Birding and an interesting find

John Muir Walkway, Musselburgh

Skylarks sing from the clouds. Pussy willow catkins, losing their fluffiness, are becoming yellow with pollen, a bright contrast to the mostly mist-subdued colours. Winter browned grass. Grey sea.

A chaffinch sings. I love the fact that chaffinches have dialects depending on where they live. This one though, seems to have a dialect all of its own. It sings quite distinctly 'Scooby Doo' at the end of every phrase.

I enjoy the quieteness here, very few people around most times. Today though in one of the hides:

discussing football
the birdwatching group waits
for a rarity.

I don't know what the rarity was. I love seeing the variety of birds here, there's always something different even on the days when I don't see a rarity.

Today the most notable find though is a large number of pellets, produced by birds of prey that have been deposited on the sea walls. I've rarely seen these pellets here, and never in such number. 

Using the RSPB's helpful guide to bird of prey pellets, I work out that these are probably from kestrels or short eared owls. Short eared owls are rare, daytime hunting owls, but are seen frequently round here. I had a very close encounter with one a few months ago.

For Nature Notes

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more. 

Haiku and haibun update

I'm delighted that one of my haiku came third in the recent Sketchbook kukai (haiku contest voted on by the participants). Another of my haiku came joint sixth. Thanks for everyone who voted for me! You can read all the haiku here.

I am also delighted to have a haibun in the first issue of A Hundred Gourds, a lovely new journal devoted to haiku, haibun and similar poetic forms. Yu can read my haibun here.

Lunar Eclipse

Memories of a reddening moon sliding through the sky outside the window. I watched every moment of the last lunar eclipse. Awed. This time though there was no chance to see it. Our flat faces the wrong way. We're too lazy to get up very early and travel through the snow and ice to find (and climb) a hill from which to watch, with no guarantee of clear skies. I took out the recycling early as an excuse to look for the moon. No luck. From ground level it was too low to see.

Somewhere
behind those buildings -
lunar eclipse.

But I have memories from a few years ago, a reddening moon in an awestruck night.

Water of Leith

at the river's edge
knee deep in wild garlic
a roe deer watches

The ground is carpeted with celandines, with occasional wood sorrel and other flowers as well as the dense green carpets of wild garlic, which mostly still isn't in flower. The air is full of birdsong, plenty of birds to be seen too - blue tits, great tits, robins, blackcaps, two pairs of bullfinches chasing each other, chaffinches and on the water grey heron and dippers.

a buzzard
swoops over the river -
markings fieldguide clear

(Thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for the photo).
(You can see some photos of celandines in these posts here and here.)

Cherry trees

The cherry trees in the garden of the building opposite our flat are temperamental. A couple of years ago they bloosomed twice in one season. This year they stubbornly refused to bloom, even when most of the other cherry trees in Edinburgh had started their belated blooming, most of Spring being late this year.

I went down to Bristol for a few days, saying goodbye to the bare branched cherry trees. But what happened while I was away?

home again -
our cherry trees finally
in blossom.

Rich blossoms pink against the creamy walls of the old school building.

The Office Allotment

Jackdaws chack from the trees as they gather in groups. A cool breeze blows up the hillside. The allotment garden is sheltered from the worst of the winds by the office building, an old farm steading. I eat slowly, preferring to have lunch before we start spreading manure on the soil. My fellow office gardeners arrive late, one in his pin striped suit, fresh from an important meeting. We work for different organisations and this is a good way to mix socially. We divide the garden tools between us and set to work, I choose to weed rather than spread manure. A whole area of the garden has been entirely cleared since yesterday! That must have been the elusive extra member of the gardening team, who only ever appears when no-one else is around, but does loads of hard work. We chat about what we want to grow and what has the best chance of growing well here. Some plants haven't thrived at all.

what ate last year's peas?

a pheasant calls and struts

in a nearby field.

Water of Leith

The woodland floor is vibrant with wild garlic leaves even though the trees are mostly barely in bud.

thin drizzle -

jackdaws gather twigs

and chatter

Quarrymill Woodland Park, Perth

The mallards feeling Spring in the air despite the ice under their feet. One male pecked his beak onto a female's back and when water began to puddle there he lifted himself onto her and seemed to almost drown her, but hopefully there'll be chicks as a result later in the Spring.

We found a new path leading up from the river to the woodland edge and across farmland to the village of Gannochy. The sky big to the distant snowy hills and raining the joyful sound of skylarks.
The next day, under hazy skies the bus took us through snowy hills and past a silvery Loch Leven.

geese skein

across patchwork fields -

new shoots appear

(haiku previously published in Blithe Spirit, the journal of the British Haiku Society)

Quarrymill Woodland Perth is owned and managed by the Gannochy Trust.

First Frost

The trees, mostly bare branched now, reach up to perfect blue skies. Melting frost falls like rain with a flurry of last leaves. Coal tits chatter.

A dog walker stops me. 'You've not got a dog!' he says surprised. I nod and smile. 'But everyone who walks here has a dog!'. He walks on shaking his head, his dog trotting along after him.

Frost white grass -

a thin mist rises

from the river.

A dipper calls loudly and flies quickly upstream.

along the Water of Leith

Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh

A hot sunny day. Three small copper butterflies flutter across the path, tantalisingly disappearing into the long grass. We discuss how we've not seen many of them over the past couple of years, despite this being perfect habitat for them. Up the hill and round the corner, we find a patch of giant daisies. Four small copper butterflies flutter from flower to flower. We've never seen so many in one place! We walk further, listening to whitethroats and chaffinches singing, watching jackdaws ride the thermals above the rocky outcrops. Later, we walk back down the hill, past the same group of small coppers, into a stand of trees.

a warm breeze -

falling elm fruits

catch the sun.

........

Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh. New Banner photo shows small copper butterflies on large daisies, taken by Crafty Green Boyfriend

Walking through Edinburgh

Frost on the paths through Bruntsfield, onto the Links and past the Plague Pits (which hold the secret seeds of future poems as well as long dead bodies). I walk through into the Meadows, the shimmering whisper of unseen birds above my head, though all I see are two jackdaws, their black glinting in the low sun. The same sun throws the trees into sharp relief, the upper branches red and glowing.

Later the Royal Mile, where a young woman twirls batons of fire while her companion drums, the primitive beat moving tourist feet along the slippery pavements. A detour down a side street to see the setting sun before diving inside to the poetry reading.

crescent moon hangs
above the reddened crags -
day fades.


Faded for Weekend Wordsmith
I also have a haiku up on Winter Haiku, you can read it here.
Don't forget my Book Giveaway, you can enter it here.
I love Walking for inspiration, find out more here.

Haibun Today

I've got a haibun up on Haibun Today - you can read it here. An earlier version of the haibun appeared on this blog here.

By the canal

a church bell tolls -
a pair of mallards
on the water.

The canal banks are full of flowers, hairy and rosebay willowherbs, birdsfoot and hop trefoils, tufted and bush vetches, angelica. Hoverflies and bees move from plant to plant. Numerous sparrows chirp from the hawthorn hedges, annoyingly unripe elderberries and brambles hang just out of reach.

Tiny fish wriggle in the water, pondskaters whirl on the surface. A family of swans glides by, the offspring grey and adolescent.

thistledown
floats above the water -
robin's autumn song.


Along the Union Canal, Edinburgh

In the Garden

The garden path has become impassable through lack of use. I spend an afternoon hacking away nettles and overhanging branches, but I leave flowers for bees and let bramble linger in the hope of autumn fruit. If not for us, then for blackbirds and hoverflies. I cut back stubborn weeds but not too much:

behind
overgrown buttercups -
harvest spiders.

(You can read more about our garden path here)

Colinton Dell

The riverbanks profuse with flowers, the hot pink of rosebay willow herb, the bright white of umbellifers and the various yellows of too many species to count.

The umbellifers (wild carrot and cow parsley) alive with insects, the thin vivid red of soldier beetles, the rigid black of flies that move their wings to reveal lemon yellow bodies, the tiny irridescent black beetles that gather in groups.

A strange lack of birds, explained when we hear the call of a hunting sparrowhawk.

heat haze -
two dragonflies black
against the sky.


A walk along Colinton Dell

Haibun

A perfect November day. Clear blue sky and sunshine but with a bracing wind. An ideal day for a walk around Arthur's Seat.

extinct volcano
towers above the city -
ancient seat of kings.

We walk through trees, yews covered in berries, silver birch with their stark white and black trunks and beeches.

autumn sunshine
through the changing beech leaves -
copper glow.

Then onward, up the hill, the wind blowing through our hair. From the main path we have stunning views across Duddingston Loch to the Firth of Forth. While on our other side cliffs rise steeply.

Crows chase kestrel
wheeling above the hillside -
bright blue sky.