Category: Species and habitats

How to turn your garden into a hedgehog haven

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
A couple of weeks ago I had a surprise visitor. The little spikey creature wondered across the garden at night looking for beetles and slugs and my garden has plenty! I’ve never seen a hedgehog in my garden before but this is right time of year to spot them. Over the past few months hedgehogs have been starting to fatten…

A secret winter larder on our doorsteps

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
Early November. The days are getting shorter, the yellowing leaves are nearly down, and even the grass is beginning to die back. It’s nearly winter. Yet out for a walk on a sunny day I still spot a bee or two, and a red admiral butterfly darts past looking pretty chipper. They’ve obviously discovered a source of food, despite the…

Wild about wildflowers

, by Paul Barclay
Late summer is a great time to spot wildflowers. Many plants use the time when days are still warm and light is still plentiful to put on their best displays of colour, working in symbiosis with pollinators to create breath-taking sights out in the parks and wildlife reserves. Cumbernauld has many great places to see wildflowers, Ravenswood, Luggiebank and St…

A closer look at moths

, by Tracy Lambert
I have always been a lover of butterflies, but it took me a bit more time to come around to moths. Until I started working for the Cumbernauld Living Landscape I used to think that moths were all little brown jobs, drab, mono-colour, and basically dull. As it turns out I am so very wrong and that every day really…

If you go down to the meadows today

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
The Cumbernauld Living Landscape team are gradually getting back out to visit some greenspaces in Cumbernauld. Tracy, our Project Officer for Young People visited St Maurice’s Pond recently and was amazed at how much the meadow was thriving! There’s such a diverse range of plant species to be found including knapweed, yellow rattle and birds foot trefoil. Benefiting from these…

It’s time to reconsider our relationship with nettles

, by Cumbernauld LL
Nettles get a bad rap. Everybody has a story of getting a painful sting from them. We’re all too familiar with the horrible, lingering, pulsating, annoying sensation after you brush past their leaves. But, I’m about to rock the boat by saying that we should be encouraging more nettles into our lives. These are plants that truly deserve a reappraisal…

The Mayflower

, by Paul Barclay
“Ne’er cast a cloot til May is oot…” I can still mind my old Grandad saying this to me on a spring morning when I was little as I tried to leave my winter jacket behind before going a walk. My Granda used the phrase to mean the month, and he stuck religiously by it, keeping his jumper on long…

The not so magical midge!

, by Tracy Lambert
Recently Cumbernauld Living Landscape received an enquiry about insect bites and whether anyone else been bothered by them. The quick answer is yes. Since the middle to end of March my household has been scratching legs and arms to ease the incessant burning itch, issuing from what look like wee heat spots. I thought it a wee bit early for…

The plight of the male bumblebee

, by Tracy Lambert
  PART FOUR Once the males have hatched, they leave the nest never to return. Their sole purpose is to feed, mate, then die— it is a very short life for the humble male. Most will never mate but those that do will pass on the genes from the mother queen bee and the grandmother, great grandmother etc. hence the…

The autumn of bumblebees

, by Tracy Lambert
  PART THREE All the bees born in spring and early summer are female, born from the queen’s eggs and the male’s stored sperm packet. They are all sisters who are 75% related to each other. We are up to late summer now, and things are going to get a little tense in the nest. As late summer arrives the…

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