Autumn Sunshine by the Loch

We had a lovely trip to Dr Neil's Garden today. It was the first time we had visited this year! It's a lovely garden hidden away beyond the church garden in Duddingston Village. To get there you first go through the church garden, which has lovely views over Duddingston Loch across to Bawsinch Nature Reserve.

We then walked into Dr Neil's Garden, which is a lovely place, full of trees like this weeping willow

 and with great views of Duddingston Loch

 and Arthur's Seat

 There are quite a few birds on this part of the loch

including several little grebes (dabchicks)

There were some wasps and bees around, including this sleepy looking queen bumblebee

Yew trees have traditionally been planted in churchyards to ward off evil spirits and they look lovely at this time of the year (but remember, they're poisonous!).

After lunch in Duddingston Village, we walked along the road between the loch and Arthur's Seat back into town. We were absolutely delighted to see this otter,who swam around hunting for a while

and it was nice to see that the mute swan family had successfully raised four cygnets

The clouds started to roll in as we walked past Arthur's Seat

and it was raining by the time we got home!

buzzard on Corstorphine HIll

buzzard rises
into the blue sky -
crows give chase 

Corstorphine Hill, this lunchtime


**
and thanks to Literary Corstorphine for including me in this article about local poets.

Stars for National Poetry Day

It's National Poetry Day in the UK tomorrow! Here I'm reposting a poem I first posted for National Poetry Day 2012. It was first published in the Ghazal Pages Astronomy Issue.I haven't written any ghazals lately so this is partly a reminder to myself that I should write more of them!

*

Starry Skies

This woodland clearing dances with bright stars

the sky above full of glistening stars.

The city night glowing strangely orange

no room found now for the twinkling stars.

Sparks rise from the bonfire into the sky

to find their place with the glittering stars.

Trees in the park are draped with fairy lights

that mirror the sky full of shining stars.

Gazing at the astronomy photo

the poet is lost in inspiring stars. 

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

Happy Red Squirrel Week

red squirrel in Dumfrie-shire, taken by Crafty Green Boyfriend. This squirrel isn't typical as it has lost half of one of its ears

Red squirrels the slim, cute squirrels beloved of Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin andother stories have long been out-competed by the heavier grey squirrels that were originally introduced from the USA. The grey squirrels threaten the reds through outcompeting them and also be passing on a squirrel pox disease that affects the reds badly but that the greys are immune to.


In many parts of Scotland, the red squirrels still hold their own, but in Edinburgh we only have grey squirrels. In the absence of reds, the greys are appealing animals to have in parks and gardens, though they can be a menace eating all the seed from birdfeeders.

However in areas where there are both red and grey squirrels conservation measures are in place (or being put in place) to conserve the native reds and keep out the greys. These may include establishing buffer areas around the  red squirrel strongholds with control of grey squirrels, ongoing monitoring, helping landowners to improve habitat for squirrels, involving local schools and communities and using forest planning to maximise the value of forests for squirrels. Also the recovery of the pine martin (a woodland predator related to stoats) can help red squirrels to recover in number as the larger grey squirrel can't run away from the pine martin quickly enough and is more likely to be eaten than the speedier reds!

There's a really interesting article (with some very cute photos!) about red squirrels on the BBC website here. 

The Wildlife Trusts hold Red Squirrel Week every year to raise awareness of the lovely red squirrel. You can find out more here.

Recycling - It's Worth It! National Recycle Week

25th September – 1st October is Recycle Week as run by Recycle Now.

This year’s theme ‘Recycling – It’s Worth It’, aims to demonstrate the benefits of recycling all kinds of  items by showing what can happen to the things after you've put them in the recycling!

If you've ever wondered what happens to your recycling then you can find out more here.

You can find a very helpful guide on what to do with unwanted items here. The tips include not only how to recycle items (in the UK) but how you can re-use them to extend their lives and tips on what sort of thigs are suitable to donate to second hand shops.

Meanwhile  you can read here about how to reduce waste.

And here is a list of events happening round the UK.

Do you have any top tips on recycling? Feel free to share them in the comments section!

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

The kingfisher wasn't so keen to stop for a photo .....

We had a lovelywalk round Blackford Pond and the Hermitage of Braid this morning. The mute swans were happy to be photographed, the kingfisher less so....... It's the first time we've ever seen a kingfisher at Blackford Pond!

Lots of fungi about too, including this lovely display

The Little Ice Age by Brian Fagan

 

Subtitled 'How Climate Made History 1300 - 1850', this book charts how the mostly cold and often unpredictable climate affected human history, particularly in Europe, over the period often known as the Little Ice Age. Covering events including The French Revolution, The Bubonic Plagues and the Irish Potato Famine, the author outlines how years of cold and wet springs and summers made harvests more unreliable and how the resulting food shortages affected people's lives.

It is interesting to see how much the climate changed over these years and how incredibly unpredictable it often was, a good year might be followed by several poor years and then by a relatively stable period of a few years. It makes you realise that the changeability of the current climate is historically normal - the climate has always changed. However, it is very clear, just by looking at some of the graphs alone, that the current rising temeratures and extreme weather events (think Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria) are well beyond normal and to large extent are a result of human activities.

It's a fascinating book and an important one for understanding our climate:

"..we can be certain that such minor 'ice ages' occured many times earlier in the Holocene, even if we still lack the tools to identify them. We would logically expect another such episode to descend on earth in the natural, and cyclical, order of climate change, were it not for increasingly compelling evidence that humans have altered the climatic equation irrevocably through their promiscuous use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution. We may be in the process of creating an entirely new era in global climate, which makes an understanding of the Little Ice Age a scientific priority."

The Little Ice Age by Brian Fagan published by Basic Books.  

Updated to add: If you're interested in this topic, you may be interested in this article by Dagomar Degroot on the Aeon website.