The beautiful East Lothian Coastline

 Yesterday we decided on an impulse to go to Dunbar in East Lothian to walk along the beautiful coastal path there. The weather was perfect and the views were as stunning as ever. 

 

If you look across the water, you can see Bass Rock in the distance, famous for its large colony of Gannets (which are responsible for the white colour you can see in this zoomed in photo)

We only saw one Gannet during our walk, but we were very impressed by many of the other birds we saw. A decent sized colony of Kittiwakes nests on cliffs just outside Dunbar. These are lovely members of the gull family, who helpfully call their name: Kittiwake! In the photo below you get some idea of the colony 

and here is a close up of  three of the birds which gives you some idea of the messiness of the nesting area

Kittiwakes aren't the only birds nesting in good numbers on this stretch of coastline, we were delighted to find ourselves surrounded by more Sand Martins than we've ever seen before! These birds, related to swallows, nest in holes in the cliffs, you can see several nest holes in  the photo below - the birds themselves are much trickier to capture on film as they move so quickly! 

There is also a good variety of beautiful flowers in the area too, including Thrift (sometimes known as Sea Pink) 

Birds-foot Trefoil 

and Ribwort Plantain 

So if you're looking for beautiful coastal scenery or wonderful wildlife, Dunbar is definitely a great place for a day trip. 

Swifts Are Here!

Do you see the swifts are here again?
They swoop so low and soar so high
I think there may be more than ten -
do you see the swifts are here again?
We know it's summer round here when
our favourite bird comes gliding by
You see the swifts are here! Again
they sweep so low and soar so high!

**

We are lucky enough to live in an area of Edinburgh where there are several active swift nests sites. Sadly, numbers of these amazing birds have been severely declining across the UK over the past several years (a decline of 65% since 1995), due largely to a lack of nest sites and reducing populations of insects (their main food source). (See this 2020 article on the Bird Guides website for some thoughts on the factors behind the decline of the swift).

The swifts arrived back in our local area at about 3pm today, when four of them appeared over the rooftops and then floated away again! 

We put up two nest boxes on our front wall a couple of years ago (we persuaded the roofing contractor to fit them when our last roofing work was carried out). I haven't seen the swifts going into the nest boxes, though they have flown close over the past couple of years. Hopefully this year may be the year that they decide to use the nest-boxes....

I enjoyed watching this video from the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) about how we can help swifts. I played it at quite a high volume with the windows open, hoping that the calls of the swifts on the soundtrack would attract the local swifts to our nest boxes. Another great video from the RSPB is this one, which shows the route of one swift as it flies from its breeding grounds in the UK across Europe and around Africa and back here for the next breeding season, a journey during which it will not land at all! I particularly like this video as it looks as though this swift passed directly over the village where I lived in Malawi for two years! 

If you're in the UK, please consider signing this petition from 38 Degrees asking to make it a legal rule that all new houses built in the UK must include Swift bricks.

Magpie Nest

 This beautiful creation is the work of a pair of Magpies. They had carefully made this nest in a conifer tree at the edge of  Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother's garden. I even watched them carrying some of the larger twigs into the tree. But then a couple of days ago the nest fell out of the conifer, landing on top of the eating apple tree in the garden. Crafty Green Boyfriend then removed it from the apple tree and placed it on the garden bench. The local fox has been playing with some of the twigs in the nest, but still, you can see it is a wonderful creation. 

a closer look shows the different layers to the nest, with the lining being made from very fine vegetation

 I hope the Magpies are able to make another nest in which to raise their young, though no doubt the other birds in the neighbourhood would be pleased to not have another generation of Magpies in the area to potentially steal their eggs ...

birdsong haiku

song thrushes sing
after the downpour —
petrichor

**

originally published on Haiku Girl Summer.  

Haiku Girl Summer will re-open for submissions of haiku on 15 May. 

**

I've just added some vintage sew on patches to my Crafty Green Magpie Etsy shop, you can see them here. 

Spring in Braidburn Valley Park

 We had a lovely walk around Braidburn Valley Park yesterday. 

We walked there via Morningside, passing through the grounds of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh's psychiatric hospital. The grounds of the hospital include a lot of greenspace, for the therepeutic value that such spaces offer for patients and are open to the public. There are a number of bright posters around the grounds mapping out the greenspaces.

Braidburn Valley Park isn't far from the hospital and runs alongside the Braid Burn.

The cherry trees are still in full bloom in the park and look wonderful

There were a good number of Orange Tip butterflies in the park, one of my favourite butterflies, the orange patches on the wings are so eye catching when the butterfly is in flight. 

After walking round the park, we then walked through Morningside Cemetery, which has quite a few Horse Chestnut trees, which are currently in full bloom

Edinburgh is lucky in having so many greenspaces that are well worth exploring! 

 

Exhibitions at The Scottish Gallery

 I've long admired the work of willow weaver Lizzie Farey so was particularly keen to get along to her show at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh's Dundas Street. Her work is being shown alongside several other artists and crafters.

The gallery takes up two floors of a Georgian Terrace in Edinburgh's famous New Town. These exhibitions pack a lot in, but nothing seems crowded. As well as Lizzie Farey's beautiful wall art (see an example here) and her sculptures (see an example here) highlights included wood fired pottery from Nancy Fuller, Still Life paintings from a range of artists including Ewan McClure and beautiful paintings of nature by Naoka Shibuya.

I was particularly interested in the way that both Lizzie Farey and Nancy Fuller work so closely with the natural environment. Lizzie uses willow harvested from her own willow field along with foraged pussy willow, larch, bog myrtle, reeds and rushes. Her wall art is inspired largely by plantlife and her sculptures all have a feeling of organic form. As she says herself on the gallery website: "Natural forms provide both the foundation and inspiration for my work". Nancy Fuller meanwhile works in a croft in Aberdeenshire, using traditional methods from Taiwan, her place of birth. 

The paintings by Ewan McClure in the exhibition are inspired by the work of the famous Scottish colourist S J Peploe, and in fact feature props used by Peploe himself as loaned to the artist by Peploe's grandson. 

Naoka Shibuya's paintings include beautifully rendered paintings of birds and plants, with interesting bits of abstract or unrelated detail brought in, but in a way that only adds to the overall effect. 

There are many other artists on display here, far too many to mention.  The current exhibitions run only until Friday 3 May then the gallery will be closed until a new group of exhibitions will start on 8 May. 

The gallery also has a lovely garden behind the building, which is only open when the weather is fine. It's a beautiful, peaceful space, sadly my photos below don't do it justice! 

It features corton steel sculptures by Andrea Geile, including the one below, A Wild Land

what I particularly liked about this piece is that, if you look closely, it seems to frame a lovely Wall-rue fern (Asplenium ruta-muraria)

 I then became fascinated by the tulips in the garden, some of which are starting to fade, but actually becoming particularly lovely 

Beautiful Bluebells and more in Dalkeith Country Park

 We always like to visit Dalkeith Country Park when the bluebells are in full bloom and we were very lucky with our trip yesterday. The bluebells were definitely at their best. 

as were a host of other Spring flowers, including Ramsons (Wild Garlic) 

(Wild Garlic is a favourite of foragers, to the extent that it is disappearing from many areas in the UK. If you do forage this plant, as with any other foraging, please do not uproot it and take only as many leaves as you need. Even better, forage Few Flowered Leek which is an invasive species, taking over from Wild Garlic in many places, but tastes just as good.

 The photo above shows Few Flowered Leek in bloom).

Other flowers in bloom included Wood Anemones 

 Wood Sorrel

Greater Stitchwort

and Lesser Celandine

Dalkeith Country Park is also rightly famous for its ancient oak trees

While we were walking around we were fascinated to find a group of solitary bees. There were two species here, one a larger species, a mining bee probably Andrena clarkella

and a smaller species of parasitic nomad bee (probably Nomada goodeniana)

The nomad bees were hanging around the nesting area of the mining bees, waiting for a chance to enter the nest holes. (Mining bees don't live in hives, but excavate individual nest holes where they lay their eggs, the parasitic bees then also lay their eggs in the same nest holes. There are usually a lot of nest holes of the same species in a small area, but the fact that each bee makes its own individual nest hole is why these species are known as solitary bees).