Pilrig Park

 We've got a few days holiday and are making a staycation in Edinburgh. Today we had some shopping to do and time to visit Pilrig Park. The park was originally the grounds of Pilrig House (there's an interesting articule about the house on the Plaid heart blog here). 

Now it's a public park with children's play areas and football pitches. Plus lovely views across to Calton Hill 

Some of the 43 GiraffesAroundTown are to be found in this area of town - this one is outside Pilrig Church 

and this one is outside the Omni Centre  

which is where Edinburgh's original giraffe sculptures can also be found 

 You can see more of my photos of the Giraffes around Town in this post. I have tweeted photos of even more of the giraffes. You can follow me on Twitter @craftygreenpoet. 

Notably lacking from all these photos is litter. Litter is a big problem in Edinburgh at the moment, as the bin workers are on strike. We're only a few days into the strike and already bins in even the quiet areas of town are overflowing and the centre of town is generally a mess. This just proves how essential is the work of the bin workers and how they deserve to be paid a decent wage.

Corstorphine Hill

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk round Corstorphine Hill. It does look very autumnal as we have had so little rain over recent months

It's fascinating to see the root systems of some of the trees on the sides of the slopes, as in the photo above and the one below 

There are a lot of paths across the hill, offering lots of options for different walking routes, yesterday we walked across this rocky area

We noticed a few galls on the oak trees, including this, which looks like it's been made by an Artichoke Gall Wasp (Andricus foecundatrix)

and these Knopper Galls made by the Knopper Gall wasp (Andricus querculscalicis).

and we were very happy to see several funnel web spider webs, with their distinctive holes

North Merchiston Cemetery

 One of the advantages of the days when I work from home is that I can walk round our local cemeteries in my lunch hour! 

The cuckoo pint in North Merchiston Cemetery currently looks wonderful

The cherry tree that I'm following for Tree Following is looking great too

though I'll save most of the photos of that tree for my next Tree Following post! 

The cemetery is close to St Michael's Church, though not officially connected to the church. You can see the church spire in the photo below. You can also see how yellow a lot of the grass is, the recent rain hasn't been enough to green everything up, though some areas of grass do look green again. Some areas of grass in the cemetery are left long to benefit wildlife.

For Nature Notes.

Speckled Wood Butterfly and more along Water of Leith Walkway

Today, I did my weekly river patrol along the Water of Leith in Craiglockart and Colinton Dells. It's always a lovely walk, whatever the weather. Today started off chilly and dull and ended up sunny and warm. 

The sunshine brought out this beautiful Speckled Wood Butterfly

This is a species that particularly enjoys woodlands and can often be seen dancing in pairs or small groups, spiralling up into the tree canopy. Their patterning mimics the pattern of dappled light on the woodland floor. 

I was very happy to see this patch of cuckoo pint 

The red berries make this plant easy to spot in late Summer and Autumn. The weather has been very dry for several weeks now (though we have had a couple of days of rain this week) and many trees are already losing their leaves. Many of the leaves are withered and brown, but some are prettier, like this Sycamore leaf. 

It was nice to enjoy the sunshine today, but we still need more rain.

The Running Sky by Tim Dee

 

 The Running Sky records a lifetime of looking at birds, organised into a bird's year from one summer to the next. Dee maps his own observations and encounters over four decades, from watching storm petrels on the island of Mousa in Shetland (a trip I've made twice and can recommend to anyone who loves birds) to exploring the variety of birds in Zambia. 

There are explorations of the nightingale's song and how the birdlife of the English city of Bristol has changed over his lifetime, plus musings about birds in literature. The writing is often beautiful and thoughtful:

"[The jackdaws'] genius for riding the air seems to show its shape; pockets and waves and channels and funnels; but as I peer at them, the wind watering my eyes, I find myself marvelling at their irreducible and specific marking of the sky at that moment. If you try and empty your head and open your eyes and just watch the birds, you see they are not a metaphor for anything..."

I had a real problem with the January chapter that focussed on a very large collection of dead birds and eggs that had been collected by someone in Zambia. This was presented entirely without context and although it was obvious that most of the collection was historical (and therefore useful for scientific study without being currently problematic, as of course attitudes were different back then...) it seemed as though the collector was still active in collecting nests and eggs, which fact wasn't commented on. (These days we know this is something we shouldn't do, surely?). Plus, alongside this account was a narrative about a current scientific study of birds nests, which didn't entirely dispel the sense that these nests were being raided to study the eggs. This section desperately needed a statement about the importance of not collecting nests or eggs. 

The Running Sky by Tim Dee published (2009) by Jonathon Cape 

The Memory Window

All that colour, perhaps it's green

 Memories of a me I once was  

 

Maybe  

I can't remember.  

 

Those small things, are they petals?  

But they're green, so no, something else  

Leaves me confused  

About where I am,

What is this place? 

  

And what lies between me and there? 

I see nothing, only someone's reflection.  

 

Is that me?  

 

I raise my hand, something solid  

Stops me knowing 

 

I'm not seeing the wood for the trees.

 

**

previously published on Kalanopia and originally written in response to a photo of an older woman looking at her reflection in a window

Water of Leith at Roseburn

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk along the Water of Leith from Roseburn to Stockbridge. It's a lovely shady walk for a hot day.

 

Part of the walkway has been closed for years, as a landslip happened and the ground needed to be made safe. This part of the walkway has now been opened up again, and it was nice to walk along it again. Someone has created something of an art installation here

While spiders, some of nature's own artists, have been busy making webs in trees and on fences.