Edinburgh Zoo’s pandas

Posted on 16 July 2023 by Katrina

A couple of months ago we went to Edinburgh Zoo with some of our family. It was the first time I had ever been there as I’m not a big fan of zoos. But it seems that we were incredibly lucky as the animals were all fairly animated, particularly the monkeys who were running and swinging around and having a fine old time. It sounded quite scary at times but they were just enjoying themelves, apparently they’re usually napping.

The really big thrill though was that when we got to the pandas they were actually moving!! I was about six inches away from him – through the glass of course.

The pandas are due to go back to China later this year as they were only leased, with the hope that they would breed during the time they were here, sadly they didn’t seem to be interested in each other. Unfortunately when we were there our granddaughter was the one who was napping, oh well, I got it on video. Click on the link and hover over the picture to watch it.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5FrSkYyxwYw9XAhg7

What’s going on?

Posted on 5 January 2021 by Katrina

In my very small and rapidly shrinking world there isn’t a lot going on at the moment. In Scotland we have a lockdown again and we’re supposed to stay at home, unless we need to go out for food. At this time of the year that’s not too awful, especially as we have really cold weather at the moment and our walk for The Guardian every morning (as essential as food) is a treacherous one with any paths we use swathed in layers of ice. It’s safer to walk on the crunchy icy grass when possible. Otherwise we are seeing nobody and giving any oncoming fellow walkers a wide berth.

Normally by this time I’ve read a couple of books, but I’ve been reading The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt since before the new year and I still have thirty or so pages to go, that’ll be my bedtime reading tonight. This is the first book by A.S. Byatt that I’ve read and I must say that I love it, but it is over 600 pages long and the print is quite small. I have already flipped to the back of the book to see if there was a bibliography because I am so impressed by the amount of historical detail in it, but according to the author she was greatly helped by knowledgeable members of her family, friends and acquaintances and she read too many books to mention them all, but she does mention a few. This one was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009, the year it was won by Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. How unfortunate for Byatt as surely in any other year The Children’s Book would have won it.

Anyway, more on that subject tomorrow. As it looks like we’ll be stuck at home possibly for months depending on what happens next to the stats, I think I’ll be catching up with my Goodreads challenge, apparently I’m one behind at the moment!
On a completely dfferent topic – I just have to tell you that today I spotted a red squirrel running around in the woodland this morning, that’s the second one we’ve seen within about ten days – and we hadn’t seen any for about three years before that. There are of course loads of grey squirrels which are nothng like as elegant and charming as the red ones. Of course, I didn’t manage to get a photo of it.

You can see some images of red squirrels here.

My garden in Fife, Scotland

Posted on 26 May 2020 by Katrina

The yellow rose ‘Golden Showers’ at my front door has started to bloom again. I had intended liberating it from the large tub it lives in, hoping that it might flower for a longer time if it is in the earth, but never got around to it, also I have no idea where I could shoehorn it in!

The video is of a bit of my back garden. It’s very short and I did it mainly to capture some of the birdsong that fills the air most of the time.

I’m not great at recognising birdsong, I’m a bit better at bird spotting, but one day late last week I was sitting reading in the sun room when something brown flew past accompanied by a lot of screeching from the ever present sparrows. When I looked out the window I saw that some sort of raptor was sitting on the grass, it was Jack that realised that it had something in its claws. I suppose we now have one fewer sparrow around the place, slightly upsetting but I tell myself that the kestrel (?) has to eat too. This bird was like a much smaller version of a female sparrowhawk, I suppose it may have been a very young one, but I suspect it was a kestrel – whatever – we hadn’t seen one in the garden before.

Loch Lomond, Dunbartonshire, West Scotland

Posted on 6 March 2020 by Katrina

Below is a stitch of a couple of photos that I took of Loch Lomond from the wooden pier at the wee village of Luss last Wednesday morning. You can see more images of Luss here. I didn’t take any photos of the houses as there were so many parked cars in the streets. The village was built by a Colquhoun to house the workers at his nearby slate quarry.

The snow covered mountain that can just be seen to the left centre of the photo below is Ben Lomond, which is a ‘Munro’ meaning it’s over 3,000 feet high. It must be the most climbed mountain in Scotland, it’s an easy one to get up although as ever, if you aren’t wearing decent footwear and you aren’t properly clothed it can still be dangerous as the weather can change very quickly. I believe that some years ago a 12 year old German boy died of hypothermia on Ben Lomond, in July!

Loch Lomond is an idyllic place but in the summer months it can be very busy with tourists as it’s such a short distance from Glasgow, this area is often called Glasgow’s playground. When I was growing up I was lucky enough to live within a few miles of the loch so it was an easy walk in good weather anyway. But this part of Scotland is still incredibly well served with local transport links – buses and trains are very frequent. I took this completely for granted as a youngster and only realised how unusual it was when I moved away and discovered that some towns only have one bus a week – and to nowhere that you would want to go – what a shock that was!

There are a lot of small islands dotted around the loch. In the summer visitors are sometimes tempted to swim out to them, probably not realising that they are further away than they thought – not all of them make it there!

One of the islands – Inchconnachan – is home to a population of wallabies, you can read about them here. They were introduced there in the 1940s and are controversial now as they are a non-native species and apparently are a threat to the native capercaillies.

Another walk – Cockburnspath and Cove, Scottish Borders / Berwickshire part 2

Posted on 1 April 2019 by Katrina

To get down to the right hand side of the beach at Cove you have to walk through this tunnel. It was constructed years ago and goes through the cliffs. It was no mean feat to build it and it’s very dark inside, you just have to aim for the light at the end of it and watch out for the potholes.

At the beginning it’s shored up with brick but I think most of it inside is just rough rock face, but as it’s so dark in there I don’t know for sure.

To get over to the beach on the other side you have to go back through the tunnel. These cottages are all that’s left of what had once been a thriving fishing community, all of the other cottages have been swept away by the sea.

Thecottages are only used to store fishing gear.

The houses below are bit more modern and set back from the seashore. I still wouldn’t fancy being in them during a storm though.

Looking closer you can see that the cliffs are well upholstered with gorse bushes, they fairly brighten the place and seem to be in bloom most of the year – just don’t fall into it!

A train unexpectedly shot across a field. It’s many many years since I had toddlers walking beside me but whenever I see a train I still have an urge to point it out to them!

We walked back to Cockburnspath by a different route and came across this rather grand ram. When we first spotted him he was having a fine time attacking the hessian sacking wit his huge horns but he stopped to scrutinise us. Obviously we were more interesting, or just a welcome distraction. He was probably bored but seemed too aggresive to have any company in the field with him.

Just beyond the ram’s field are these farm buildings, very neglected and seemingly unused. Whenever I see places like this I just itch to put them to rights. I hate that farmers just let old buildings fall down.

We walked along farmland paths

and then along the field margins.

And back to Cockburnspath for a well earned coffee.

Local Buzzard

Posted on 19 March 2019 by Katrina

Just a quick one tonight.

Jack took these two photos of a buzzard just outside our garden yesterday, they normally hang about in a tree a bit further away from us. I wonder if they’ll ever actually pay our garden a visit.

They’re not exactly rare in fact there seem to be loads of them constantly calling to each other here as they wheel around, but I never get blase about seeing them. We were just amazed that the tree branch didn’t show any sign of bending as these birds must be quite a weight.

Tomorrow’s post will be more recent book purchases – I know, it’s an illness!

Swallows

Posted on 26 February 2019 by Katrina

I read in the Guardian the other day that a swallow has turned up already somewhere down south. As we all know – one swallow does not a summer make and it’s a whole month earlier than usual in England. Despite our unseasonally very mild weather I think it’ll be quite a while before swallows appear again in Fife.

Some of the houses around my neighbourhood have actually been lucky enough to have swallows build their nests under the eaves and I had hoped they would make their home with us too, so I was a wee bit miffed when I noticed swallows beginning to build a nest next door to us. I quickly realised though that it was a good thing as we had a perfect view of all the comings and goings from our sun room.

Towards the end of summer I was surprised to see the nest being sort of flash mobbed by swallows. There seemed to be a couple of reluctant fledglings hanging over the edge of the nest and I thought maybe they were being encouraged to leave the nest by the older birds. They were at it for a few days and I think there was only one baby bird left in the nest when it succumbed to the barrage and began to fall apart, well there were lots of swallows hanging on to the sides of it and these modern houses aren’t ideal for nest building. I think the underneath of the guttering is too smooth. It’ll be interesting to see if they try to rebuild again this year.

I’m wondering if any of you know if this sort of behaviour is normal for swallows.

Sorry. The video I took is a bit blurry but you get the idea.

Bowhouse, near Crail, Fife

Posted on 11 February 2019 by Katrina

On December the 8th we went to the Bowhouse Market which is held in barns on a farm between Crail and St Monans. I think Bowhouse (Bauhaus) is a pun on the owner’s name which is I think Bowie. For some reason there were alpacas there, I don’t think they’re particularly festive but they were very cute.

I got the distinct impression that the alpacas thought we were very strange beings – don’t look at them those two said as they turned their backs on us.

After buying some lovely food and drink at the market we drove home admiring a gorgeous sunset which of course the camera didn’t do justice.

It’s obviously a rural part of the county and the road back home is quite a narrow one.

These houses will have a great view over the Firth of Forth, a sea view seems to be very popular with so many people, and I’m sure it adds lots of value to a house, but I must say I prefer the soft green of hills and field. It probably depends on what you grew up looking at as a youngster. What about you – are you a sea view sort of a person, a hills and meadows fan or do you prefer the bustle of a city and all the culture and conveniences that that brings with it?

A country walk in Fife, Scotland

Posted on 4 May 2018 by Katrina

Come on, it’s time to get some fresh air and go on our first springtime walk of the year. This place is called Braes Loan and it’s a walk we hadn’t done before. Just 2.5 miles long I think – so easy peasy! It begins in Markinch and loops up and around part of the town ending very close to where the walk began.

The narrow lane above is quite steep as you would expect from a place called ‘brae’ – it’s Scots for hill, and it isn’t long before you get to farmland with views of the much higher Lomond Hills in the background.

I took these photos on Saturday the 23rd of April, it was probably the warmest day we’ve had this year, not that it got any warmer than about 60 F, but it was still a very pleasant change from our long cold winter weather. How do you feel about wind turbines? Some people hate them, including a certain POTUS who is miffed that some are going to be visible from one of his Scottish golf courses, but I like them, in the distance anyway. It’s the golf courses that blight the landscape in my opinion, certainly in Fife (the home of golf) where we have just far too many of them!

The view on the left hand side of the path is of woodland, and I like these old stone steps that lead to another path through the woods, we’ll take that path another day.

Onwards and upwards, the trees will not be quite so bare now, nearly three weeks since I took these photos.

But the celandines were happily showing their cheery wee faces in the sunshine.

There’s some kind of crop beginning to grow in this field, I’ll have to go back later in the year to find out what it is. In the distance you can see the small and historic town of Markinch.

As you can see we’re still walking uphill, although it does even out from time to time so it’s not a relentless hike up. It seems to me that no matter what the month is in Scotland you’ll be able to find gorse or ‘whins’ as it’s called in Scotland in bloom, it fairly brightens the place.

I think the photo below was taken more or less at the highest point of the walk. It’s a bit hazy but in the distance you can see the River Forth which is several miles away. Surprisingly there are a few lonely scattered houses in this area and they obviously want electricity, hence the annoying wires in the photo – how very dare they!

Suddenly we reached a road and more or less flat land where there were a few horses looking for some human company. The small village in the distance goes by the poetic name of Star of Markinch and at one point the author Annie S. Swan lived here with her husband.

I don’t speak ‘horse’ and when they amble up to me it seems to me they always have something in mind, I find it a bit alarming. I just end up stroking their noses tentatively, while looking out for flashing teeth getting too close for my comfort!

I’ve got a fair idea though that as I backed away from them they were saying – Oi! Come back, what – no apples? What was that all about then! There’s no doubt about it, horses find me disappointing.

We’re about two thirds of the way through the walk now but we’ll take a break now and finish it off another day. If this is your first country walk for a while you’ll be needing a break. I hope you enjoyed this breath of fresh Fife air as much as I did!

Buzzards or Hawks ?

Posted on 15 March 2018 by Katrina

Last Thursday our weather changed (for one day only!) and out in the garden I could actually feel some warmth from the sun. It was time to do some garden tidying after a long hard winter, in fact I just about filled the brown garden waste wheelie bin and there’s still a lot more to tackle.

But it wasn’t long before I hear a familiar plaintive cry – that of what I think are buzzards who seem to spend a lot of time wheeling around in the sky calling to each other. Is it a mating ritual I wonder? Well it’s getting on for that time of the year. There were four of them up there, presumably having fun, you can only see three in the wee video that I took of them though.

There are an awful lot of buzzards and hawks around wherever we go in Scotland, numbers just seem to have exploded in recent years. I suppose that means there must be plenty for them to eat.

I like the photo below as you can fairly clearly see the wings of the nearest bird. I’m wondering if these are hawks or buzzards, do you have any idea?

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Category Archives: animals