Shadowy Trees and Signs of Spring

I love the tree shadows on these warm orange walls in Musselburgh by the River Esk. 

And the subtle shadows in these beautiful crocuses just the other side of the river, a real sign that Spring is on the way!

I posted more photos of crocuses on this blog yesterday. 

More shadows over on my Shapeshifting Green blog.

For Shadow Shot Sunday

Sunshine and Crocuses

Crocuses are always such wonderful bright heralds of spring! I was passing through Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens today and took these photos.

weaving with a cardboard loom part 2

I've now made two little coasters (and no doubt more to come!) from scrap wool using the cardboard loom I made from scrap cardboard. The blue one I made using quite thick wool, with which it's easier to control the tension, the other one is made using thinner wool, which kept pulling tight and as a result the coaster is a little warped in shape.

I followed the instructions in this tutorial on Instructables. I'm not going to copy their tutorial here, I couldn't put it better than they do!

This is a great way of using up scrap wool and cardboard and the coasters are very useful. You could use them also as alternatives to crocheted granny squares to make a blanket. You could also make a loom of a different shape and make place mats or possible even woollen bracelets.

It's a great craft for kids, you can experiment with using thicker wool, more widely spaced warp threads (the basic lengthways threads laid down at the beginning of the process) and use a shoebox lid as the loom to make it easier to weave the wool through the warp threads.

People have been giving me their scrap wool in the last week or so, with more promised, so I'll be doing much more of this weaving in the near future.

I was also inspired last night by seeing some lovely tapestries and woven items at the Corstorphine Trust Heritage Centre. 

Meanwhile I've added some more chopstick bags to the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. You can see them here and here. I'm just now making some similar bags for descant recorders, which I'll blog about and add to the shop in due course.

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

By the sea

I found this wonderful piece of driftwood on the John Muir Walkway near Musselburgh today. I love how it looks like a whale.... I'll probably keep it myelf, though I may add it to the beach findings section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop....

It was a beautiful day today, windy but clear and mild. Lots of birds around. The wonderful sound of the year's first full song from the skylarks. Stonechats chasing each other between the fence posts and through the long grass. Velvet scoters and long tailed ducks on the sea.

The Lagoons were full of birds, including about one hundred oystercatchers, over 50 curlews, wigeon and a very grumpy juvenile grey heron.

Books about Birders 5: Birders of a Feather edited by Harvey Tyson

This is a fascinating and entertaining collection of essays about birdwatching in southern Africa, edited by Harvey Tyson.

Essays are contributed by a range of well-known South Africans including wine experts, runners and naturalists, all of whom share a passion. Birds.

The essays are engrossing, even for those of us who don't know the birds of southern Africa (and I know only a few, having not spent enough time birdwatching when I lived in Malawi, even on my holidays to Zimbabwe and Botswana). Between them the essays offer a wealth of information on the birds of the region and amusing insights into the lives and interests of that strange species of human known as a birdwatcher (or birder, or sometimes, in extreme circumstances, twitcher).

Here is a story of running exhaustingly up sand dunes in the Namib Desert in pursuit of the incredibly elusive Dune Lark only to have it eventually perch on a nearby branch and sing it song loudly and clearly for ten minutes. Stories of leading difficult groups on birdwatching holidays (making me thankful of the easy going groups that come along on the birdwatching walks I lead for Edinburgh City Council). A fascinating essay on the role of birds in San (bushmen) cave paintings.Musings on the joys of birdwatching in South African gardens.

The essay that spoke to me the most was Just for a Lark, Harvey Tyson's own contribution. His account of getting lost in the Kalahari Desert took me right back to the time when I travelled in the back of a huge truck across the Kalahari to get to the amazing Okavango Delta. My memories of the Kalahari are of endless sand punctuated with ostriches, but this essay reveals how much moer there is to the area.

'The grass was a highsilver carpet. Bushes with their moonlit shadows, crowded in above my head, but failed to blot out the brilliant universe above. The primeval Kalahari was displaying its ancient, restless, nocturnal charms. Moments such as these are as precious as they are indescribable.'

This is particularly poignant reading in light of the fact that, for more than a decade, Botswana has been giving licences to international companies to carry out fracking in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. This, despite the concerns of environmentalists, who are concerned that the rich wildlife of the area will suffer as a result and those of communities who could lose access to scarce water. 

Africa is changing, developing from a human perspective, but with what effects on its rich birdlife? This book will help readers to become aware of the wealth of birds on the continent, a wealth that can hopefully continue to flourish into the future. 

This is the last (for now) in my series of reviews of books about birders. You can read the rest by following the links below:

Pelican Blood by Cris Freddi. 

Birders by Mark Cocker.

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa (a novel) by Nicholas Drayson.

A Bird in the Bush by Stephen Moss.

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

 

Bolts of Silk

Bolts of Silk, the poetry journal I've edited for the past eight years, will close to submissions on 17 April 2014. The last poem will be posted the day swifts return to Edinburgh for the summer.

Thanks to all the poets and readers who've helped to make Bolts of Silk a lovely poetry journal to edit over the past eight years. I've enjoyed editing it, but it's just time to call it a day, now.

The site will stay up as an archive and there's a lot of wonderful poetry there, so I hope some of you will continue to stop by and browse in the future.

A Hidden Path

My birdwatching walks are starting again next Monday (and are fully booked, so you won't be able to just turn up on the day!). One of the walks I'll be doing with the class is around the farm fields at Liberton Brae and into the Hermitage of Braid. I walked the route today, to check the state of the paths (which can get very muddy). Part of the route goes along the Braid Bridle Path, which feels like a secret passage between a busy road on one side and a golf course on the other

it's also very muddy at the moment, if it gets any muddier, I'll be taking the group along the pavement on the other side of the road!

There was a wonderful fungus growing alongside this path

Thanks Caroline for identifying this as the Yellow Brain fungus!

The route then passes down a steep streamside path, which feels like a secret passage between a field and a golf course

The wild garlic is showing itself now

and I was fascinated by this tree, which is full of holes

the path eventually crosses the Braid Burn

then it passes some fields, where there are new friends to be made

and I hope this little cat isn't too destructive of the local birds

Although this term is fully booked, there are still places on the evening birdwatching class that starts on Tuesday 29 April.

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Meanwhile, if you use vintage thread spools in crafts, I've just added some to the Crafty Green Poet Etsy Shop.  

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