Planet Hopping

I have had a life long interest in science fiction since I was a teenager and first read the books of Isaac Asimov and also E.E.'doc' Smith, among others. Here is a little poem I came up with after watching some sci-fi movies on the television recently.

Planet Hopping

To dance on the mountains of Mars

hopping around, jumping high as can be,

driving those big wheeled magical cars

that move in slow motion to me.

..............................

To sail across miles of huge deserts

as on Mars there are yet no seas,

the things we can only imagine

the next generations might see.

.............................

To leave all this beauty behind us

that would be too great a wrench for me

but in my dreams in the night, they find us

on the planets which I'll never see.

kindurco 28April2005

How to become a 'poet'

This is a little poem that I wrote after a mornings nature walk with some children a few years back. They were all asked to provide a descriptive word of a tree we were looking at [ from all angles], and then we made up this little poem:

Our Tree

The slender young tree
stands calm and peaceful
glistening in the morning light
The sprawling twigs texture the sun
breaking through to the flaky bark
becoming scratched and fissured by age.

It is a really easy way to start composing poetry, which is after all only words that have a melodic rythm to them. Another type of poetry which I like is Haiku poems. I have done a few over the years.

Crows caw and gulls screech

while the oystercatchers wail

- it's a seaside tale!

written on the shore in Luce Bay, Galloway. I scratched this onto one pebble using another quartz pebble and left it on the shoreline for anyone else to read before it faded in the sun and sea.

Another time I was walking in some woodlands I often visit, and at a well used Badger sett, there was an old Badger skull which had obviously been dragged out of the sett when the badgers were doing their 'spring cleaning', along with some soil and loads of used bedding material. It made me think, almost immediately of this haiku:

Badger skull exposed

bring thoughts of doubtful repose

and mortality.

Spring in our step

It is definately springtime - the bluebells are beginning to flower in the woodlands, before the tree canopy grows too thick. I would recommend a walk in a bluebell wood to raise the spirits. There is a wonderful one at Castle Semple Country Park, near Glasgow at Lochwinnoch. It is called Parkhill Wood and the smell of the flowers on a still sunny day is wonderful.

Spring Cuckoo flower

This is the Cuckoo flower which is the major food plant of the Orange Tip Butterfly.

Spring on a Scottish Canal.

I was up at Kirkintilloch yesterday, for a walk along the Forth and Clyde Canal. It was a lovely spring day - warm and sunny - a promise of summer (I hope). There were loads of Dandelions and quite a few common Daisies out on the canal bank, and at the side of the new road bridge, with lots of Bumble bees buzzing around looking for nectar. I also spotted my first butterflies for this year - two Peacock bitterflies and also two Small Tortoiseshell butterflies who kept having territorial disputes!! They were feeding on some large patches of Lesser Celandine which were on the steps down to below the aquaduct [at Luggie Park on the old railway walkway]. The Mute Swans were sautering up and down one small area - and I think had overloaded on bread from the various people who had come to feed them. They can easily distinguish between people who have shopping bags with food for them and the people just passing by. They also head straight for anyone with a small child who stops to look at them --- they know they are going to get fed!!

I managed to catch sight of and watch a holiday barge as it headed through the swing bridge at Townhead [ and held up all the road traffic in the process]. It sailed regally through, and I later saw them moored at the town centre - probably for lunch!
I think the canal is going to be much busier with boat traffic this year as there are more boats to hire and more charter boats being added to fleets this year. Just check out the Nolly Barge at www.nollybarge.co.uk or the Forth and Clyde Canal Society at www.forthandclyde.org.uk
Both are charitable organisations which provide charters and boats for local people as well as the 'wider community', and both of them are launching new trip boats in 2005.

Old Autumnal Musings

This is a small sample of some 'musings' I wrote back in September 1996, when I was up the west coast of scotland for a weekend of 'nature immersion'.

Brooding hills
Squalling gulls
Waving grass
Turquoise water
Warming sun
Autumn has come.

Cormorants fly past

to a wing drying roost

Gathering grey clouds

Bringing the water

to quench the parched

land's thirst.

Hoody Craws in their mottled plumage

fill the skies with their contact cries.

Morning thoughts in ancient oakwoods

This poem was written during an autumn environmental workshop weekend in 1997 up on the west coast of Scotland at a place called Barmeddy, near Loch Awe. We had been taken out into the woods before dawn and left in solitude for about half and hour - to enjoy the sensations of the world at dawn! I don't know what the other people did but I composed this. It was among one of my first attempts at poetry since I was a child.

The first ray of sunshine
clouds up above
blue cram and pink
soon covered up by light grey

The tree tops are moving
the wind must be there
They are bowing their heads
to the spirit of the Air.

Cool, calm, fresh. clean,
Green, yellow, brown
Grey, blue and cream
the colours of the morning
It isn't a dream.

I shall be adding other poems to this site soon, please send a comment if you like the poetry.

First try at Blogging!

Hello, this is my first try at blogging so I hope you will bear with me. My musings will tend to be mainly about wildlife as that is my biggest interest and a large part of my career as well, but I will probably add in some poetry and pictures from time to time.

At the moment, it is starting to feel like Spring proper out there in the big outdoors. The birds in my garden in Scotland are all chasing each other around like crazy, doing their little courtship rituals for all they are worth. There are already a pair of Blue Tits started nesting in a hole in the garden wall that they used last year [successfully - despite all the cats in the area]. The Collared Doves are displaying to the females at any chance they can get, and the Jackdaws are flying around with nesting material in their beaks. The Dunnocks are fascinating to watch - the males build several nests on their own and then try to entice a female to choose one - and they may end up with more than one female mate!!