Summer sunshine

 and the sound of bees buzzing

Dreamcatchers

Last September I started experimenting making dreamcatchers. For my first attempts, I made small dreamcatchers using bangles that came in some of the bags of broken and unsellable jewellery I often buy from second hand shops. I used lacy fabric inside the bangles as the webbing of the dreamcatchers (You can see these ones here).

This weekend though I decided to try my hand at a large dreamcatcher, using a kit I bought from a second hand shop along with some of my own extra embellishments. This is the first time I've made the webbing feature myself and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I think I need to readjust the ribbons at the bottom though as they're a bit bulky at the top at the moment. I probably should also add some feathers, but I'm not sure how best to attach them (any tips, feel free to let me know in the comments!)

As I said in a previous post, I hope to have a giveaway of some of these dreamcatchers, so watch this space.....

Figgate Park looking lovely today!

Figgate Park is always a lovely park for a walk, with it's lovely wildfower patches and views across to Arthur's Seat in the distance.

The pond swans seem to be doing well bringing up their cygnets this year

and many other birds were busy with their youngsters too - this is a young willow warbler, you can tell it's a willow warbler rather than a chiff chaff as it has pale legs and you can tell it's a youngster because it's more yellow than an adult would be.

The bees were enjoying the flowers as much as we were, though as the sun kep disappearing behind the clouds there weren't so many bees around as they might have been on a more consistently sunny day. This is a buff tailed (or white tailed, i can't tell the difference to be honest!) bumble bee

While the bees foraged, we took photos

As well as the beautiful flowers

there's a new area planted with vegetables in nice circular raised beds

The park looks after its wildlife too, having bird feeders and bird boxes

At this time of the year, I always like to take photos of the water lilies, some of which are beautifully on display

and some of which are hidden away

It's a beautiful place for a walk but it takes time and effort to keep it that way! The Figgate Friends Group are organising a park clean up and litter pick tomorrow (Sunday 5th August) from 9.30-11.30am. More details here.

Even the smallest insects dance!

I joined Crafty Green Boyfriend for his lunchtime stroll round Corstorphine HIll today as I often do on a Friday. We spent a few minutes staring at this rotting giant polypore fungus

It may seem like nothing much to look at, and it was a bit smelly too, but we were fascinated by the fungus gnats (you'll be able to see them if you click on the photo to enlarge it). They were dancing! Some of them (probably the males) were fluttering their wings and jumping around. It was very much like a miniature grouse lek! It's amazing what's going on all around us!

This marmalade hoverfly on the other hand wasn't dancing, but makes for a nice photo with it's pretty markings (again click on the photo for a larger, better view)

It was also nice to see the new acorns forming on the oak trees

Sometimes you can find malformed acorns or other strange growths on oak trees, these are oak galls, formed by various species of wasps. In the olden days, oak galls were harvested to make ink. The Tree Charter is looking for people to harvest oak galls (once the wasps have burrowed their way out of them!) to make ink to write the final Tree Charter. Find out more about the oak gall harvest and how to take part here.

haiku

between showers -
the last swifts of summer
criss cross the sky

Wasps and Water

I always have my eyes open to what I might see (and my ears open too!). It's an important habit both as a naturalist and as a writer.

Today I took a photo of this wasp (I can't identify wasps to species level except for the common wasp and this isn't a common wasp, so if anyone can offer an ID that would be great!)

 As I was taking photos I heard an eerie call from over the sea wall and then picking up my binoculars I saw five great northern divers all swimming together really close to shore! This is unusual on these coasts! (No photos, sorry!).

The water was beautiful today

and though there are none in that photo, the firth was more or less covered in eider ducks as far as the eye could see!

Birds at Beecraigs (and a couple of lambs)

On Sunday, we had a lovely trip to Beecraigs Country Park in West Lothian (you can read about it here). On Sunday I wrote that I hoped to share some of Crafty Green Boyfriend's photos of the birds and here they are.

This dabchick is sitting on a floating nest, there were several of these little grebes on the reservoir

and here are the goldcrest chicks being fed by one of the parents

they were left alone for only short periods between feeds

before the parent came back

We also enjoyed seeing the rare sheep breeds, these little lambs are Hebridean sheep