haiku

warming seas—
coral reefs weep
with algae

originally published in cattails.  

**

read updates on the state of Australia's Great Barrier Reef here. 

 

Jungle by Patrick Roberts

 

Subtitled How Tropical Forests shaped World History, this is an ambitious history of tropical forests from prehistory to the present. 

The earliest chapters looking at prehistoric tropical forests and how they co-evolved with early animals, including dinosaurs and the first mammals were definitely the best. Later chapters dealing with early human inhabitants of the tropical forests felt too brief and could have been used as the basis for entire books. The later chapters focussed too much on issues that don't seem central to the topic. For example, the details about slavery in the tropics were fascinating and, in themselves, vital to know, but might not have needed to be expanded on so much in a book specifically about forests. I would have been more interested (in the context of rainforests) to know more about the functioning of human societies that have long lived in rainforests. The author makes a very important point that we can learn from these societies, but seems a little naive in the extent to which he thinks we could recreate ancient settlement patterns in the modern world where there is so much population pressure on tropical areas.

A central and vital theme is climate change. The book outlines how the changing prehistoric climate affected rainforests and considers how current, human-made climate change is altering rainforest habitats today, with devastating consequences for wildlife and humans alike. 

Another vital theme is how globalisation affects rainforest environments across the world. Crops such as bananas and coffee, palm oil and chocolate all grow in tropical areas and their cultivation often leads to degradation of vital rainforests. Equally important is the effect that introduced, non-native plants have had on tropical environments.

Initiatives to protect tropical rainforests are vital and are given a good discussion in this book, although I did sometimes feel the overview here was too pessimistic. (I'm pessimistic myself about the future of tropical forests, so it's perhaps unfair of me to hope that the author of this book should be able to offer more optimistic solutions to the issues.) The book ends with a call to action for everyone to do what they can to protect rainforests and to raise awareness, plus a very comprehensive bibliography and references section. 

Overall, this is an excellent book for anyone wanting an overview of the importance of tropical rainforests. The first several chapters in particular.

 Jungle by Patrick Roberts, published (2021) by Penguin. 

**

 My short story Dressing My Daughter is now featured in issue 253 of Open Book's Unbound newsletter. You can read the story here and find the questions and writing prompts inspired by the story here. 

Azaleas, Rhododendrons and Hairy Footed Flower Bees

 We visited the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh yesterday, hoping to see the azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom and we were not disappointed!  The gardens have a wide range of species of azaleas and rhododendrons from across the world. Here are photos of just a few of them.

 

 

We were also delighted to see over 30 female Hairy Footed Flower Bees! I've never seen so many of this species of bee before and I've also never seen the females before, which meant we took a while to realise what we were seeing, as they're so different from the males. (To see a comparison of the males and females visit this link).

 

Flow - film review

 

Yesterday, we went to see Flow, the Oscar winning animation from Latvian director Gints Zibalodis. It's a beautiful film focusing on an un-named cat who lives in an empty house that was once inhabited by a sculptor, is swept away in a huge flood and ends up navigating the waters on a boat shared with a labrador, a Secretary bird, a Ring-tailed Lemur and a Capybara. The animals are all voiced by real animals (no twee human voiced dialogue here!) and the characterisations are perfect - the labrador is all over enthusiastic tail wagging and the cat is all aloof independence and curiosity. 

There are no human characters in the story and the background is left deliberately obscure, was the cat's original home empty because the sculptor had died of old age or had a pandemic killed the remaining humans? Whatever the reason, the aloof cat needs to learn to co-operate with the other occupants of the boat if they are to survive. 

Flow looks at issues around climate change and disaster preparedness from a unique point of view and offers images of a post-apocalyptic world where life goes on without humans.

From the wonderfully imagined rainforest environment to the fantastical giant cat sculptures, this is a visually stunning film, with a beautiful soundtrack by the director. It's still showing in selected cinemas in Edinburgh and elsewhere, so do check it out if you've not already seen it. 

You can see a trailer here. 

The film's website is here.

Butterfly Survey on Corstorphine Hill

 For a couple of years now I've been carrying out butterfly surveys at two sites in Edinburgh - Lauriston Farm (the site of Edinburgh's Agro-ecology project) and Corstorphine Hill. There are several people involved so I don't survey every week. Yesterday the weather was just about perfect for a Spring butterfly survey when I visted Corstorphine Hill. It's very early in the butterfly season here in Scotland, so there weren't many butterflies, but I was very happy to get this photo of this Peacock butterfly, which was enjoying the sunshine as much as I was. 

I posted a new article on my Substack blog today, all about helping insects, you can read it here. 

The area of Corstorphine Hill where the butterfly survey transect lies offers beautiful views.

 

the survey transect also includes the lovely walled garden on the hill

 There are a lot of trees on the hill, even outside the wooded areas. The Norway Maples are looking beautiful, one of my favourite trees at this time of year

 

The Sycamores also look beautiful with their fresh young leaves 

I'm hoping to finding lots of butterflies this year. Last year was a very disappointing year for butterflies and I saw very few on my surveys. Butterflies are known to be able to bounce back from a bad year, but many species are sadly in long term decline (though some species are increasing).

You Really Don't Need to Go Far to Find Nature....

We live in a street close to the centre of Edinburgh, the front gardens are very small and there are only a few trees. So although nature is around, we don't generally expect to see anything too uncommon. However, when I took out the recycling this morning, I saw this unusual looking insect on the recycling bin

I recognised it immediately as a plume moth, but didn't know what species it would be. So when I got home, I looked up plume moths on Nature Spot and my photo is good enough for me to be fairly certain this is a Beautiful Plume Moth (Amblyptilia acanthadactyla).

 

Easter Craiglockart Hill and Pond

Yesterday we visited Easter Craiglockart Hill and then walked home via Craiglockart Pond and the Union Canal. 

The hill is currently yellow with the blooming gorse

 

The pond is home to a number of waterbirds

including a pair of  Mute Swans, this is the male in the photo below, in his threat posture (he was chasing a couple of last year's cygnets around the pond)

there are also several Tufted Ducks, this is the male in the photo below, if you look carefully, you can see that the feathers on his face aren't just black, but are iridescent, showing blue and purple in certain angles of light

The photo below shows the female Tufted Duck

There are also a number of Mallards on the pond, we enjoyed watching this pair dabbling for food

We enjoyed walking along the canal, but oddly didn't take any photos on  that part of the walk!