Tag: wildlife

One swallow does not a summer make…..

, by Laura Healy Smith
Swallow, (c) Chris Gomershall, 2020Vision Every spring, I long for the sight of swallows returning to perch on telegraph wires and preen themselves after a mammoth journey which seems impossible for such a tiny, slight bird. Their chatter has been the constant soundtrack to my life over the years and their petrol blue and red plumage – and forked tails…

Over to you…

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
Over the last couple of years I have really enjoyed writing pieces for this blog telling you about some of the fantastic wildlife that we have in Cumbernauld, and about the amazing people that we have worked with to protect and improve our beautiful greenspaces. Sadly this will be one of the the last pieces for a while, as the…

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…

Love dust in the air?

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
This week the greenspaces around the town have purred with insects feeding on the wildflowers brought out by the recent warm weather. Bumblebees, hoverflies, craneflies, day-flying moths, they all seemed drunk with the perfume that the bluebells, violets, hawthorn and the rest were pumping out to attract them. On one walk recently I saw a single, male, green-veined white butterfly…

A vital lesson

, by Paul Barclay
  By Paul Barclay, Cumbernauld Living Landscape Health and Wellbeing Project Officer This week is Green Health Week and people all over the UK are taking the opportunity to highlight just how vital spending time in nature is to everyone’s health and wellbeing. The last few years have really emphasised this. For many of us, stuck at home, that daily…

The empress of flowers!

, by Cumbernauld Living Landscape
All around the town, on the verges, next to the footpaths, on the playing fields, the fast-greening grass has been sprinkled with splashes of white and pink where daisies are taking advantage of the short time before the mowers come out in force. In some people’s eyes, of course, these are weeds, not wild flowers. Weeds because they’re everywhere, rather…

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…

Wassailing apples

, by Paul Barclay
Recently Cumbernauld Living Landscape’s Saturday nature group headed out into the woods on a special mission. “Wassail the trees, that they may bear, many an apple and many a pear…” While the domestic apple is not native to the UK we do have our own version – the crab apple. A member of the rose family, its small fruits taste…

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