Burntisland station biodiversity garden - hand-painted signs

Here are my ten hand-painted signs now installed in our biodiversity garden at Burntisland station, Fife. The project has been led by Margaret and Val of Floral Action Burntisland alongside The Wildlife Friendly Gardener (Neil) and me.

The garden has been carefully planned and planted by Neil to be beautiful, colourful, packed with interest, full of life. Once matured it will provide year-round habitat & food & nectar for bees, butterflies, hoverflies, bee-flies (have you ever seen a bee fly? No, wait, of course you have, I mean have you ever seen a bee-fly? - read on for photos), moths, spiders, ladybirds and the endless other little creatures which nowadays so badly need our help. 

It hasn't been planted to be neat. Neat isn't really what nature needs. The human desire for neat is turning ever more of our gardens and landscapes into bare barren slabbed decked artificial-grassed tarmacked nature-vacuums. Nature needs nature. 

If you find it hard to move away from feeling neat is best try making some nice colourful / rustic / classy (neat?!) signs to put by the patches you're letting grow - "left long for nature", "wildflowers for butterflies & bees", "seedheads for hibernators", etc. That way you're telling visitors (and yourself) that you aren't neglecting the garden, you're on purpose helping it become a wonderful wildlife haven. Our station garden and my signs give some ideas for things to do in your own community, be it garden or school or workplace or park.

Open-fronted nest boxes for species such as robin and wren have been put up in secluded spots and house sparrow terrace boxes are ready to go up when a forthcoming renovation project is complete.

A Bug(island) Hotel has been made for us by local school Starley Hall.

Posters are still to be displayed to point people in the direction of the biodiversity garden as it's fairly well hidden at the far end of Platform 2.

Our many thanks go to:

- ScotRail and Keep Scotland Beautiful for the Biodiversity Fund grant which made this project possible.

- Fife College, Stenton Campus Fabrication and Welding Dept (Stephen Braid and students) for donating and cutting to shape the sign panels.

- Starley Hall school for designing and constructing our Bugisland Hotel. 

- Scott Pallets for providing wood for Starley Hall to turn into our Bugisland Hotel.

spot the bee-fly flying. Look at that super long proboscis for sucking nectar from the forget-me-not

bee-fly not flying, on forget-me-not

about bee-flies:
- www.naturespot.org.uk/species/bee-fly
- www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/flies/dark-edged-bee-fly

small white butterfly

Visit Burntisland! Only 35 minutes by train from Edinburgh Waverley. The East Coast and Fife timetable - www.scotrail.co.uk/plan-your-journey/timetables-and-routes

We have cafes, museums, library, second-hand bookshop, fruit and veg shop, restaurants, grassy Links, beautiful sandy beach, seashore promenade, wild rocky headland, playparks, nearby woodlands and hill walk. Try this circular walk up The Binn - http://landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.com/2014/01/scotland-by-rail-burntisland-fife-hill.html

7 paintings for Scotland's animals

Recently mum and I took part in Art For Animals, raising funds for Scottish charity OneKind who do brilliant work campaigning and educating to end cruelty to Scotland's animals. 

Susan Smith

www.susansmithartist.co.uk
www.facebook.com/susansmithartist
www.instagram.com/susan.smith.art.yoga

hare & poppies
oil on canvas
36x43cm

meadow hare
oil on canvas
36x43cm

raven heights
oil on canvas
55x55cm

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Leo du Feu

www.leodufeu.co.uk
facebook.com/pages/Leo-du-Feu/175954912506839
www.instagram.com/leodufeu
https://twitter.com/LeoduFeu

brown hare
acrylic on deep panel
10x10x3cm

owl
acrylic on deep panel
10x10x3cm

seal
acrylic on deep panel
10x10x3cm

mountain hare
acrylic on deep panel
10x10x3cm

Linlithgow Gazette article:

The following article is reproduced here courtesy of Linlithgowshire Journal and Gazette, originally published Friday October 19th, 2018:

The Nature of Winter - Jim Crumley (Saraband, 2017)

After Jim Crumley's talk at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival last August I sat on the train home with my new copy of his book The Nature of Winter. I was trying to begin at the beginning. When Jim gave me the book a few hours earlier I'd persuaded myself not to flick through in search of mention of a Firth of Forth whale watching day we shared in Fife back at the start of the year. More exciting to just come upon it as I read, if it was there at all. I restrained my curiosity through the first page, a painter's eye rendering of a portrait of forty-five little egrets, beautifully described. Got a quarter of the way through the second page, came to the phrase, "an artist's canvas". Artist's. Decided a quick check of the Contents page was acceptable. Chapter Six - Whale Watch (1): The Narwhal in the Sky. Chapter Ten - Whale Watch (2): The Humpback's Back. That second was what I wanted, the whale in the Forth was a humpback. 

But do things in order, six comes before ten. I flicked to page 76, scanned the chapter. Not a du nor a Feu in sight. Chapter ten, starting page 145. The humpback was there. The Forth was there. By the time we reached home I'd finished the chapter and on the second last page - du and Feu side by side in that order and preceded by a Leo. A lot of excitement for one half hour.

Two months passed, a baby appeared, a few more months passed. A January day of snow came and I picked Jim's book up again, began reading it on my train journeys and sometimes out loud at home to Oren. Jim is one of his favourite authors. As long as I stick my tongue out a lot whilst reading. 

In The Nature of Winter Jim talks about the fact that the nature of winter is changing. It is changing, it has changed, it will keep changing. There's not really very much winter about it any more. How is this shift to unreliable winters (unreliable weather year round! - climate chaos.) going to affect wildlife? How is it already affecting wildlife? Jim has been watching nature for a lot of years, he knows his local territory - and much of Scotland - as well as anyone, more than almost everyone. In this newest book he charts and discusses the changes this intimate knowledge enables him to notice.

Jim's books are intelligent, thoughtful, great reads. They teach you, they make you wonder. They make you feel you're out there, sitting silently beside Jim as you watch that ghostly male hen harrier over the RSPB Insh Marshes, as you storm-shelter with young swallows and martins behind a silver birch in ancient hazel woods on Mull's west coast, as you settle in a February corrie watching that pair of ravens play with a snowbow. And they are witty, funny. I laughed out loud at Jim's silent dismay as he finds himself in a bar, heading towards yet another "a buzzard or an eagle?" conversation with a pint-gulping stranger.

Yesterday morning - snowdrops and lion-headed aconites massed in woods and gardens, daffodils preparing to be next out, chaffinches and tits and thrushes in full spring song - I came to the end of The Nature of Winter and there on the last page were another du and another Feu, side by side, in that order. Preceded by a Leo. Back on that August train it hadn't crossed my mind to flick further, all the way to Acknowledgements. Thanks Jim!

The Nature of Winter and Jim's other inspiring reads:

www.jimcrumley.wordpress.com

www.saraband.net/contributor/jim-crumley

Whale watching with Jim:

www.landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/scotland-by-rail-visit-fife-whale-in.html

Jim's whale - humpback in the Forth, 18th Feb 2017, oil, 20x40cm

humpback in the Forth

humpback in the Forth, 10th Feb 2017, 20x40cm, oil

There's a humpback in the River Forth, it's been there at least since the end of January.

I first saw it on 9th Feb when I took 153 photos using smartphone held up to binoculars. It isn't in any of them. I made some sketches then came home and turned them into the above oil.

On 18th Feb we saw it again. 132 photos this time and it features in one of them. Well, its blow does. More sketches and another oil started back in the studio. Three loads of plastics picked from the beach and one dead herring gull found and ring number recorded and reported.

the blow!

Inchkeith island on the left, Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags to right of middle, Pentlands on the right.

herring gull, ring number reported to www.euring.org

Kinghorn litter-pick bins. Great idea.

bag of plastics, Burntisland bay

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5th March was our first sun-soaked whale watch. I took only 45 photos and it appears in three. Well, its dorsal and a little bit of its back. Here's the best one.

Kinghorn to the left, Burntisland to the right

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9th March we saw the whale for about twenty minutes. A low 29 photos taken, one of which is the clearest yet.

I'm not going to give you links to Facebook friends who're putting up photos of breaches, huge splashes, tail flukes, white belly, flippers... and I'm not encouraging you to seek them out. If you do you'll probably never visit my blog again.


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Got a boat?

these people got a good view

If you have a boat and are considering trying for a close look please have a very careful think about whether you really should. Put the whale's welfare above all else and please read this link:
www.scotland.police.uk/whats-happening/news/2017/march/wildlife-officer-says-dont-harass-the-humpback



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Please help save our sea life:
- www.uk.whales.org
- www.mcsuk.org

humpback in the Forth, 18th Feb 2017, 20x40cm, oil, not quite finished

We need to sort out plastics

This is Garelochhead. One of my regular patches. A place I love.

Beautiful isn't it?

The Gare Loch with its surrounding horseshoe of hills is what it's all about. Great birding down there by the water - Carrion crow, Common gull, Lesser black-backed gull, Magpie, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Starling, Hooded crow, Curlew, Eider duck, Goldeneye duck, Grey heron, Herring gull, Jackdaw, Mallard, Pied wagtail.

But zoom in and this is what you see:

They come in on the waves, floated to the head of the loch by west coast winds and the tide. It's not the fault of Garelochhead. The vast majority of these pieces aren't theirs. They're all of ours.

Garelochhead is just one little speck on one big world, this is happening across all of it.

Not a world I'll be proud to show my children.



What we can do:

- Sign the Clean Up Scotland pledge to show that you care and want to take action. Signing shows politicians and businesses that we demand change. - www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/pledge

- 2 Minute Beach Clean! - www.beachclean.net/why - remember to share your pics on social media.

- www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56229#.WLGsBDuLQ2w
- www.mcsuk.org/what_we_do/Clean+seas+and+beaches
- www.mcsuk.org/what_we_do.php/Clean+seas+and+beaches/Campaigns+and+policy
- www.oceanconservancy.org/healthy-ocean/clean-beaches-clean-water
- www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/24/microplastics-ban-in-cosmetics-save-oceans-mps-say-microbeads

- reduce use of plastics and lobby business and government to do the same.


Garelochhead, why I love it:

- www.landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/garelochhead-sketching-submarine-48.html
- www.landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/your-local-patch-scotland-by-rail-bit.html
- www.landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/garelochhead-bto-bbs-bird-count-first.html
- www.landscapeartnaturebirds.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/scotland-by-rail-garelochhead-5.html



You are most welcome to use material from this post to help campaign for a protected planet.

Please share.

Leo du Feu, 2017