Honesty

Amazing morning on Arthurs Seat

We had a lovely walk on Arthurs Seat today. It was beautifully warm and sunny so we thought it would be a good place to try and see some butterflies for the Big Butterfly Count (which ends tomorrow). We were lucky to see several butterflies, including a red admiral and a couple of meadow browns, though only this small copper allowed us to take photos

Many of the ragwort plants were covered in cinnabar moth caterpillars

Crafty Green Boyfriend took the photo below to give an idea of just how many of these caterpillars there were

Yet oddly, neither of us have ever seen adult cinnabar moths on Arthurs Seat!

Another insect that was present in good numbers was this species of solitary bee, I'm hoping that I'll be able to identify it eventually, but it is a very handsome little creature, as Crafty Green Boyfriend's photo shows

 Neither of us remembers ever having seen this type of solitary bee before and it's the same for this type of wood wasp too

We also saw several ladybirds, which was nice as we've not seen many so far this year. This one seemed to be quite comfortable in the thistle

Meanwhile up in the sky, this pair of ravens was dancing and calling, a wonderful sight (and thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for this photo too!). It's been a while since either of us have seen the ravens, for such large birds they're surprisingly elusive!

Plenty of other birds around too, including lots of house martins, a flock of about 30 goldfinches (a veritable charm of them in fact!) and this magpie, who was more than happy for Crafty Green Boyfriend to take its photo.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages, where you can find out more

Bright Summer Colours!

I love the vibrant clashing colours of the rosebay willow herb and ragwort on Corstorphine Hill

We snacked on foraged wild raspberries as we walked the hill today.

Meanwhile the bunnies in front of the hotel were snacking on grass

I Heart Crafting!

I'm crafting a lot at the moment as you may have noticed from some of my recent posts!

I find that the second hand shops in Edinburgh are often good sources of crafting materials (and with them being 2nd hand they immediately qualify as environmentally friendly on one count at least!). I recently bought a (brand new and never opened!) kit to make three hanging pink felt hearts and over the past few days I've used this kit to make the hearts. I didn't use all the embellishments provided in the kit and will use those in future projects. I also added some beads and embellishments from my existing supplies. This is what the three hearts look like:

They are now in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop here , here and here!

Crow Country by Mark Cocker

Crow Country  is a wonderful study on rooks, a species of crow found widely in the UK countryside. The  narrative centres on Mark Cocker's observations of the rooks and jackdaws (a smaller species of crow) that roost near his home in the Yare Valley in Norfolk.

The book puts the crows in the context of the wider landscape and ecology of the area. Cocker also looks at the cultural significance that crows hold for us and their own high intelligence. He travels across the UK in search of other roosts and describes in beautiful detail the mesmerising sight of large flocks of rooks and jackdaws flocking together before settling into their roost for the night.

This is a beautifully written and fascinating book, giving insights into what are common bird species, easily overlooked by many people. After reading this, you'll certainly pay more attention to rooks!

Crow Country by Mark Cocker, published by Vintage Books, printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. 

Etsy update

I'm currently trying hard to get up to 100 items in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. Apparently once you reach that number of items in a shop then your shop immediately moves up a level in terms of popularity and sales. I'm not sure I totally believe this as I've seen shops with over 100 items and not a great number of sales. On the other hand I'm so close to 100 anyway now I may as well try! Actually I have actually twice in the past fortnight hit 100 items but it's maintaining the shop at that level that's the real challenge.

It is of course complicated by the facts that a) people buy things and so the number of items in the shop falls and b) items need to be renewed every few months. So I'm aiming ultimately to have around 110 - 120 items in the shop at all times, though of course I don't know how realistic that will prove to be.

Earrings are among the quickest things to make and also among the most popular items I sell so I've recently added these earrings to the shop

which you can see in the shop here, these

which you can see in the shop here and these

which you can see here.


Curtain tie backs have recently been selling well too, so I recently made and added this pair from wooden beads from a variety of vintage jewellery items

You can see these in the shop here.

I used some totally different wooden beads to make this Hallowe'en bracelet

which is in the shop here.

Beaded ID lanyards also sell well so I made this new one very recently

and it's also in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop here. I've just got a new supply of metal lanyard connections so more beaded lanyards will be in the shop soon.

And I refashioned this vintage necklace and added a fair trade lizard pendant

You can see this here.


Meanwhile I've steadily been adding more items to the Beach Finds section of the Crafty Green Magpie (vintage and supplies) Etsy shop.

Are planted wildflower meadows a good thing or not?

There's a wee bit of a discussion going on on Twitter at the moment about whether City of Edinburgh Council's planted wildflower meadows are a good thing or not.

After my recent dental appointment I had visited the Silverknowes wildflower meadow, which was dancing with white butterflies, it was a lovely sight and passers by were complementing the flowers.

Today I was patrolling the Water of Leith in my weekly conservation voluntary work. At one end of my walk is Spylaw Park, which also has a newly planted wildflower meadow

This meadow was buzzing with bumble bees, honey bees and several species of hoverfly, like this Syrphus species

and this Eristalis species

Then today I walked further than normal right up to Saughton Park where there's three linear wildflower meadows

By this time it had clouded over quite a bit, but there were still quite a few bees and hoverflies enjoying the nectar.

So, the discussion I mentioned at the beginning of the post has revolved around whether it's better to leave areas of grass unmown for most of the year (mowing once a year) or to plant wildflower meadows like those in these photos (which some people argue are unnatural and give people a distorted view of wildflowers).

In some cases the annual mow works beautifully, as you can see in the orchid filled roadside verge on Corstorphine Hill that I blogged about here. That's the ideal, where this minimal management regime allows a rich natural flora to thrive.

On the other hand, not all areas of grassland would be filled with orchids and other delicate flowers if they were allowed to grow naturally. Many would be filled purely with umbellifers and other more obviously weedy species. I've nothing at all against umbellifers, they're beautiful and the insects love them, just look at this myathropa florea hoverfly that I saw in Colinton Dell today (and the hoverflies were chasing each other round this patch of umbellifers!).

The point is though that to get the full variety of native flowers, in this day and age we sometimes need to give nature a helping hand. In some cases that may mean a relaxed mowing regime, in others it may mean planting seeds of rarer or more delicate plants.

And I'm with the hoverflies, both work and work well! So well done to City of Edinburgh Council on providing a variety of habitats for our insects, because they need as much help as they can get!

Plus the planted wildflower meadows draw people's attention and make them think about the beauty and importance of wildflowers.