Read in full the submission of the winner of our Creative Writing Competition, Ian Edwards.
From the northward migration of the Nuthatch to the wildflower meadows of Midlothian, Ian’s winning piece beautifully captures nature’s resilience and the hope it offers in difficult times.
You can read the winners announcement here, as well as a full list of all submissions published.
Winds of Change: looking for a silver lining in a changing environment
by Ian Edwards
"So where does my optimism lie? Mostly it comes from things I have observed here in Midlothian; small signs that life is adapting to change providing evidence that following nature’s lead can help to create a new ecological equilibrium. This is my hope for a sustainable future."
When I saw this competition I knew I wanted to write something optimistic about the impact of climate change but please, don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not a climate change denier. As an ecologist I was the miner’s canary: chirping on about climate change long before it was declared an inconvenient truth. I understand that we are also experiencing an unprecedented global biodiversity crisis. So where does my optimism lie? Mostly it comes from things I have observed here in Midlothian; small signs that life is adapting to change providing evidence that following nature’s lead can help to create a new ecological equilibrium. This is my hope for a sustainable future.
Every few years a consortium of conservation organisations publishes a report called The State of Nature. This is a list of some winners and losers in the natural world. It takes a wide selection of animals and plants – birds, mammals, amphibians, insects, wildflowers – and provides data on how their populations have expanded, diminished or, in a minority of cases, stayed the same. I always give particular interest about those that are doing well. A surprising number of species are year on year increasing their numbers or their range. The winners include a good few that when I was younger only occurred south of the Border but are now common or widespread in Scotland. More about some of these will follow.
Many people struggle with the idea that some species will thrive in the changed environmental conditions we are experiencing as a result climate change. It flies in the face of the conservative view that all change is bad but it is not so controversial to assume that warmer temperatures, wetter summers, reduced competition or predation, or changes in land use will favour some plants and animals. This is not to ignore those that are suffering from changed conditions but I believe by studying the adaptation, migration and behaviours of those species that seem to be doing well we can discover what makes a survivor.
"This was the first time I saw a Nuthatch, a bird that then only occurred in the South-west of Britain (...) Half a century later and the Nuthatch is a daily visitor to the sunflower seed feeder in my Midlothian garden. (...) I can remember the excitement and initial disbelief at what has become a daily event."
When I was an ecology student in the seventies I had a girlfriend, Clare, who came from Avon, near Bath. We spent her twenty-first birthday, which fell during the Christmas break, down at her family home and a highlight of the visit for me was watching the birds come and go to the feeders in the garden. This was the first time I saw a Nuthatch, a bird that then only occurred in the South-west of Britain and thrilled to see all the other birds scatter as it took possession of the peanut feeder.
Half a century later and the Nuthatch is a daily visitor to the sunflower seed feeder in my Midlothian garden. He is not a large bird, no bigger than the chaffinches that gather at the food station, but he is handsome with his grey coat, orange-buff waistcoat and black, highwayman mask across his eyes. His most striking feature is his bill, an impressive spike designed by nature for cracking the shells of nuts. Although I have never seen him use this formidable weapon for anything apart from extracting sunflower seeds I feel sure this is why the Nuthatch is top of the pecking order and all the tits and finches flee when he shows up.
I’m not sure when the Nuthatch first appeared in my garden although it will be recorded somewhere in one of my field notebooks. I can remember the excitement and initial disbelief at what has become a daily event. It must have taken about four decades for the Nuthatch to get from Clare’s family’s garden in South-west England to my Midlothian home; moving at say 100 miles a decade or nearly fifty feet a day across the length and breadth of the country. This northward migration of a once uncommon bird was undoubtedly facilitated by the warmer climate although the increasingly popular habit by bird-loving Britons of feeding nuts and sunflower seeds to garden birds in winter will also have been a factor. The feisty Nuthatch is a climate change pioneer but other birds will follow. Three species of Egret: cattle, great white and little, are now breeding in the South of Scotland and the European Crane that has settled in Aberdeenshire may one day start nesting at Gladhouse Reservoir.
"It is ironic that this wildflower and butterfly paradise is the direct legacy of the most carbon intensive industry of its time. (...) The recovery that has occurred in the past two centuries is testimony to the resilience of nature and the benefits of benign neglect. "
I am reluctant to give away the location of my favourite walk as on most days Argo, my Greek rescue dog, and I can enjoy it it by ourselves. However I offer a clue: it includes both sides of the Tyne River, in the east of Midlothian, through old lime workings that probably date back to the eighteenth century. The sheer cliff faces of the quarries and half a dozen impressive stone kilns, standing proud like Medieval castles, provide a dramatic backdrop for the glorious wildflower-rich meadows that grow along this secluded glen. Piles of limestone boulders, waste material from the former industry, are initially covered in mosses and lichen but as shallow soils develop these lime-rich meadows support an unparalleled diversity of summer wildflowers and grasses. Amid a topography that looks more like the Burren, in County Clare, than Midlothian there are hellebore orchids, hawkweeds, knapweeds, scabious, vetches, trefoils, ox-eye daisies, Yorkshire fog and quaking grass. Star attraction is the twayblade orchid – a spike of pale green flowers, resembling miniature angels complete with outstretched arms, pink wings and halo! This is also the best place I know for butterflies.
In the height of summer the flowery banks are alive with Meadow Browns, Speckled Wood and Common Blue butterflies, with the occasional Peacock, which in my opinion the most spectacular Scottish butterfly. In recent years I have also spotted but the Large and Small Skipper butterflies. These can resemble moths when they sit on a leaf with their wings open horizontally and are also recent climate change migrants. My 2000 Millennium Atlas of British Butterflies does not show either species of Skipper occuring north of the Border but now along with several other species – the Comma, Holly Blue and Peacock they are extending their range into Midlothian and other parts of Southern Scotland.
It is ironic that this wildflower and butterfly paradise is the direct legacy of the most carbon intensive industry of its time. To extract quick lime from limestone the kiln had to be heated to 900oC in a process that involved vast quantities of coal as well as limestone and flourished in Midlothian because both minerals occur side by side. During the hey day of quicklime production this peaceful valley must have been a hive of industrial activity that pushed out all wildlife. The recovery that has occurred in the past two centuries is testimony to the resilience of nature and the benefits of benign neglect. There is another irony too. The quicklime from the industry was used the production of mortar for building and agricultural lime for ‘improving’ arable farming; two of the most nature-destructive activities that have resulted in the country-wide disappearance of wildflower-rich meadows.
"The reason why these post-industrial sites, and especially coal mines, should have such floral richness remains a mystery.(...) but whatever the scientific explanation it brings joy and interest to people in the local community who now have a vested interest in protecting ‘their’ wildflower meadows from development."
The lime works declined in Midlothian in the eighteenth century and the kilns gradually became to resemble ancient monuments rather than industrial sites but the coal industry continued to expand and reached peak production in the first half of the twentieth century. Although we didn’t perhaps appreciate it at the time the Midlothian fossil fuels have contributed to the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and the warming of global temperatures. Old photos and maps from the fifties and sixties show how significant the extraction was but with the exception of the mining museum at Newtongrange very little above ground infrastructure, including massive pit wheels and warehouses survives today. When the coal mines were finally closed in the 1960s the buildings were abandoned and eventually demolished leaving the bings and former pit heads to gradually become recolonised by nature.
Research by Barbara Harvie on the West Lothian oil shale bings found most biodiversity on sites that had not been landscaped, covered in top soil and planted but on those that had been just left to regenerate naturally. As yet there is no comparable study in Midlothian but anecdotally we can point to some botanically rich meadows on the edges of old bings flattened to create recreational areas. I pass one of these, surrounding the football pitches at Arniston, nearly every day and along with local residents and other dog walkers I delight in the summer display of native wildflowers and grasses. It is not a nature reserve or protected by any designation but incredibly it is home to over fifty species of wild plant, including the nationally scarce fern, Moonwort, with it odd crescent-shaped fronds and a reputation for alchemy. To the best of my knowledge this area was never sown with wildflower seeds and the display we revel in is entirely the result of natural environmental change.
The reason why these post-industrial sites, and especially coal mines, should have such floral richness remains a mystery. It is likely to have something to do with the heterogeneity, low-fertility and free-drainage of these young soils but whatever the scientific explanation it brings joy and interest to people in the local community who now have a vested interest in protecting ‘their’ wildflower meadows from development.
"I am far from ignorant of the real threats posed by climate change and I am truly alarmed by the rate that change is happening – far faster than any of us predicted. Yet I am also inspired and encouraged by the way in which nature has demonstrated remarkable resilience."
One thing I have learnt from a lifetime in ecology is that nothing in nature is linear: wait long enough and everything will come around full circle. I am far from ignorant of the real threats posed by climate change and I am truly alarmed by the rate that change is happening – far faster than any of us predicted. Yet I am also inspired and encouraged by the way in which nature has demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of climate change and this gives me some degree of hope to think that by observing closely what is happening in nature and studying adaptations to environmental change we may might also learn how to adapt and survive. We are after all part of nature and can not be separated from it. There will always be winners and losers: we need to be sure to be one of the winners.
Climate change while inevitable is also full of uncertainty; but one thing we can be sure of is that our future landscape will look nothing like the past. People sometimes ask me what they should plant in Midlothian for posterity and I will often recommend the Strawberry tree. It grows naturally in South-west Ireland and the Atlantic seaboard of Portugal where it experiences warm, wet winters and exposure to the frequent strong winds so it should do well in a warmer, wetter, windier Scotland. Although at first sight it may look a bit like a smaller-leaved version of the loathed Rhododendron ponticum, it is a tree that offers many gifts and shows no tendency to become invasive. It produces clusters of white, honey-scented flowers in autumn, a welcome boost for any late foraging bees; and strawberry-like fruits which although have a disappointing taste eaten fresh are the essential ingredient in a delicious liqueur, Medronhos. So who knows, if folk heed my advice in the future Midlothian Medronhos could become a local speciality?
