Cherry Blossom Haiku

waiting for swifts
the grey sky dances
with blossom petals

*

dusk
a young rabbit eats
fallen blossoms

Calling all jewellery makers!

As many readers of this blog will know, I recently set up the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. I'll be mostly stocking craft supplies, though with some hand made items and the occasional vintage find.

Today I added this Jewellery Inspiration Kit to the shop. It's full of goodies (including some not shown in the photo above!) to help you create lovely jewellery or to use in other creative projects.

Trees and Art at the Botanics

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I had a lovely day at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens today.

Although some of the azaleas and rhododendrons are already past their best, some are in full bloom and some are still on the way. We're always impressed by how much lichen grows on some of these shrubs.

Lovely to see cherry blossoms at their best too.

 It was a lovely sunny day (though quite chilly) so there were lots of shadows about to take photos of for Shadow Shot Sunday.

We also popped in to the Locating the Nest exhibition, which features artwork inspired by nests - prints from Hugh Bryden, word art from Tom Pow and basketwork from Lizzie Farey.

Out of Eden by Alan Burdick

What happens when a species native to one part of the world is introduced to another part of the world? Of course sometimes, the species finds its new home to be perfect and has no predators or diseases to keep it in check and takes over to the detriment of local wildlife. Sometimes the new species just slots in nicely in the new environment, kept in check by predators that welcome its presence. Sometimes the new species can't adapt to its new environment and doesn't set up there.

Out of Eden is a fascinating account of ecological invasions across the world, concentrating on remote islands and marine life. We are shown the devastation caused by the brown tree snake on Guam, which has caused the extinction or near extinction of several species of birds on that island. We are given a tour of Hawai'i outlining the effects of introduced species on the wildlife of those islands. We're shown how ships become floating homes for species that then find it easy to invade coastal waters far away from where they originated (and the steps that are now being taken to minimise this happening).

Throughout the book Burdick stresses the complicated nature of the biology of invasions, how the relationships between prey and predator are not simple and examining some of the factors that bear on the successor otherwise of a new species in a new ecosystem. He talks to and works with scientists around the world who are studying biological invasions, investigating how long invasions have been happening and what their effects are and whether we can control them.

The result is fascinating (though the book may be a little too academic if you don't have a background in biology or ecology) and well worth reading if you're interested in the state of wildlife.

Out of Eden by Alan Burdick published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux


You can read my latest post about Green Books over on Brighton Blogger's Book after Book blog. 

Etsy

I was delighted recently to win a prize of the Etsy Success Symposium goodie bag and workbook from Handmade Success. The prize arrived yesterday and these photos show just part of it. The timing is brilliant as I've just launched my own shop, called, unsurprisingly, craftygreenpoet on Etsy. 

The shop will ultimately focus on crafting supplies, but there will be some items handmade from re-purposed and up-cycled materials and the occasional vintage item. So far, to give a flavour of the range, I've listed: a vintage African print dress; some vintage floral fabric; a beautiful piece of sea glass ideal for making into a pendant and a handmade chopstick bag. You can see them all if you visit the shop!

I'll be slowly adding more items to the shop over the next week or so, so do pop over very so often to see what's new!

The workbook from the Etsy Success Symposium should help me work out how to succeed in the tricky Etsy marketplace!

Spring leaves

Beautiful along the Water of Leith today in Colinton Dell. The weather was very changeable and it rained a fair bit but that didn't stop the birds! Blackcaps, blackbirds, wrens, chaffinches, and song thrushes were the most tuneful of the singers along with more willow warblers than usual in the area and I think I also heard a whitethroat.

I was captivated by the unfolding leaves on this horse chestnut tree.

And delighted to capture both the male (brown) and female (green, under the leaf) catkins of the hornbeam. Later in the year the female catkin develops into a wonderful chandelier, which you can see in a photo in this post.

You can see a photo of sycamore leaves unfurling from a couple of weeks ago here.

Oh and here's some wild garlic (also known as ramsons) not to be confused with few flowered leek which you can see in this post here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you find out more. Plus the hyperlinks for the birds will give you the option to listen to their song!

For Nature Notes.

Monday Bunday with Charles Dickens

So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw.

from Bleak House by Charles Dickens
 
Millions of rabbits in the EU are kept in appalling conditions, in tiny cages. Please consider signing this petition to stop cruel rabbit farming in the EU.(You probably need to be a resident of an EU country to be able to sign this).