Photo-bombed by a bee!

I find it difficult to take photos of insects, there's something I've not quite mastered about the focus of my camera which makes it difficult to get a clear shot.

When we were in Perth recently, I saw this lovely dog rose in the rain

then I tried for a second shot, and look what happened!

If you're in the UK, why not take part in the Great British Bee Count. This survey aims to gather information on the state of bees in the country.

Bees are struggling in the UK, due to loss of their habitats and the wildflowers that they feed on, alongside the detrimental effects of some pesticides. This survey will help scientists to track the state of the health of bees in the UK and hopefully help them out of their current predicament.

Learn to recognise the bees being surveyed and record those you see!

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A reminder that I'm running a blog giveaway to win a pdf of my book Bougainvillea Dancing, poetry, prose and photos inspired by Malawi. Find out more and enter here.

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

We know that bees are going hungry and homeless.  A big problem is the loss of their vital habitat, with 97% of wildflower meadows gone in the past 60 years. - See more at: http://greatbritishbeecount.co.uk/about.php#sthash.K1RFoCNk.dpuf

We know that bees are going hungry and homeless.  A big problem is the loss of their vital habitat, with 97% of wildflower meadows gone in the past 60 years. - See more at: http://greatbritishbeecount.co.uk/about.php#sthash.K1RFoCNk.dpuf

We know that bees are going hungry and homeless.  A big problem is the loss of their vital habitat, with 97% of wildflower meadows gone in the past 60 years. - See more at: http://greatbritishbeecount.co.uk/about.php#sthash.K1RFoCNk.dpuf

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

I first read this book in 2000 and decided it was time to re-read it.

Codi has moved back to the place she grew up, where she had never fitted in. This time round she's teaching at the local high school and looking after her ageing father (even though for most of the novel she struggles to even see him once a week).

She gets back together with Loyd, who was briefly her boyfriend when they were teenagers. At the same time she becomes a passionate campaigner on the behalf of the townsfolk whose water supply is being polluted by industry. This spills over into her teaching, where she impresses colleagues and students alike with her 'spirited delivery of a relevant curriculum' while at the same time she feels she's walking a tightrope between telling the truth and inciting an uprising.

Kingsolver is an author who is very alert to environmental issues and manages (usually) to walk the tightrope between informing and ranting.

This is a fascinating novel that explores environmental issues as well as issues of belonging and identity. This time round though I found Codi very irritating and unbelievable, which meant I didn't enjoy the book as much as I had the first time round. Still worth reading though, but probably only once!

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver published by Abacus

Signs of Birds

When we visited Scone Palace last week, we were impressed by all the peacocks

and we quickly learnt that they should be treated with the utmost respect

On our walk back from Scone Palace to our B&B in Perth, we were amused by the mallards sitting on the fence here

For Signs, Signs 

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A reminder that I'm running a blog giveaway to win a pdf of my book Bougainvillea Dancing, poetry, prose and photos inspired by Malawi. Find out more and enter here.

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

Mute Swans in Musselburgh

communal preening session at the Mouth of the River Esk

and a day trip to town with the youngsters

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A reminder that I'm running a blog giveaway to win a pdf of my book Bougainvillea Dancing, poetry, prose and photos inspired by Malawi. Find out more and enter here.

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

Tree Following

The larch flowers have definitely developed into cones now!

 And the wildflower meadow behind the larch tree is looking very green

It was very sunny for much of my walk round Colinton Dell today and there were lots of bees in some places (not round my larch tree though). There were more bees than I could count in the 'Hidden Meadow' near Redhall Gardens though I only caught one on camera.

You can read my other recent tree following posts by following the links below. It's particularly interesting to watch the progress of the flowers becoming cones:

21 May.

15 May. 

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A reminder that I'm running a blog giveaway to win a pdf of my book Bougainvillea Dancing, poetry, prose and photos inspired by Malawi. Find out more and enter here.

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

Dr Neil's Garden

I've lived in Edinburgh for many years now, but had never even heard of Dr Neils Garden until a couple of weeks ago! Yesterday, we visited this lovely garden, tucked away in the grounds of Duddingston Manse. You walk through three areas of garden. Firstly the relatively formal Manse garden

then a mostly wild area full of white butterflies and two species of damselflies, with whitethroats, dunnocks, wrens and chaffinches singing in the shrubs.

There are lovely views of Duddingston Loch, where we saw a pair of great crested grebes with their two young and some mute swans with seven cygnets.

 then you go through a gate into Dr Neils Garden, where lots of small paths wind through trees and shrubs

there are stunning views of Arthurs Seat

and Duddingston Loch

and lots of lovely flowers including these irises

A wonderful place to relax on a warm sunny day!

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A reminder that I'm running a blog giveaway to win a pdf of my book Bougainvillea Dancing, poetry, prose and photos inspired by Malawi. Find out more and enter here.

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

Scone Palace and Grounds

Scone Palace is one of the most historical sites in Scotland. Fifteen hundred years ago it was the capital of the Picts. In the intervening centuries, it has been the seat of parliaments and the crowning place of the Kings of Scots, including Macbeth and Robert The Bruce. It houses an outstanding collection of antiques, paintings and rare artifacts.

For a birdwatcher, it is renowned as the Scottish stronghold of the hawfinch, a large, but surprisingly elusive, finch that has an odd preference for living in the grounds of stately homes. 

On Tuesday, Crafty Green Boyfriend and I decided to walk from our B&B in Perth to Scone Palace, meet the hawfinches and catch a bus back. The walk there takes you through farm fields where yellowhammers and skylarks sing, then woodland, including along part of the lovely Quarrymill Woodland Park. We discovered a lovely woodland walk that we'd never walked before, full of elegant birches and rhododendrons, the latter which are invasive but still very pretty.

The grounds of Scone Palace are renowned for their trees.  The botanist David Douglas was born in Scone and was responsible for introducing a number of tree species to the UK, including the Douglas Fir (I didn't check, but I think the trees in this photo, taken from the David Douglas Pavilion, are Douglas Firs).

The lime (linden) trees are magnificent.

and one of the walks round the gardens has lovely views over a river, where we saw sand martins, oystercatchers and a common sandpiper among other birds.

We kept our eyes open as we wandered round, but we didn't see any hawfinches. We did however see a couple of spotted flycatchers, our first for the year and another elusive species. And we saw another yellowhammer, which Crafty Green Boyfriend caught on film (click on the photo to enlarge it).

We also had a wonderful view of a brown hare, again it was Crafty Green Boyfriend who caught it on film (again click on the image to enlarge it).

We then walked back to our B&B, as it hadn't been as long a walk as we had originally thought it would be.  

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A reminder that I'm running a blog giveaway to win a pdf of my book Bougainvillea Dancing, poetry, prose and photos inspired by Malawi. Find out more and enter here.

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