I was curious about this insect I spotted feeding on a flower in North Berwick. I had never seen this species before.

From this photo it looks like a moth of some sort:-

Edited to add (7/8/24): I have received a comment on my flickr account telling me it’s a hummingbird hawkmoth. Thanks, Keith.

Penguin, 2016, 443 p, including 2 p Contents, 7 p Guide to the Glossaries, 23 p Notes, 5 p Select Bibliography, 6 p Acknowledgements and 10 p Index.

Landmarks is a meditation on landscape, wildlife and language. Each section of the book focuses on a particular type of landscape – flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, underlands, northlands, edgelands (those peripheral to urban areas) earthlands, woodlands, with a last one on children’s perceptions – and is appended by a glossary of words relating to it which MacFarlane has come across or finds apposite. A postscript discusses the reactions he has had to the book’s first printing and adds further words which he was sent in the meantime by readers of the first edition. Most sections deal with the writings of a single individual associated with that landscape – Nan Shepherd with mountains, Roger Deakin with water, J A Baker with birds, Richard Skelton with land, Barry Lopez with polar territories, Richard Jefferies with the edgelands (the Bastard Countryside,) Clarence Ellis on stones and rocks, John Muir on woodlands – and MacFarlane’s encounters with them or their works.

He laments the loss of connection modern children have with nature, in particular exemplified by the removal of many wildlife and landscape words from the Oxford Junior Dictionary in favour of those to do with electronic devices and other indoor pursuits. This will be exacerbated by the reduction in wildlife, the many birds and insect species is serious decline. Most of the avid observers of the natural world whom he reveres have taken particular care to see, to notice. The second section, A Counter-Desecration Phrasebook, relates how the proposers and supporters of the setting up of a windfarm on the isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides saw nothing on the land but scrub heather. However the locals and sympathetic ecologists who took the time to see and observe noted how diverse but still unique the ecology there is, and united to oppose the plans successfully.

Among the nuggets sprinkling the text is John Muir’s account of surfing an avalanche. (Basically by spreading his limbs and hoping for the best.)

It is in the words describing our surroundings that MacFarlane glories and the glossaries of words used in different counties and from the different languages of the British Isles, English Scots, Irish, Welsh, Gaelic, Anglo-Romani and one heretofore unknown to me Jèrriais (also known as Jersey Norman, there are also Norman variants in Guernsey and Sark.)

Take wonty-tump, a Herefordshire word for molehill, or zwer, the onomatopœic whizzing noise made by partridges breaking from cover, mi-chàilear, a Gaelic word for even more dreich than dreich,* airymouse, a Cornwall word for a bat and, a favourite of mine, apricity, the warmth of the sun on a cold winter’s day. There are also delightful dialect words (such as smeuse,) for the holes in hedges through which an animal can pass, different words for the holes used by different animals.

MacFarlane’s attention to language is clear. In an aside he says “E M Forster once compared the use of exclamation marks to laughing at one’s own jokes, but for (John) Muir the exclamation mark was a means of notating rapture.”

This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in language, words or the natural world.

I did have some quibbles, though. Skite is defined as “to splash, usually with muddy water” and is noted as a N Ireland usage. In Scotland this word means to glance off a surface (‘the ball skited off the pitch.’) Several other words assigned to N Ireland are widespread in Scots: hirple (to walk awkwardly or with a limp,) slater (woodlouse,) gowk (cuckoo, or foolish person, ‘Ya daft gowk!’) glar (thick sticky mud) and its adjective, glarry, also surely derive from the Scots noun glaur, whins (gorse bushes) is most definitely Scots. I suspect all these originated in Scotland and were transplanted to the province along with James VI’s settlers.

Chucky – a small flat stone – is described as a word from Galloway. In my youth – not spent in Galloway – we frequently talked of chucky stones, so-called, I always assumed, because they could easily be chucked (i.e. thrown.) Clairt, for mud, is given as Scots; more commonly it’s used as an adjective, clarty, as of mud-spattered clothes or skin, and by extension is used to mean dirty.

MacFarlane does point out in his guide to the glossaries that he did not include variant spellings nor cross-reference between languages and dialects.

The Notes are not signalled on the relevant page but instead all lumped together in an appendix, and are therefore divorced from their context.

*For those who don’t know it, dreich is Scots for dull, overcast, misty (usually all at the same time) and generally depressing weather. In Scots ‘even more dreich than dreich’ is often rendered as ‘gey dreich’.

Pedant’s corner:- “aeroplanes that crash into the plateau, killing their crew” (aeroplanes plural; therefore crews,) protestor (usually ‘protester’,) Jefferies’ (Jefferies’s. [I note that MacFarlane had Thomas’s not Thomas’],) pentstemon (penstemon.)

There are two formal gardens in the grounds of Glamis Castle.

Walled garden gateway:-

Walled garden interior:-

Italian garden entrance:-

Italian garden interior:-

Glamis Castle from Italian garden:-

Fountain in Italian garden:-

Italian garden and trees:-

In the castle grounds we found this “fairy ring” of fungi:-

Colourful fungi:-

Thee’s a frog in this one just below left of the leftmost mushroom:-

Son of the Rock Acres overlooks what remains of the grounds of the former Balbirnie Estate, indeed it is built on part of it, though half the original estate is now a golf course.

A group of deer lives on and around the estate. Sometimes they even run across the access road.

A deer in a copse nearby. You can just spot its rump if you look carefully:-

I managed to get a bit closer. The deer are not easily startled unless someone comes along with a dog:-

Occasionally the modern world intrudes. There is main road to or so hundred yards away but the noise is muted by intervening houses. Not so the helicopters which have been known to land at the hotel to which the big house (Balbirnie) has been converted. Nor the odd gyrocopter/microlight:-

Whenever we’re in Bridge of Allan we always take a stroll up to and across the road bridge over the Allan Water. There’s nearly always a heron on the weir or on this wooden construction above the sluice gate. It must be a good spot for hunting.

Scone Palace isn’t actually a palace but an old house, near the village of Scone itself near Perth, Perth and Kinross.

The name palace derives from the site being that of an Abbey with its accompanying Abbot’s Palace.

The Palace’s grounds contain the ancient coronation site of the Kings of Scotland where the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, was situated on Moot Hill.

Scone Palace from drive:-

Closer view:-

Old gates. These are not on the main drive but nevertheless a few years ago some delivery driver tried to get through them and knocked the central stones down. The arch has been well restored:-

Chapel on Moot Hill:-

Chapel and Stone of Destiny, Moot Hill. You have to look really hard from this angle to see the Stone:-

Stone of Scone replica (or is it?) There have always been rumours that the stone Edward I of England removed to Westminster Abbey and on which the monarchs of England and, from 1701, the UK have been crowned was not the original:-

Scone Palace is also renowned for its peacocks (and peahens):-

They are reasonably tame and will eat out of your hand:-

I have featured Bakewell, Derbyshire before here and here. We passed through it again in September 2018, had a nice walk around and along the River Wye plus a good lunch in one of the cafés.

One footbridge and weir over River Wye:-

A second footbridge:-

Weir and old bridge:-

Old bridge:-

Fish and Duck:-

Fish (trout?):-

On the way back to the car park at Threave Castle we saw – and heard – some red kites but they weren’t making much noise when I took this video.

Caerlaverock Castle was moved about two nundred yards from its original location as that was deemed unhealthy.

Nothing remains of the original Caerlaverock Castle but its foundations.

This is Historic Scotland’s Information Board at the original site:-

Foundations:-

Just below the wooden bridge you can see in the first foundations photo I noticed a butterfly with yellow tips to its wings. Its at the top edge of the blue flower:-

I’ve been aware for a long time that though I have a category for Scottish Football Grounds in which I post pictures of those theatres of disappointment I’ve never actually featured what Sons fans know as The Rock.

Given that this season promises to be one of the most dismal in over twenty years for said fans what better sight to lighten the mood?

The stadium has had several sponsored names over its years since the club moved from the traditional Boghead: Strathclyde Homes Stadium, the Bet Butler Stadium, the Cheaper Insurance Direct Stadium,* the YOUR Radio 103FM Stadium, and now the C&G Systems Stadium reverting to Dumbarton Football Stadium in times between sponsorships.

It really is in a fantastic location.

Dumbarton Rock and Dumbarton Football Stadium from Castle Road:-

From car park and pedestrian access. The turnstiles here are for the home end:-

Stadium, Stand and Dumbarton Rock from main car park:-

Stadium and Dumbarton rock from western part of car park:-

Showing Stand seating:-

Stand from River Leven side:-

Stand from west car park:-

Main Entrance from car park entrance:-

From Home support end of Stand. Kilpatrick Hills (known locally as the Long Crags) in right background:-

Pitch panorama. Dumbarton town in background. The large red brick building, once part of Ballantine’s Distillery, has now been demolished:-

Away end of pitch:-

I caught this disinterested spectator before a game once:-

*When that one was first referred to by a BBC Radio Scotland reporter at a game I remember the programme’s presenter Richard Gordon wailing, “Noooo.” It was bit of a minter.