The Wren: A Biography by Stephen Moss

 
 
The European wren is the commonest bird in the UK, but its tiny size and skulking habits mean that many people have never seen one (on the other hand its loud voice and persistant song means that most people have probably heard one even if they aren't aware of that fact).

Stephen Moss here presents us with an insightful look into the year in the life of a European wren including the fact that the male wren will construct several nests at the start of the breeding season for the female to check over so she can choose the best place to bring up their young. On the other hand, wrens have been known to take over nests built by other species, whether this is in cases of the female despairing of the male's nest building capabilities isn't documented!

The book also includes notes about the evolution of the wren family  - the first wrens were found in what is now America and spread across the globe from there - with there being a number of subspecies of the European wren living in the British Isles, including most famously the St Kilda wren, found only on the remote islands of St Kilda far to the north of the British mainland. Plus details about the wren's place in folklore and tradition.

Crammed with beautiful illustrations and written in an engaging manner this is a lovely book for anyone who loves nature and wants to find out more about this appealing little bird. You certainly won't want to overlook the wren once you've finished reading this!

The Wren: A Biography by Stephen Moss, published by Square Peg (2018).

12 Days Wild - Part 2

Twelve Days Wild is a new initiative of the Wildlife Trusts to encourage people to celebrate and enjoy nature and the great outdoors over the twelve days of Christmas (25 December - 6 January).

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I have been out and about as much as possible and here are some of the highlights that we've seen from the second 6 days of the time (I've also tweeted every day since Christmas Day about #12DaysWild. and blogged about the first six days here).

We visited Cammo Country Park, which is always a lovely place to visit. 

 It is currently having money invested in it, improving paths and working on some of the old historic buildings in the park so that visitors can understand the park's history better.

One of the reasons that money is been spent on the park in this way is because the council realises that it may become a lot busier in the future as it will be surrounded by houses, work is just now starting in some of the surrounding fields

People obviously need places to live, but so do wild animals and birds and the loss of these fields will hit the local wildlife hard.

We also had a walk round Hunter's Bog on Arthur's Seat 

 and the nearby St Margaret's Loch where there were lots of mute swans

 some tufted ducks

 and an unusual goose (probably a leucistic greylag). This goose shuns the other greylags and tends to stay with the swans. it even has it's own Twitter account @TheHolyroodSwan, though tweets are very infrequent.

We also walked along the canal where we were amused to see moorhens in the trees (they're much more usually seen on the canal itself).

12 Days Wild - the nature of Christmas

Twelve Days Wild is a new initiative of the Wildlife Trusts to encourage people to celebrate and enjoy nature and the great outdoors over the twelve days of Christmas (25 December - 6 January).

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I have been out and about as much as possible and here are some of the highlights that we've seen (I've also tweeted every day since Christmas Day about #12DaysWild.)

We finally found the waxwings that have been travelling around Edinburgh for the past few weeks. We saw them in Princes Street Gardens where they had been reported from several times but every time we had walked past previously they hadn't been there. They did pose nicely for us on Christmas Day

We had a walk along the foreshore at Silverknowes and saw these turnstones

there were also about 50 lapwings on the nearby fields, which was a lovely sight, though we didn't get photos.

We had a walk round Edinburgh Botanics and met this very friendly squirrel

though we were slightly concerned over these strange white things that have appeared in the Botanics pond, they're part of the festive light display and I'm sure they look very pretty at night, all lit up, but they look to be made of plastic and the mallards don't seem too happy with them

We saw this mallard on the Water of Leith near Roseburn

Finally, we saw several voles on Corstorphine HIll, including this cute little one, though the photo is not at all good

What wildlife have you seen over the festive season so far?

Seasons Greetings

Seasons Greetings to all readers of this blog.

**

A couple of days ago, our new Christmas tree arrived from Crafty Green Boyfriend's mum. It is in a pot and will be returned to her garden after Christmas. It's the largest we've ever had and I suspect this tree has already spent a Christmas with us.

I decorated it with upcycled decorations, including odd earrings and necklaces from the bags of 'unselleable and broken jewellery' that I like to buy from second hand shops. Plus two bird decorations that I've had since childhood.

Winter Walk in Figgate Park

I saw on Twitter today that otters had been seen in Figgate Park, so Crafty Green Boyfriend and I decided that is where we would go for a walk today. We didn't see the otters, nor did we see many winter thrushes (the Figgate is generally a good place to see redwings and fieldfares, but today we only saw three redwings and no fieldfares). We had a lovely walk though and there's always plenty to see in this park.

The water level in the pond was very high, we heard from someone we met (who was having very good luck with seeing the otters) that the drainage from the pond to the nearby river has blocked up. Hopefully this can be unblocked soon, otherwise the pond will ototally overflow into the surrounding areas of the park.

There were plenty of birds on the pond including goosanders

Canada geese and mute swans

We had some lovely views of robins, appropriately enough as it is National Robin Day today.

Thanks Crafty Green Boyfriend for the bird photos above. 

The Friends of Figgate Park produce a calendar every year including photos of the park taken by memebers of the public. I'm delighted that one of my photos is included as an extra inside the front cover of next year's calendar.

A lovely wildlife idea for Christmas

Join the Wildlife Trusts this year for their new and inspiring winter wildlife project!

12 Days of Wild Christmas is a Christmas challenge to do one wild thing every day from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night (5th January). Ideas include going for a winter walk, fundraising for nature, finding (and following!) animal tracks or feeding the birds in your garden or local park.

It's a lovely way to inspire connection with nature at the coldest time of year and offers great activities for children who might be looking for things to do, specially once the novelty of Christmas gifts has started to wane.

What winter wildlife are you seeing this year?

Upcycled Hot Water Bottle Cover

At this time of year, hot water bottles become a necessity! We already have one hot water bottle, Janosch, which was a house warming gift, many years ago now, and a best friend to Treacle who lived with us for a while


 

But sometimes we need to use two hot water bottles at the same time and when Crafty Green Boyfriend decided to finally get rid of one of his scruffiest jumpers, I realised that I could use part of it to make another hot water bottle. The jumper was a baggy fit to start with and has stretched over the years - one of the sleeves looked perfect to use as the basis for a hot water bottle

So I cut it to size, leaving one side long for the buttonholes and then added buttons from my stash of vintage buttons. The finished product looks quite nice, though not entirely symmetrical!

The rest of the jumper is probably in too poor a state to be able to make anything else out of, and I'm intending to take it to one of the local shops that has a clothes recycling bin.