Squirrels and butterfly habits.

St Joseph, cAD18.

Much has been said about the foreign intrusion of the more aggressive and larger American Grey Squirrel usurping the native species of Red Squirrels.   Along the mixed wooded Storeton Ridge the Grey Squirrel predominated.   A few miles away in Mount Wood, a pinewood of firs and pines, only the Red Squirrel predominates, with no sign of the Greys at all there.   The Greys seem to prefer more mixed woodlands and gardens, and the Reds seem to prefer the pinewoods and the profusion of pine cones, all full of seeds.   Perhaps the different habitats is connected with food habits rather than intolerance, one species to another.

I am always reading of the scarcity of butterflies, particularly the blame of farming methods and the use of insecticides.   Again, whilst I am sure that the use of chemicals on flora and fauna is partly to blame I have come across pockets of countryside where certain species of butterfly persist.  In my own garden I have counted Red Admiral, Cabbage White, Common Blue and other species after planting say Buddleia bushes.   I have found clouds of Small Blue and clouds of Common Blue on the slopes of the machar in the Outer Hebrides, whilst reading reports of their scarcity in south England.   This may well be the result of farming methods down south whereas the machar in the Long Isle of different islands is protected by law and is an area of  Special Scientific Interest.  Crofters do not farm it at all.

More on hunting.

Tuesday a.m., 18 March 2014.  +Cyril of Jerusalem, AD386.

When walking along Keeper's Lane, Storeton on my regular foray across the fields of the Leverhulme Estate and always via Rake Hey Covert I remembered old Aongus Morrison's words as Head Keeper, about hunting when I asked him about hunting after the meet of the Royal Rock Beagle Hunt.  He reminded me that the Cheshire Forest Hunt also met annually on Boxing Day at Storeton Hall Farm, the venue of the Royal Rock as well.  Although the Royal Rock rarely meet here, their kennels were then at Ledsham Station, a good few miles away from Storeton.   Aongus did not approve of hunting for sport;  these being the days after the War when hunting was legal.  He explained that rearing pheasants in a clearing in Rake Hey naturally brought predators there.  He safeguarded his chicks with a strong wire mesh fence and ensured his charges were in the henhouse at night.   If foxes or rats attempted to dig beneath the wire mesh they were met by exploding percussion caps.  The explosions were not loud but sufficient to deter them.  They were re-set daily to ensure that the predators learned, like Pavlov's dogs, that they were unwelcome there.  He knew were all the predators on the estate were and allowed stoats, weasels, sparrow hawks, and foxes etc free reign to live.  If he knew a fox was getting old and say diseased and may infect the others in the fox lair he would despatch it quickly with a single shot and then bury the animal deep in the soil some distance away from the lair.

I then asked him about stoats and weasels as they, like crows, were opportunistic.  He explained that that was given by God to them and again, he would deter them from taking chicks or eggs but not kill them necessarily.   To kill them would upset God's balance in nature.

The Royal Rock Beagle Hunt, founded in the 1920's.

Ember days in the Wirral.

Friday, 14 March 2014.  Ember Day in Lent.

Today is a sort of day of reflection in the Church Year as well as a season of purple reflection, so to speak.

I returned to a childhood area after 71 years.  Once this was always by cycle but now by car. Motoring down Lever Causeway passing Little Storeton village and then around the bend came Storeton Hall Farm.  It was always well kept and the farm tenant had good husbandry.  Fences were all well maintained and the farmyard was always kept immaculate.  Hedges were trimmed regularly and field drains maintained.  It was a mixed farm with a milking herd of Friesians, pigs, horses and a lot of the land was under plough.  The Tack yard was always spruce and they had liveried horses so it was very popular with riders.  It looked the same as I drove slowly past the farm.  Turning into Storeton village at the back door of the farm I saw that the Tack yard was now a Vet Practice.  I parked the car on the side of the narrow road and walked down the narrow lane towards Storeton Home Farm, passing the Keeper's cottage where we used to leave our bikes in the 1950's.  Aongus Morrison, Head Keeper is long dead but I recalled fondly his tuition about wild life.  We always learned from him and he taught us about flora and fauna and the ways of birds and animals.  He always said we must always respect the tiniest of creatures for they are part of God's Plan for the world. He was a former stalker and ghillie on the Royal Estates in Scotland, hailing from Montrose.  A piper to the Cameronian Rifles in WW1 he would often play for us if we requested.  Once I asked him about being a piper in wartime.  He didn't answer, but lifted the pipes and played Flowers of the Forest.  The piobreachd floated across the fields in a haunting.  I noticed that he had tears in his eyes but he never answered the question verbally, nor did he need to.   We departed in silence for the fields and woods nearby.  The memory still haunted me as I remembered him fondly.  I walked on towards the Home Farm, once a poor farm indeed of 23 acres, a herd of a dozen milking Friesians and I recall old Mr Reid the farmer dying and his elderly, single daughter taking it on along with a somewhat surly farmhand.  The farmland was not in good order.  I think that she simply could not cope and the farmhand did the minimal required.  Now the farmhouse looked brand new and was no longer a farm as the barn which I remembered well, was now a covered warehouse for farm machinery and stacks upon stacks of wall and roof tiles.  Obviously it was now a thriving business, which was good.  Cutting through the farm buildings I struck off across the home field to the closed causeway leading to Thornton Manor.  Crossing it I aimed for Rake Hey Covert, remembering to enter not by the main ride stile but from the south side by the long grass and heavy old beech trees.  Some of the beeches had fallen and were rotting.  One I remember well was still there, much bigger.  I recalled lying in the long grass here and watching the spitfires chasing ME109's high in the blue sky in dogfights, then after the planes departed hearing the skylark high in the sky singing his heart out.  The trick was to spot him as he was so tiny.  I didn't succeed often.  Today though, no dogfights and sadly, no skylarks.
Walking carefully through the wood, taking care not to put up the wood pigeons with their alarm calls of flapping wings I settled down with my back against a big beech tree and just waited.  After 20 minutes or so I heard a rustle, but it was only Billy Blackbird turning over leaves.  He saw me and flew off with a chip, chip alarm call.  Then another rustle and there was a hare lolling through the wood at a pace towards the bottom field with its clumps of marram grass to afford cover, as well as the dips and hollows there.  I again recalled the Royal Rock Beagle Hunt meeting in Storeton village one Saturday and they arrived at Rake Hey whilst Vic and I were there.  The Huntsman deployed the hounds to the edge of the covert where there is a ditch.  They gave tongue and set off at a pace along the hedge bottom, the Master, Whipper-Ins and hunt followers on foot running behind.  We thought that was curious as we knew about hares and they did not run along hedge bottoms and ditches.  One hunt follower, a buxom teenage girl in bright red jodhpurs got her jodhpurs caught in the barbed wire fence.  Being gentlemen we eased her out of the wire and she thanked us before running with difficulty after the hunt, now over a field away from us going downhill.  We went in the opposite direction and walked to the top of the ridge away from the hunt and settled down to watch this fascinating escapade develop.  Sure enough, along came the hare uphill towards us as hares have longer hind legs than forelegs and so always turn uphill.  Now why didm;'t the Huntsman know that? As the hare approached we knelt down, arms outstretched and sure enough the hare ran into our open arms and we cuddled the frightened animal.  Hare eyes are perfect for seeing to the side and backwards but they cannot see straight ahead and so our hare did not see us.  We watched the hunt at a distance and we could see that hounds had lost the scent down the hill.  Our hare soon calmed so we gently laid him down, stroked him and off he went at a walk first, then a dollop, away from the hunt.  Later we spotted him about 100 yards away looking at us and washing his ears.  We had to laugh.
Who says animals don't have feelings or don't know how to relate to us?

Change in all around I see...

Wednesday, 29 January 2014. Looking around locally, even globally, we see change all around us. The worldwide Church is splitting further and is wrestling with homophobia and in the case of the RC Church, of harbouring and secreting away sexually abusive priests, thus avoiding the criminal law and making people afraid of reporting them for fear of ex-communication. Christians are now killing Muslims in some countries, in retaliation for Muslim atrocities towards Christians. In the field of politics, revolutions are occurring in many countries, notably the Middle East and Africa where medieval tribal factions feel threatened by loss of power. The lack of formal and even basic education and healthcare provision fuels the resentment of those who live in countries where education and healthcare are normal practice. Even in the so-called enlightened western countries there is distrust of politicians and governments as corruption is rife. Financial cutbacks see many people on the breadline in the UK whilst the Tories ensure that jobs and industry flourish in their heartlands of SE England. Scotland, a nation in its own right of some 4.5 million people, has the audacity again to punch above its weight and hold a referendum on a break from the UK ( from the stranglehold of the SE of England really )and the 70 odd million people in England pour scorn on the Scots and threaten sanctions against the Scots for even daring to wriggle away from their control. The banks are undergoing massive change as they seek to find basic ethics instead of being, as Etzioni calls it, an institution which services only itself and has no relation at all to the reason for which it was set up initially. Then we have changes in the global weather picture with flooding, heavy snow and drought, all when not expected. Oddly enough, such changes are not new as down through history we have witnessed major changes in society as society and the world adapt to new changes in which to live. Changes in the worldwide Church are to be expected and welcomed, for the Church is simply the means by which we as people worship God and help others. The structure of society is changing and necessarily so in order to accommodate the poor and under-privileged. We try vainly to keep up to date and be 'with it', but as one old friend admitted, he can no longer keep up with massive and frequent change round about him. Does the picture of fine dining at Glasgow Art Club represent being stuck in the old fashioned past, or is it something which we will embrace the more as changes occur all around us?

Sunday, 29 April 2012: 4th Sunday of Easter. Today the absence of the Choir, Organist & Choirmaster, Assistant Priest and Deacon, all in Sweden with our twin diocese of Gothenburg, resulted in a said Eucharist, which was fine, and different. Sadly, Fr Ron Graham died, but all his family were present, which was lovely. His funeral is on Friday in church at noon. Interestingly, the sermon by Paul, our Rector, was on one of the readings today from John on inclusiveness and the importance of the inner, spiritual life, with which I agree and I told Paul that. He and I feel strongly about it. It comes as we debate the outcome of the Anglican Covenant which, if passed, will exclude all sorts of folk. Luckily, most dioceses of the Scottish Episcopal Church except Edinburgh, will have nothing to do with the Covenant. Edinburgh have a bishop elect so presumably it will be debated in their Diocesan Synod when they have their bishop consecrated and instituted. It will signal change or, as I would say, growth in The Church. The Anglican Communion General Secretary, Canon Kenneth Kearon, has written individually to each one of us regarding the sort of person the Crown Nominations Commission should seek for a replacement to Cantuar. I had e-mailed him to say that the Archbishopric of Canterbury should be for the Prime Minister and his government to decide with the C of E, and nobody else, whereas the Chair post of the AC should be decided in future by the other Provinces of the AC as the debates in this year's General Synod of the C of E show clearly the reluctantance of the C of E to change and move forward. Therefore, as the Provinces of the AC have already moved on it seems evident that the Chair should be the responsibility of the AC Provinces, not the C of E. I can see the retired colonels of the Crown Nominations Commission 'hrumpring' and snorting over my audacity and then throwing my e-mail in the waste paper basket. Ha ha!

Tuesday, 13 March 2012.

Having a sore back gives one endless opportunities other than gardening or walking. The day is fine and Springlike and a good day for both activities but I answered my body pains and Val and I went to Dalmeny Park for lunch in lovely surroundings. Walking around the garden we were amazed at the growth already under way. Shopping at nearby Tesco we returned home early to continue reading the Lent Study book for Lent - 'Love Unknown' by Sr Ruth Burrows. The book is not easy reading but it is challenging about the nature of God, of how our forbears saw him and the expectations of the then Church and the present Church. We shall join the group at St Ninian's Scottish Episcopal Church this evening after Eucharist. Re-reading chapters 5 and 6 I have warmed to the prophet Jeremiah. He suffered greatly at the hands of 'the establishment' of his day but emphasised the individual relationship each of us has with God ( assuming that he meant over and above that of the Church and God). We shall see what the discussion this evening brings. Meanwhile, back to the book and a wee dram...

Sunday, 04 Dec-2011. Second Sunday of Advent ( 'The Anticipation')

In the appointed readings for today in the Lectionary is the story of John the Baptist. He is portrayed as a wee bitty mad usually. He wore animal skins and ate locusts and the sane bits were paving the way for someone after him (Jesus) and baptising Jesus in the River Jordan. I lean towards his 'wee bitty mad side', I must confess. Being a psychoanalyst I look to his parental upbringing yet we know little of his childhood at all. We know that his parents were probably devout Jews: Zacharia and Elizabeth and that Elizabeth was a cousin of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We recall Mary's trip to see her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant then with John and how she reacted to Mary's exciting news. I often wonder what Mary said to her cousin? However, I would love to have met the devout hermit John the Baptist for he may have been a 'wee bitty mad' but he baptised folk with the Holy Spirit so he was years ahead of his time and would have been seen then as a renegade in the Synagoge. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit and foretold the coming of Jesus, the Messiah and knew when he met Jesus, who he was. I would have loved to have sat with him on the banks of the River Jordan and chatted to him about his visionary experiences and of his fervent spiritual life. We give little attention to this holy man, yet we can glean so much by association, just the same as with Joseph, step-father of Jesus.