A goldfinch feeding a oungster, in hawthorn bush covered with bright red berries, sky very blue behind.

On Monday I was planning a walk but it felt a bit hot to go to the hills. I got the train to Milngavie and walked back down the Kelvin walkway to Glasgow.

A dirt path through a dense green forest with sunlight filtering through the leaves.

Saw the first kingfisher on the Allander water which kept my eyes on every overhanging branch for a while.

Both the Allander and the Kelvin are lined with the pink stink of Himalayan Balsam. The path quite overgrown in places with nettles, thistles & brambles making shorts a poor choice.

Despite the warm weather the rivers are quite full. Less butterflies than I expected, green-veined whites all long the way.

Everything seems to have come to autumn early, brambles, acorns and already red hawthorn berries.

Once back in Glasgow I was looking across the river and saw a reflecting, the colour and shape of a foxes ear. Lying in the balsam above was a young looking fox. It didn’t look quite right, spread and very still. Zooming in I couldn’t see breathing and it was still when I made a loud clap. My second kingfisher of the day arrowed past.

Once I got to the science park I saw a couple of specked woods. Birds along the way: a kestrel, mobbed by wee birds; warblers, and goldfinches. I watched one goldfinch feeding a youngster in those incongruous hawthorn berries.

A montage of screenshots of plages linked in the post.

From Glastonbury to Gaza: no direction home

From Glastonbury to Gaza: no direction home | Chris Smaje a rabbit hole of links, to climate & farming, ht Jeremy Cherfas


Dougie Strang

Dougie Strang | writer, storyteller, performer I read a essay by him in Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland and more recently this poem: Poem That Avoids Arrest – Bella Caledonia

Much of my work, whether written or performed, is inspired by the natural and cultural ecology of the Scottish landscape.


Sensei LMS

Learning Management System Plugin for WordPress – Sensei LMS

Sensei Review: Transforming WordPress into a Dynamic Learning Platform

The Sensei LMS plugin allows WordPress users to create and sell online courses without relying on a separate platform. Free and Pro versions are available, so users can get a feel for Sensei before committing. While Sensei Pro isn’t quite as feature-rich as the leading standalone learning management systems, keeping everything within WordPress offers major benefits.


Wainwright Prize

Shortlist 2025 – Wainwright Prize

The Wainwright Prize, a celebration of nature and conservation writing, announces its 2025 shortlists. This year marks a bold new chapter, with three new categories reflecting the evolving landscape of environmental storytelling – particularly in how it reaches and inspires younger audiences.

Looks like a good list to check the library with.

peacock butterfly & Bumblebee on knapweeed flower

Afternoon, Kilpatrick Braes. Very hot. Buzzards mewing & raven croaking in blue sky. Quite a lot of peacock butterflies, mostly on downy thistles. A couple of red admiral & fritillaries flying by. A few whites by the road. Heather out, braes purple. At the turn a lizard wriggled off over the grass.

Read: Havoc by Rebecca Wait ★★★★☆📚
Collapsing girls boarding school, where the buildings and most of the characters are broken. Illness, hysteria & comedy ensue. Mostly through the eyes of the most normal mistress & Ida, new 6th year fleeing from a Scottish islands scandal. I raced through.

Readers no longer see news articles from the journalists they chose to follow on Twitter as the site downranks any posts that link offsite. When they search on Google, they’re bombarded with error-ridden AI facsimiles before reaching the higher-quality underlying work. 

I enjoyed listening to the podcast version, feeling smug as a long time RSS reader. Spells out lots of new reasons for using RSS. Watching Ewan Macintosh use NetNewsWire on a train, before Wifi on trains, before smart phones, changed my digital life. I though then it might change everyone’s, maybe still will?