Snowdrops in Cammo Country Park

We always vist Cammo Country Park at around this time of year to see the snowdrops in the walled garden and other areas of the park.

We were lucky with the weather today, although the clouds came over, there was only an occasional light drizzle though it's been raining solidly since we got home.

 This year snowdrops are dominating whole areas of the park and look wonderful

We also stopped by the feeding station for the birds and were delighted to see several minutes of constant flying in and eating by several species of birds (thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for these photos)

 robin

 blue tit

 great tit

nuthatch

There were also some interesting fungi, including this jelly ear fungus

and this little fungus in one of the fields near to the park

Walking through the fields near Cammo is increasingly a sad experience as many of them will be built on very soon.

We heard a skylark singing above this field, where the ground is already being prepared for the houses that will be built there. Of course people need places to live, but so do birds and skylarks are declining rapidly.

Goodbye to the European Union

Today is Brexit Day.

We have to accept the 'democratic view' of the people. However, in many views, a referendum calling for such a major change should require a supermajority of 60% or over to support change, not just 51.9% as it was. The referendum was called to address the internal disgruntlements of the Conservative party rather than a genuine call from the people (though admittedly the UK has never been a particularly engaged member of the EU and many people knew little about what it meant other than trivia like determining what shape of bananas could be sold).

It's ironic to hear comments now like farmers complaining that they now won't be able to get people to help in the fruit harvest (which has always depended on European labour).

The EU is far from perfect. However, it has very strong protection for nature (see this post from a few years ago) and strong protections for human rights and workers rights. Plus free movement and doesn't it make sense to join a trade association with nearby countries?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is gloating that he has'got Brexit done' but in fact we have one year to sort out new trade deals and a new relationship with the EU so in fact Brexit is far from done.

It's a sad day for many.

Here's an excellent article about what happens after Brexit on the Politics UK site. 

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

This novel charts what happens in a small village over the 13 years after the disappearance of 13 year old Rebecca. Each year has a chapter and each chapter follows the same structure, showing what changes and what doesn't change as time passes and Rebecca's disappearance recedes in people's minds and drops from being a live case being investigated by the police into being one that is filed as unsolved. 

The village community slowly comes to terms with what happened and events gradually go back to normal. The New Year celebrations in the first couple of years after the disappearance are very muted for example but then become more festive. 

The individuals in the village get on with their ordinary lives, working, making and breaking relationships. Some of them are affected by the disappearance more than others. Some villagers remain figures in the background, while others feature more prominently in the storyline, though we don't really get close to any of them.

The natural world cycles through the seasons, a constant backdrop to the events in the human world. The nature writing in this book is beautiful:

'At the edge of the beech wood and in the walls along the road the foxgloves were tall, and the bees crept in and out of the bright thimbled flowers. On the fence post by the road, a buzzard waited.'

This is a beautifully written book and offers a meditation on how life is affected by tragic events.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor published by 4th Estate (2017)

Lovely lichens

Lichens are tricky things to identify to species level and I'm not going to try here, but I was very impressed with the variety of lichens on these two fallen twigs I found in Colinton Dell alongside the Water of Leith.

 Click on each photo to see a bigger version.

 Aren't they beautiful?

Big Garden Birdwatch at Saughton Park

 This weekend is the Big Garden Birdwatch! You can join in by spending one hour birdwatching in your own garden or in a local park or greenspace.

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I joined the Friends of Saughton Park to watch birds in the park, which is on the Water of Leith. The birds we saw included: long tailed tits, goosanders, a sparrowhawk and this beautiful kingfisher (thanks Crafty Green Boyfriend for this photo).

Saughton Park will soon be powered using electricity generated by this micro-hydro electric scheme on the banks of the Water of Leith.

It is powered by the water from this weir

I was delighted to join a group of the Friends of Saughton Park recently to have a sneak preview of the power house. It was a very friendly gathering of people, but unfortunately for the engineers giving the presentation, our attention was slightly distracted by the antics of a beautiful otter in the river! No photos this time, but you can see photos Crafty Green Boyfriend recently took of the otter family in Saughton Park in this blog post.

The hydro electric scheme will produce enough power to serve all the parks needs (to heat the greenhouses, power the kitchen of the cafe etc). This is very small scale - equivalent probably to the energy consumption of three houses. The energy generation is limited due to the fact that the weir that it is generated from is not very high (the energy from hydro-electric schemes is generated by the volume of water and the height it falls from). However, given its position in this park in the middle of a densely populated area of Edinburgh, this scheme will be a great educational resource for local schools and other groups.

Snowdrops and a strange looking fungus

As I often do on a Friday, I joined Crafty Green Boyfriend for a lunchtime walk round Corstorphine Hill.We were delighted to see some snowdrops

and intrigued by this fungus - I've posted this photo in the Facebook Wildflower and Fungus of Scotland group hoping someone might be able to identify it. If you know what it is, please let me know in the comments here (or in the Facebook Group). Thanks.

There were plenty of birds and squirrels around, though only these squirrels stopped for a photo, and it's a dreadful photo, though you can see how nicely the squirrels are posing.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

 

This is a big novel with a big ambition - to change the way the reader sees the world of trees. It starts out brilliantly, with a series of chapters that read almost like short stories, introducing a number of characters and their relationship with trees - the computer geek, the artist, the activist, the scientist etc. These chapters are beautifully written and insightful and feel like a necessary contribution to how we relate to the natural world.

"Adam climbs up into his maple as high as he can and doesn't come down until dinner.Sun passes trhough the foliage, turning the air the colour of a not-quite ripe lime. It gives him bitter comfort to gaze over the neighbourhood's roofs and know how much better life is above ground level. The palmate leaves wave in the gentle breeze, a crowd of five fingered hands.... High above his head, squirrels gnaw at the massed flowers, sucking out their liquid sap then scattering the spent reddish bouquests across the ground below.....there are more lives up here, in his one single maple than there are people in the whole of Belleville."

After these stories there are chapters that bring the characters together to act together to save threatened trees. Adam for example, with one other, lives in a treehouse at the top of a redwood tree to try to prevent the clearcutting of an area of old growth forest. The activism is realistic and inspiring but essentially doomed as so much activism seems to be in real life.

The Overstory is inspired by the real life activism of Earth First!'s Redwood Summer of 1990 and in parts is reminiscent of The Monkey Wrench Gang, written by Edward Abbey, which has been credited with inspiring the foundation of Earth First! (Though this may not actually be the case, please feel free to correct me in the comments below).

This novel puts the reader in the centre of action and thinking about our relationship with the natural world and the non-human relationships that are going on around us, without most of us noticing. The best parts are vivid evocations of the wonders of nature that will inspire many to take more steps to protect our living world, but the latter half felt as though it had a lot less momentum and could have done with some tighter editing.

There's an excellent interview with Powers here.

The Overstory by Richard Powers published (2018) by Vintage.