too late.

**

Previously published in Visual Poetry Volume 9, Chapter 11 where you can the whole chapter and see the artwork that inspired it all.

Everything's in Bloom but Where are the Insects?

The white flowering trees are in full bloom across Edinburgh at the moment and looking wonderful. These include Hawthorn

 

Whitebeam 

and Holly 

But where are the insects that should be busily feeding on these blooms? Given that it's generally colder than England and Wales, Scotland never has the number of insects that are traditionally seen down south, but this year there are very few indeed. Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable decline in many insects, but this year, the decrease in insect life is starkly obvious to anyone who pays attention. 

This patch of comfrey, alongside the Water of Leith, was buzzing with several species of bee this morning (Buff Tailed Bumblebees, Common Carders, Early Bumblebees, Tree Bumblebees and Honey Bees.)

but apart from that spot, and decent numbers of Seven Spot Ladybirds in a few places, there are very few insects about at the moment. I've seen a handful of Orange Tip butterflies, a small number of Speckled Wood butterflies, the occasional hoverfly and little else. 

I've seen people across the UK reporting similar observations on social media. This is a very worrying trend, not only for the insects themselves but for the birds and other animals that feed on them and for the insect pollinated crops we rely on for food. 

The insect conservation charity, Buglife, are looking for people in the UK to get involved in their Bugs Matter survey. You can find out more about all their surveys, past and present, here. And Buglife are running a 'No Insectinction' campaign to raise awareness of the plight of insects.

Are you seeing many insects in your part of the world? 

Should we Destroy Woodland to build Cyclepaths?

Apparently Edinburgh's Sauchiebank Wood has now been basically entirely destroyed to make way for a cyclepath. Those of us who have protested against this destruction are particularly upset about this. We really need to stop destroying nature for the sake of infrastructure. 

Local information boards about the cycle path claim it will 'revitalise underused greenspaces' whereas what has happened is an underappreciated green-space seems to have been entirely destroyed. (I haven't seen the site as it currently is, I'm relying on Crafty Green Boyfriend's observations from when he passed by earlier today).

This is how the woodland looked back in 2020 when I visited it to highlight the threat the cycle path posed to this small woodland. It was a lovely area of trees.

  

Back in December 2021, I blogged about the planned cycle path and protests against it here and here. There's also a blogpost on the Trees of Edinburgh site. The protests were obviously unsuccessful. Apparently, according to this tweet from Edinburgh tree campaigner Andrew Heald, city councillor Val Waker yesterday said: “It is really important that we look after Edinburgh’s wonderful tree legacy for future generations.” So the question needs to be asked, why are we chopping down perfectly healthy trees to make way for a cycle path? 

Cycling is a green form of transport (though the ever increasingly popular electric bike is far less eco-friendly than a traditional bike) but that shouldn't justify destroying woodland! Also, just because few people visited the woodland doesn't mean that it wasn't valuable. It provided a home for insects and birds and a much-needed green oasis in a built-up area.

Passenger Pigeon

There are wild pigeons in winter beyond number or imagination,
myself have seen three or four hours together flocks in the air
so thick that even have they shadowed the sky from us¹
Mile after mile of forest dense with the birds,
each tree creaking with hundreds of nests,
white from the droppings.
Whole trees falling and dying.

And the birds such fools, we could pluck them from the sky,
lift them from their nests. Such billions a sign
from God that this was our promised land
and they our larder.

The war that broke our land blinded us to bird-loss.
We thought only of survival as we carried on hunting
provisions for conflict starved troops,
abandoned families.

And still with the loss there were millions,
riches beyond the thought
of our younger European selves.

And we did not think.

We carried on shooting
and we did not think.

When an individual is seen gliding through the woods
and close to the observer,
it passes like a thought,
and on trying to see it again,
the eye searches in vain;

the bird is gone.²

 
¹ early settler in Virginia 
² naturalist, J J Audobon

**
I'm reposting this poem for National Poetry Day 2022, which has a theme of Environment.

On Fire

Our primal memories shimmer
with the red of the first fire,
our pride in making heat and light.

We sheltered it and worshipped it,
built our homes around the hearth,
carried it with us to new lands.

But awe became obsession
as we sought out hotter fire
and better tools for making heat and light.

Now endless burning forests
fill the air with clouds of smoke
and the cries of dying animals

hang in the orange skies.

 

Previously published in Green Ink Poetry Pyres edition. 

Carnivorous Nights - On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger

 

 

Carnivorous Nights, subtitled On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger is the account by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson (with illustrations by Alexis Rockman) of their trip to Tasmania to look for the probably extinct thylacine. 

Journeying through the Australian island of Tasmania, these young naturalists seek out traces of the long lost creature, that is generally believed to have been hunted to extinction. They speak to scientists, conservationists and people who believe they have had recent sightings of the thylacine. 

Along the way they explore the stunning scenery of this unique island, which still holds many species 'of animals that have perished on the Australian mainland (though with non-native predators now ranging trhough Tasmania, how long will these unique species last even here?). It's not only introduced predators that are problematic, but rabbits too. Rabbits 'nibbled grazzing lands bare, destroyed the fragile landscape with their burrowing and displaced native burrowers like the hare wallaby, bilby and bandicoot.' Rabbits have been somewhat controlled since the introduction of rabbit viruses in the 1950s but still have a bad reputation. There's even an inspiring campaign to replace the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby, including chocolate Easter Bilbies (I was fascinated by the reference to Easter Bilblies in the book, you can find out more about the campaign here.)

The group have a lot of adventures on the way, and there's a lot of humour in the narrative. But also an underlying sadness. So much of the native forest is being lost, so many species going the way of the thylacine. Large areas of the Tasmanian forests are being clearcut for timber, with signs along the paths highlighting how much timber could be produced by a particularly large tree, and what this timber could be used for, including, once all the good quality timber has been used up, enough paper to 'photocopy the complete works of Shakespeare 3000 times over'. The authors point out there would (rightly) be an outcry if there were a similar notice in an art gallery: 

'The by products from taking a sledgehammer to just one of Michelangelo's great works can produce enough tiling to panel the bathroom in every suite at the Ritz Carlton. And after that enough scrap marble will be left over to make 800 six inch high souvenir reproductions of David for sale at our gift shop.'

We wouldn't countenance this attitude to human made works of art, so why do we accept it when it refers to unique and magnificent living beings?

The book also features Rockman’s beautifully haunting drawings of flora and fauna originally crafted from natural materials including river mud, wombat scat, and even the artist’s own blood.

Read this book, marvel at the wonder of Tasmanian wildlife and landscape, then hop over to Change.org to sign this petition to save Tasmania's native animals.

 

 Carnivorous Nights, On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson (with illustrations by Alexis Rockman) published by Penguin Ramdon House (2005)

 

 

Towards a Dictionary of Archaic Terms 2100AD

rainforest (n) dense forest found in tropical areas of heavy rainfall.
(New Collins Concise English Dictionary 1982)
 
Dense is easy – thick and heavy.

Forest? - even the oldest of us here admit
we struggle to remember expanses of trees
(rare tall, woody plants, once common).

Tropical then was the small area
hot as everywhere is now.

Heavy rainfall? – we who barely know rain
can only dream of heavy.

Remaining documents of forests
contain solidly green photos, strange names
and archaic terms we no longer understand:
Parrots.
Monkeys.
Rivers.

We have a long task ahead.

**

Originally posted in March 2007 for the now defunct Poetry Thursday. 

This poem was translated into Spanish by Eugenia Andino, you can read the translation here.

**
I'm delighted to have a poem in the 2nd issue of the Manchester based Re-side. You can read the publication here. 

The Missing Lynx by Ross Barnett

 

15,000 years ago, Britain was home to lynx, bears, wolves, bison and many other species of large mammals. But climate change and the spread of human populations changed the landscape and wiped out wildlife, resulting in the loss of most of our megafauna.

In The Missing Lynx, palaeontologist Ross Barnett introduces us one by one to the magnificent creatures that have been lost from these islands, some of which are globally extinct, others which are missing here but still live on elsewhere and could potentially be reintroduced. He starts from the beginning with the cave hyena which became extinct in Britain 46,000 BC and was globally extinct by 29,000 BC and ends with the European beaver which became extinct in these islands in the 16th century but which has, with some success, been reintroduced.

He examines stone age cave art and carvings to get an idea of our ancient ancestors' relationships with the animals such as cave lions that they shared their world with. He is also a mine of fascinating facts such as how to tell the difference between ivory from mammoths and that from elephants and why some mammoths grew a silky coat. He muses on how difficult it is to tell exactly when wolves became domesticated into dogs and looks at how the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone had a beneficial effect on the area's ecology. and suggests that Scotland would benefit from wolves too, with all the excess deer we have (though those who like to hunt deer for fun would disagree with the wolves return).

He also has this to say about the Scottish wildcat, which still hangs on in parts of the Highlands:

'The wild glens and strachs cannot even support a 5kg (11 pound) wildcat thanks to humans. It will in all likelihood soon be gone. But we won't notice for a little while. The abundance of feral cats and hybrids will ensure that the true wildcat will disappear without fanfare, masked by the abundance of a similar form.'

Barnett looks at the potential of reintroductions, rewilding and resurrection. He suggests that lynx would be an ideal candidate for reintroduction and his argument is very persuasive and includes strategies for reducing antagonism from farmers, my only issue with it is that it would seem to be a shame to put energy, resources and money into reintroducing the lynx when wildcats need so much help to remain here.


This is a fascinating and entertaining book, packed full of interesting facts, enthusiasm for these lost creatures and hope for the renewal rewilding could bring to our landscapes and ecologies.  Read it.


The Missing Lynx by Ross Barnett, published by Bloomsbury.

Coming Soon! Holyrood Rebel Camp

 Extinction Rebellion are organising a massive “Rebel Camp” outside the Scottish Parliament from 16th
to 20th June, to pressure the Scottish Parliament into adopting ambitious amendments to the Scottish 
Climate Bill.You can find out more and register your interest at the Facebook event.

The camp will offer a range of activities including creative events, bike rides, discussions and 
non-violent civil disobedience. You have such a range of options that you don't need to feel that you need 
to risk arrest or do nothing. The idea is to have fun while alerting politicians and others to the urgency 
of the climate emergency that we face. 

More information from Extinction Rebellion below: 

Holyrood Rebel Camp

Climate emergency has been declared by our politicians: they have told the truth. Now they need to act 
as if that truth is real, with legally binding policy measures. The Scottish Climate Change Bill sets a 
2045 net zero carbon emissions. At the same time, the Scottish Government supports maximum North 
Sea oil extraction. On June 18th and 25th, amendments will be discussed  in the Scottish Parliament. 
We demand MSPs change the Bill’s target for net zero carbon emissions to 2025, and create a
 Climate Citizens’ Assembly to oversee the changes. We will set up a Holyrood Rebel Camp to 
pressure our politicians to pass these amendments.

This will be a fun and peaceful gathering. There will be outreach, performances, protests, workshops, 
talks, people’s assemblies, but also non-violent direct action (NVDA).

We are taking action in Scotland because of our reputation as world-leading on climate. Whatever Bill 
passed will likely be among the least inadequate legislation in the world. An effective Climate Bill 
would pressure other governments to follow. Scotland can be a world leader on climate and ecological 
emergency. But we’re almost out of time, and we need to get the message heard loud and clear, 
before it’s too late.

The time to take action is now. Join us!

TEMPORARY PROGRAMME :

Sunday 16th June: Pedal on Parliament (critical mass bike rides from Glasgow and elsewhere). 
Wee Rebellion. Rebel Camp setup

Monday 17th June: Big Launch - Parade of Life starting from St Giles Cathedral at 10am, down the 
Royal Mile to arrive at Parliament around 11am

Tuesday 18th June: Morning - People's Assembly with MSPs; Civil Society. Afternoon - 
Climate Bill Debate in Parliament, Workshops and Debates at the Camp

Wednesday 19th June: Regenerative day - family-friendly activities at the Camp and in Holyrood Park 
and environs

Thursday 20th June: Dance of Death and mass die-in. Launch of Climate Citizens' Assembly campaign. Closing ceremony and 
break camp

More information on the Extinction Rebellion Facebook sites:

Extinction Rebellion Scotland.

Extinction Rebellion Edinburgh.

Extinction Rebellion are also looking for creative input to their programme during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which will be happening at Summerhall throughout the festival. You can find out more here.

The Animals Decide to Become Invisible

Tigers went first, they were tired

of being accused over every cow

that went missing so faded away

to sunset stripes that shimmered

then were gone.

Lions, jaguars, leopards and cheetahs

vanished, chasing their fast fading prey,

their roars and growls hung

in the air for a while

then silence.

Polar bears slid over ice into virtual dens,

burrowing into new dimensions

where they met penguins

and walruses slipping equally fast

out of sight.

Fish, frogs and snakes buried themselves

in mud, wriggled for a time

then went still, while the birds

spiralled away

into cloud.

Finally, domestic cats prowled

down their secret highways

curious to know where the mice

had gone, miaows echoing

in our memories.

Leaving only pet dogs,

too obedient to leave our sides

but wondering what had happened

to all the smells

they used to love.

**

This poem was originally published in Orbis magazine a few years ago but I'm posting it here now to mark the publication of the Global Assessment report from the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warning that 1 million animal and plant species are facing extinction because of human activity.

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

 

This novel is made up of three stories about people who are connected with bees.

In 1851 William is a biologist and seed merchant who keeps bees and wants to design a new type of hive, but always seems to be behind the times.

In 2007 George keeps bees in the USA and finds his hives hit by Colony Collapse Disorder, threatening his livelihood and with wider implications for farming across the country.

2098 Tao lives in China, in a world where the bees have died out and she is one of the people employed to hand pollinate fruit trees.

All three characters have sons and the parent-child relationship is as important a part of the stories as is the human-bee relationship.

I didn't really get into this book, though I was interested in the way it looks at our relationship with bees and the wider environment. I couldn't really engage with any of the characters and I found the long drawn out search for what was wrong with Tao's son to be tedious, because to me, reading in 2019 it seemed obvious what had happened to him (though acknowledging that to Tao it wouldn't be). I did like the ending, where things are brought together and though the ending is in many ways depressing there is also hope.

I also struggled in a sense with reading a book where one part of the story is set in the UK and one in the US but it was originally written in Norwegian and translated by an American. So the UK section and the US section both seem American, which is annoying and is an issue of translation rather than the original writing.

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley published by Simon and Schuster (2017)

Of Apes and Poetry

A new population of orang utan was discovered in 2007 in the Batang Toru area in Sumatra and these apes were recognised as a new species in 2017 and called the Tapanuli orang utan.

So what do the authorities decide to do? Immediately declare the new species home a nature reserve? No, they decide to flood the area, home not only to the only 800 Tapanuli orang utans known to exist, but also to tigers and other rare animals. For the sake of producing electricity in an area that apparently already has an over abundance of electricity generation.

Thanks to Poetry 24 for publishing my poem about this today, which you can read here.

I've also written a letter on this topic for the Letters to the Earth project - they're accepting letters on ecological issues until 22 March so you've still got time to send something in. Letters will be read out in April as part of a large scale reading. You can find out more here.

If you want to find out more about the Tapanuli orang utan and the threats to its future, you can follow the links below:

World's rarest orang utan under threat (Guardian)

Damming Evidence (report from SOS Orang Utans)

You can find out about the SOS campaign to cancel the dam here.

Trophy Film Review

A sobering, and often difficult to watch, documentary, Trophy examines the interconnectedness of industrial scale big-game hunting, breeding, and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa to show the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities. Interviewing animal breeders, hunt organisers, ecologists and wildlife rangers, the film asks such important questions as:

As Africa’s most iconic animals continue to disappear, can the controversial practices of hunting and breeding actually help to increase the populations?

Can assigning economic value to an animal help to conserve it?

What gives humans the right to own animals and to decide whether they live or die?

And is there any real future for a “natural” world in our rapidly developing, capitalist world? 

The film is given a 15 certificate for its release in the UK with 'strong language' being given as the reason for this certificate, overlooking the scenes of hunting and animal corpses that would surely make any caring parent want to keep their children away from the film. Scenes that make the film difficult to watch for anyone who cares about animals and the future of biodiversity on this planet.

However it is worth watching precisely because it asks difficult questions and forces the viewer to see things from an angle they may not want to consider.

One focus of the film is on large scale farming of rhinos for their horn, which can be harvested every couple of years giving the rhinos a long life, though whether a truly happy is life is as debateable as whether free range cattle or chickens lead a happy life, or more so as rhinos are still wild creatures whereas cattle and chickens are domesticated. But is it better to have plenty of rhinos living in large fenced off reserves where they are farmed and protected from poaching, or to allow their numbers to decline to zero as it looks like they otherwise will inevitably do?

Hunting is also brought in as away of conserving nature. Allowing wealthy foreigners to pay large sums of money to shoot trophy animals brings in money that can then conserve the wider populations of these animals and the habitats they live in. I can see the logic in this and according to the film there are parts of South Africa that now have larger populations of some wild animals because they are being bred for hunting. However it is horrible to think that this is what we have come to as a society and it is appalling to watch some rich American who thinks that God put animals on the earth so he could shoot them killing a lion. And it's heartbreaking to watch the slow death of a slaughtered elephant or to witness a baby rhino running around crying after it's mother has been killed.

Trophy will screen at Edinburgh Filmhouse on Thursday 21 December. 

White Rhino, Matobo

Even de-horned*

to deter poachers

it was magnificent

as odd and ancient

as the primeval rocks

of the Matobo.

Wide mouthed and grey white

it watched us

as we watched it

through lenses

taking photos that fade

with the years

as the rhinos

become memories.

First posted for World Rhino Day 2012. World Rhino Day happens every year on 22 September.   

You can read about the work of the World Wildlife Fund to help rhinos here. 

* rhinos have sometimes had their horns surgically removed to deter poachers. However, this is a stressful operation for the rhinos and not necessarily effective as poachers will kill rhinos for very small amounts of horn, particularly as the animals become rarer and rarer.  

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