Tag: birds

No more elephants!

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
The elephant in the room’ is a hugely overused phrase these days, don’t you think? So I’ve come up with a new one: ‘the heron in the loch’. I was strolling back along Broadwood Loch when I saw the tall, ashy-grey shape of a heron a few yards away. I saw it – but I hadn’t registered it – it…

The benefits of a scruffy garden

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
I glanced out of my sitting room window, where I was working at my laptop, yesterday morning, and caught a streak of lipstick pink as it flashed down towards the plants beneath the sill. Sitting up for a better view, I saw it was a male bullfinch, smart as new paint, rosy chest, coal-black cap and face, grey back and…

If you build they will come!

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
It was National Nest Box Week last week! A sure sign that spring is on the way. And it’s not just we humans that are feeling that spring is in the air. You may have noticed that the birds are getting more and more vocal? The males are staking out their territories ready to attract a mate and ensure they…

Big Garden Birdwatch – join in, feel good!

, by Katie Brown
This weekend, every person, aged 1 to 100, has the chance to be a citizen scientist for a day. It’s so easy you can do it from your own back garden. This year marks the 43rd anniversary of RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. Getting involved could not be easier. Check out the RSPB’s website for instructions on how to count them,…

Wild About Woodlands

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
Our final Early Connections session of the 2021 needed to be something suitably celebratory. We wanted our last session of the year to be one to remember – so I, along with Cumbernauld Living Landscape trainees Alex Paterson and Rozelle McMillan, arranged with John Green, Principal Teacher at Woodlands Primary, to do a suitably festive Wild About Woodlands themed sessions…

Why we need winter Part 2

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
Despite its bad press winter brings lots of reasons to be cheerful. Today, for me, it’s hanging out the washing on a clear winter morning. The sheets tugging and snapping in the breeze; damp, clean laundry smells; warm hands but cold fingers fumbling with wooden pegs. Best of all, the sound of pink-footed geese passing overhead. Looking up to see…

We don’t know what we’ve got –‘til it’s gone

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
We have a biodiversity crisis on our hands, and it’s shared centre stage with the climate crisis for much of COP26. And we may think most of the crisis is happening in the rainforests or oceans of the world – but it’s also happening on our doorsteps. For example I realise that I saw two red-listed, and one amber-listed bird…

The sounds of the wild seasons

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
If wild geese provide the soundtrack to winter walks, the warblers to the spring, and the screaming swifts are our summer music, then it is the incessant piping of young buzzards that sometimes fill these not-quite-summer, not-quite autumn days. In truth the adult buzzards have been calling to one another most of the year – only falling silent in the…

Categories

Tags

Antler, Tranquility, Lockdown, Green spaces, Colours, Scything, Great Scottish Squirrel Survey, Frog, Rewilding, Companion plant, Iron, Superfood, Herbal, Naturehood, Ivy, Plants, Vacancies, Blog, Doe, Deer, Seafar Woods, Event, Alder, Juniper, Guest blogger, Accesability, Orchards, Training, Green space, Researcher