The birds

A very disturbing story doing the rounds of the Scottish media this week - the unlawful killing of various Scottish birds of prey, from hen harriers to one of the nation's symbols, the magnificent Golden Eagle, are at a twenty year high despite legal protection. And gee, isn't it just a coincidence that the geographical distribution of the cases often matches the location of major 'sporting' estates where fat businessmen shoot flocks of tame pheasants scared into the line of their shotguns by beaters? (I put 'sporting' in commas because I don't see anything sporting in killing animals for kicks, especially when it involves practically tame creatures and almost no skill from the so-called 'hunter') Yes, I'm sure that's just coincidence and not gamekeepers and landowners poisoning, trapping and shooting raptors on the side to make sure they don't interfere with with their game birds.

Or maybe there are just a lot of scumbags out there who don't give a damn about our wildlife and environment (or law) as long as they can exploit it for money - a double irony some of the people in these sorts of jobs who are probably doing this vile act like to tell the rest of us that they are 'the guardians of the countryside' No, you're not, you condescending, tweed-clad twats, you're vicious, amoral bastards. I'm sure there are plenty of gamekeepers who do adhere to the law and try to protect species including raptors, but from the evidence there are obviously a hell of a lot of them who are only to happy to kill even endangered animals. The answer? Well these feckers all love hunting and complain we've restricted so much of that, so let's have some more hunting - open season on hunting anyone in tweeds or Barbour jackets and Deerstalker hat, anyone? Tally ho and give 'em both barrels - don't worry, its a humane way to kill 'em, you know, otherwise they ruin the environment...

Bird in flight



Seabirds wheeling, screeching overhead, noisy, loud and then suddenly grace personified; flight, the dream of humans since time began, so effortless to the bird, wind slipping over and under wings constantly adjusting to the flow by instinct, making the finest human pilot look like a clown by comparison, feathers that took millions of years to evolve insulating, guiding, hollow bones to give less weight but remain strong to hold the elegant curve of wing. How can something which moments ago was a noisy nuisance scavenging for food from parties on the beach be so utterly perfect. More than a dozen frames in rapid succession on the multi-shot function, most blurred, out of frame, empty sky but one, just one like this came out and I am happy. What would it be like, I wonder, to fly like this? No engines, no whirling propellors or screaming jets, just the wind and muscle and instinct, skimming across the face of the world...

Come into my parlour, said the spider...

One of my Fotolet chums was carrying his new camera with him, went to try for a flower close-up, heard a bee, looked closer and took this amazing picture of a bee and a white spider on a flower having a disagreement - go and look, it is a stunning capture.

When Penguins Ruled the Earth

For years I've made jokes about gigantic prehistoric penguins, from millions of years ago - Penguinosaurus Rex, tall, with a huge, long, sharp and deadly beak, from the Time When Penguins Ruled The Earth and Doug McClure had to rescue buxom women in fur bikinis from them. Then today I read that actually there is a little truth to my penguin-obsessed nonsense. I just love it when real life is almost as weird as fantasy.

Birds a go go

The changing of the tides at Cramond just by the edge of the rivers Forth and Almond on the edge of Edinburgh, bringing out a huge number of birds from graceful swans to howling seagulls (ye gods, what a racket!) and some ducks.In the 2nd century AD you'd have seen Romans moored hereabouts on their way to the Antonine Wall.





To the right of this picture is a causeway which is submerged by high tide, leading out to an island which still has the shells of hastily constructed buildings for gun emplacements to protect the Rosyth Naval Base just up the river a bit further. I used to cycle out here with friends when I was a student (and fit!); I still remember going out to the island at low tide one day with my friend Leonie. As we walked over to the far side we heard music - live music, not a stereo brought by someone having a beach party. We cleared some bushes and came down the far side to see a group of old WW2 buildings on the edge, each one with musicians in a doorway playing away while a friend filmed them with a video camera as yachts sailed past and further out in the deep channel tankers sailed slowly by; quite a surreal experience.



We went off for a good walk past the harbour and up the Almond, past the weir and into the gorge - I'll probably post some more pics from that bit later on, but when we came back down the way the tide had all but gone out and you could walk to the island again.