There was always a view from this section of the Coastal Path, taking in the Forth and the iconic Rail Bridge, but it was fast disappearing with the growth of trees and shrubs. The area also had a range of rank grasses with Creeping Thistle being the main contributor of colour and food for a few pollinating insects in its short flowering season. It had been planed for some time to restore the view and add a seat to replace the one that some 25 years ago had been a place below the path to sit and watch the ships and sea-birds on the Forth. The plan to improve this area finally came to fruition with the award of a grant to upgrade the whole section of Coastal Path where it ran from Lumsdaine
As I said in an earlier post, the hot dry summer produces some winners and some losers in the natural world, and one of the winners this year has been a small butterfly, the Small Copper, that in years past used to be a common sight everywhere. It was in December 2015 that P7 children from Donibristle Primary cleared an area of gorse from the rocky headland that leads to Downing Point. One of the plants that benefited was Sheep’s Sorrel and while it did suffer from the lack of rain this year, it continued to survive and stay green. This plant is one of the food-plants for the caterpillars of the Small Copper butterfly and it was a delight, two days ago, to see a couple of these diminutive je
Sunday the 5th August, in pleasantly warm weather, 4 of us worked our way from the Bathing House Wood end of the path through to The Triangle, collecting the litter that had mostly been uncovered during the path refurbishment work. There was not as much as I had expected so some other good people must already have picked up some of it and Alan Brown had already made a good start on the bank of the Heritage Viewpoint, but we were able to remove a fair amount of previously buried plastic that should no longer pose a risk to the environment.
It tends to be taken for granted that having some wild areas of grass, flowers, and trees is a good thing, but the recent long spell of dry weather helps to highlight why this is so, and why we must do all we can to protect the wild places we have, no matter how small. The recent spell of no rain and a lot of sunshine turned lawns brown. But while we could turn on the hosepipe and provide some relief from the drought in our gardens, the wild spaces around us had to cope with what the weather brought. Last year saw a long spell with almost no rain from mid-March to mid-May. This year’s exceptional dry weather began in early April and continued to mid-July. Fortunately the last few days ha
