This week started off in a wet and windy Kirkcudbright, enjoying seaside delights such as whelk egg cases blown right up onto the riverside path during last week’s storm and gloriously bright Xanthoria parietina lichen (also known as Maritime sunburst lichen) on the rocks of the seawall.  Whelk are amongst the most economically important shellfish in the UK but are quite slow growing and therefore vulnerable to overexploitation unless harvested sustainably. Females lay clusters of up to 150 fertilised egg capsules, each of which can contain up to 4000 eggs, on hard substrates such as rocks, which you’d think would mean we were over-run by whelks! However only around one percent of the eggs develop into juveniles, with the remaining ones used as nurse eggs by the developed embryos. The larvae develop for up to five months inside the egg capsules then tiny juvenile whelk, with shells just three mm long, emerge and crawl onto the substrate. The absence of the swimming larval stage of many marine molluscs means that new individuals don’t tend to be dispersed far from their parents, limiting the genetic variation within individual populations and making them more vulnerable to environmental pressures.

I was surprised to find both Wild garlic and Bluebells already in flower on St Mary’s Isle, a week or two before I’d expect to see them in any number on this side of the Pennines.  In a nice sort of symmetry, though, I did see Red Kites overhead as I drove home along the A75 and much closer to home, near Shotley bridge.

For part of the week my chances to experience nature were largely limited to what I could see out of the kitchen window as I painted, but on Friday I got to wander around the Woodland Trust site at Low Burnhall with our postgrad demonstrators, prior to next week’s practical.  Both Wild Cherry and Bird Cherry were in full bloom and also full of bees and other insects.   I saw my first UK swallow of the year and listened to Chiff-chaffs giving it their all and was heartened by a sign on the ‘messy’ grassland area outside the Maths and Computing building pointing out that it is an important part of enhancing biodiversity on the university estate.

One thing which has struck me this week, as I prepare a talk for colleagues in the Psychology department on the value of the Botanic garden student volunteer group I run, is the tension between spending as much time as I would like to in my garden or further afield and making time to write about nature. Is it better to prioritise being outdoors in nature than writing about it or should I be looking harder for a balance?  If only there were more hours in the day!

In the allotment I finally got the autumn raspberries cut back – I’m hoping it’s not too late.  My currant and gooseberry bushes are all flowering now but the Damson and Plum tree have finished.  I’m hoping this week’s frosty mornings haven’t jeopardised the prospect of fruit to come.  Otherwise, I’m doing a bit of weeding prior to planting lettuce and pea seeds. I was delighted to see my first Tortoiseshell butterfly of the year enjoying the many Dandelions I’ve not pulled out!

In the garden the Red Campion is starting to flower and the Bugle is hosting lots of invertebrate pollinators. Tiny Thyme-leaved speedwell has popped up again in the grass and at least some of the Meadow Cranesbill I planted last year has survived the winter. The Forget-me-nots are flowering by the pond and there seem to be seven spot Ladybirds everywhere, which is not surprising given what most of them are up to!  It’s good news for my roses, if not for the aphids which are starting to appear on them! 

I’ve planted some Dahlias in pots, for the first time ever, after enjoying them at the annual bed in the Botanic gardens last year.

The culinary highlight of the week was undoubtedly a meal at Miso, in Ouseburn, on Sunday evening, particularly their Crack cabbage with a sesame dressing and the ‘Kinoko – By the Bay’ chargrilled oyster mushrooms. Being a vegan would be no issue if all vegan food tasted this good!

I finished reading (or rather listening to) My father the Whale, by Gina Perry, whilst travelling to and from Kirkcudbright.  It’s the tender and hopeful story of Ruby, growing up in rural Australia with an itinerant father who seems unable to be the grown-up, and how she finds her own place in the world and grows to understand the forces which shaped them both.