Time to Sign up for Twelve Days Wild

 The Wildlife Trusts have launched their 12 Days Wild campaign! 

Thousands of people across the UK will be brightening up their winters by signing up for 12 Days Wild and doing something wild on every one of the twelve days of Christmas. 

Why not sign up to join in and do one wild thing every day from 25^th December to 5^th January? You’ll receive daily inspirational emails jam-packed with fun ideas to help you connect with nature and lift your mood.

Spending time in nature can help you feel happier and healthier. You can join in by walking in the park, watching a starling murmuration or making a piece of art inspired by nature.

Or you could choose to take action to help nature, for example, you could go plastic-free for 2024, recycle your Christmas cards, feed the birds or volunteer at a local nature reserve.

Find out more about 12 Days Wild and sign up here. 

Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty

 

 

In 1989 Mark Doty is a successful poet and college professor and he is deeply in love with his long term partner, Wally Roberts. Their harmonious existence, however, is shattered when Wally tests positive for HIV. 

 

This memoir is an unflinching look at the process of grief and how to come to terms with it.Doty writes movingly about grief, religious attitudes to death and bereavement, and how he comes to terms with losing his partner so early in life. 

Roberts and Doty find solace in their pets (two dogs and two cats) and in nature. Roberts spends much of his last few months in bed surrounded by the pets, looking happily out of the window, seeming most of the time to be peacefully accepting of his impending death. 

 

Doty particularly likes seals as they somehow remind him of Roberts 'something about playfulness and a freedom of spirit'. There is a lovely scene, after Roberts' ashes have been scattered to become one with the life of the marsh, in which Doty's dog Beau plays with a group of seals 'swimming for half an hour with a tribe he recognises, though it tumbles in an alien medium.'

The book ends with a meeting between Doty and his dogs and a coyote that stops in front of them briefly, prompting Doty to meditate on the meaning of seeming random events and the possibility that the coyote is in some way a message from Roberts. 

This is a beautifully written, moving book which meditates on loss and grief, while shining a light on the things that make it well worth living in the world after the death of a loved one. 

Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty, published (1997) by Vintage. 

 

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At around the same time as writing this memoir, Doty wrote the beautiful  poetry collection My Alexandria, which I reviewed here. 

 

 

Wood Mouse on Calton Hill

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk around Calton Hill in Edinburgh. The hill is famous for its assortment of monumental buildings and this unfinished folly 

There are lovely views across Edinburgh. I particularly like this view which shows a controversial new building in the background, framed by the traditional architecture of the buildings on Calton Hill

There are also some lovely trees on the hill

but the highlight of yesterday's walk was meeting this lovely little Wood Mouse! We were able to watch this adorable little creature for several minutes and Crafty Green Boyfriend got a photo

Buy Nothing Day - it's free!

Today is Buy Nothing Day, which offers a chance to think about the impact our shopping habits have on the environment.

We are all consumers, and of course, we need to buy things such as food, clothes and books. However, we need to become more thoughtful consumers and to question the products we buy. Overconsumption already has negative effects on the environment, through for example destruction of forests and pollution.

Everyone can join in Buy Nothing Day, it's easy and it's free.

Recycling is great, but reducing how much you consume is better! If we all reduce the amount we consume, then we will change our attitude towards our throwaway culture. 

Disclaimer: I probably need to buy a pint of milk today, but otherwise I'm entirely on board with this.  

More Information on the Buy Nothing Day website.

 

Autumn Colours in the Dells

 Today I did my regular patrol of Edinburgh's Colinton and Craiglockart Dells alongside the Water of Leith. The autumn colours are still magnificent, though many trees have lost a lot of leaves. 

The larch trees are the only conifers that lose their needles in the winter, before that happens they turn a beautiful yellow 

I love the yellow colour of this small Sycamore, contrasting with the Holly behind it 

 The beeches are stunning in their shades of copper and yellow

Some of the bramble bushes have turned beautiful shades of red

While in the Dells, I had lovely views of a Dipper, a Grey Heron and large numbers of Long Tailed Tits. I also heard loud calls from high in the sky and, looking up, saw a flock of five swans, judging from the sound they were making, I'm pretty sure they were Whooper Swans, which it's unusual to see around Edinburgh.

Ravens on Arthur's Seat

 Unfortunately, there are no photos of the Ravens! There are plenty of photos of the landscape though, here is the road around Arthur's Seat

Dunsapie Loch

Duddingston Loch

 a view across Edinburgh to the Pentland Hills

Ravens nest on Arthur's Seat, but can be notoriously difficulty to see, so we were delighted to watch a pair soaring around. Soon, a flock of over fifty Jackdaws gathered to mob the larger birds. While this was happening, we realised that a Red Fox was also watching the birds! Here are two of the Jackdaws

There are plenty of mosses growing around the area, they're looking particularly green at the moment, having benefited from the ample rain we've had over the past month or so. The photo below shows Grey Cushioned Grimmia (Grimmia pulvinata) and Anomolous Bristle Moss (Orthotrichum anomalum). This bristle moss is called 'Anomalous', because it is the only bristle moss that grows on rocks rather than on tree trunks.

On the way home, we saw our first flock of Waxwings for the season! Always a lovely sight (and sound!)

 If you love Arthur's Seat and the surrounding Holyrood Park, you might be interested in this consultation from Historic Environment Scotland on the future of the park. 

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony

 

 South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of 'rogue' elephants for his Thula Thula game reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal. This moving book is the story of what happened, when, against what he thought was his better judgement, he said yes. 

When Anthony and his wife Francoise took over the game reserve, they banned hunting and worked with the local communities to create an eco-friendly lodge set within a reserve dedicated to conserving the beautiful wildlife of the area. They had to overcome problems with poaching, much of it small scale, but at times large scale poaching threatened the larger animals such as rhinos and elephants.

When the elephants first arrived at the reserve, they were destructive and unpredictable. Anthony decided that he would live with the herd for a while to let them get used to him, so they would learn to trust humans. Eventually, the herd did learn to trust him - the females would even bring their newborn calves to be introduced to him. One particularly elephant, Mnumzane, a young male, became particularly friendly with Anthony and his story is a particularly moving one and poses the question of what do you do with an elephant with extreme toothache?

The book highlights the amazing intelligence of elephants including an occasion when one of the older females opened the gate to a compound where a herd of antelope were being gathered, prior to being sold to another game reserve. All the antelopes escaped. 

Anthony always geared his planning to the needs of the wildlife and included local people in his project, employing many of them as rangers or within the eco-lodge. I particularly noted this insight: 

"Every wild thing is in tune with its surroundings.... and in absolute harmony with the planet. Their attention is focussed totally outwards. Humans, on the other hand, tend to focus introspectively on their own lives too often, brooding and magnifying problems that the animal kingdom would not waste a millisecond of energy upon. To most people, the magnificent order of the natural world where life and death actually mean something has become unrecognizable."

Anthony made friends with the original herd so that they could become used to humans, as they had been mistreated in the past. However, he was determined that future members of the herd would be truly wild and interacted less and less with each following generation of elephants. 

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This book was published in 2009. Anthony died in 2012 and the elephants travelled many miles to gather round his body, without there having been any way that they could have known he had died. Francoise has continued to run Thula Thula.

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony published (2009) by Pan Macmillan.