Spring along the canal

The hawthorn is just starting to come into flower. Some bushes still are only in tight bud, but on others, some of the flowers are just starting to emerge.

Meanwhile the wych elm fruits are out, all unfeasibly tightly packed onto the branches

And the coltsfoot is already turning to seed and look really beautiful when they're sprinkled with raindrops.

I took these photos along the Union Canal, in Edinburgh, last weekend.

Swifts

Do you see the swifts are here again?
They swoop so low and soar so high
I think there may be more than ten -
do you see the swifts are here again?
We know it's summer round here when
our favourite bird comes gliding by
You see the swifts are here! Again
they sweep so low and soar so high!

***

The swifts returned to Edinburgh yesterday! 

As many readers of this blog know, the swift is my favourite bird. It arrives in the UK in May and has left by the end of August. It spends almost all its life on the wing, only landing to build its nest and lay its eggs. The skies outside our flat are full of swifts at this time of the year, they are wonderfully acrobatic. There are at least ten of them most years (I've only seen three so far this year, but it is early days yet). But how long will this last? Swifts are in trouble in the UK. 

You can help them by fitting a swift nest box. Swift Conservation can help you with fitting and maintaining a nestbox, you can find their local experts here.

The RSPB is looking for records of swifts, you can find out how you can help them here.

Concern for Swifts Scotland aims to have swift nest site conservation incorporated into building specifications and to support the inclusion of the swift in Local Biodiversity Action Plans. 

 

Yesterday, to co-incide with the swifts return, I posted the last poem on Bolts of Silk, the poetry journal which I've edited for the past eight years - Swifts by Andy Barritt. I've enjoyed editing Bolts of Silk, but it just felt like time to let it go.

Lovely lichen and a funny fly!

I love the lichen on the fallen trees in the ancient oak wood at Dalkeith Country Park

and there's a wonderful fly in that last picture, with irridescent wings and bulbous eyes, I've cropped the photo below so you can get a better view. If anyone has any idea what species of fly it is, feel free to let me know in the comments:

Tree Following - guest larch

Many readers of this blog will know I'm following a larch tree in Colinton Dell, along the Water of Leith for Tree Following. At the weekend we visited Dalkeith Country Park and I took photos of a larch tree there, which had a lot more flowers easily photographable than the tree I'm following.

Even though the flowers have lost their colour they're still beautiful. You can see the flowers at their most colourful in this post.

For Nature Notes and Tree Following

Sea of bluebells

Bluebells are the most magical of spring flowers in the UK, specially when they appear in carpets through a woodland. One of the best places near Edinburgh to see bluebells is Dalkeith Country Park and we were lucky to catch them at their absolute best.

 In the photo above, the white flowers are ramsons (wild garlic) and yes they smell strongly of garlic!

 In the photo above, the yellow dandelions are a lovely contrast to the bluebells

Tulip shadows

I was fascinated by the tulip shadows in my parents' garden last weekend, both inside the flowers and on the new paving stones on the upper part of the garden.

(the photo above is available to purchase as a digital download in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy ahop).

for Shadow Shot Sunday

Walking Home by Simon Armitage

Subtitled 'Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way' this book follows Armitage as he walks the Pennine Way from north to south, giving poetry readings every night in whichever local settlement has agreed to host him. At the end of every reading he hands round a sock which invariably fills up with cash and odd little gifts . Given that on most occasions there's a fair amount of cash in the sock, the readings effectively pay for the walk, specially considering that he has found people to host him and provide his food for free along the journey.

But then Armitage is, in poetic terms at least, famous. (And deservedly so, I might add). I doubt most poets would be able to carry out such an expedition funded by the proceeds of socks handed out at the end of readings.

I often get annoyed with travel books, finding there to be too much cruel humour at the expense of people met along the way. This book though, while very funny (on more than one occasion I regretted my decision to read this book on public transport, given how much I laughed at some points) mostly avoids being at anyone's expense. Though some people seem to be annoying, I never felt that Armitage was specifically looking to do anyone down just to liven up his prose.

And this is fine prose too, with beautiful descriptions of the landscape and the wildlife:

"Down by the waterfall, before Keld village, a male redstart waits on the branch of a rowan tree just long enough for me to see the fire in its belly and the afterburn of its tail".

Armitage claims not to be a birdwatcher because he doesn't make lists, but he certainly knows his birds.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, entertaining and really rooted in the landscape, plus with added poems. However it didn't make me want to walk the Pennine Way. All that bad weather and more importantly all those impossibly steep tracks and vertiginous paths!

Walking Home by Simon Armitage published by Faber.