Materials Man

[View with PicLens]

Having heard the Loch of the Lowes Osprey was back I went to have a look to see if “mine” was back, no joy, but it’s early yet. The birds will have a bit of gardening to do as the nest has a dome of long grass occupying the cup area. I had visited last week as well and spotted a white Fallow deer in a scrape, in a field of sheep, it was a good kilometre away and was unaware of me and was seemingly at peace.

This week the local farmer had his sheep in the field I usually observe in, and here again I see the Fallow deer, and it sees me and is off, not as you would expect a wild deer to be off i.e. over the fence and gone, not this fellow,  he mingled with the sheep, but used a fold in the field to just have his head above and watched me. I by now was scanning the Estuary to see if osprey or harriers were in evidence, standing almost still gave the deer the confidence to mix with the sheep, the shots above are from him settling down.

I usually meet the farmer when there is cattle in the field, when he comes to check on them, mainly as they endeavour to escape, unlike the sheep who took ages to cross the burn and find the field they are now in, the farmer left the gate open for this purpose, but it has taken a year to happen. just how the Cumbrian farmers hefted new sheep to the hills is beyond me, however they did.

So, I have some questions for Mr farmer when next we meet, why does this deer mingle with sheep when there are plenty of Roe deer around, I saw five on my visit last week, is it something of his doing? or is it the white deer I saw last year, escaped from somewhere, now bigger, herding with his sheep? The fallow clearly  has an interesting association with the sheep if you examine his undercarriage, from shot to shot !!

Mainly from American movies I have the implanted notion that rivers in America, particularly in the West, run wide, clean and have deep pools. When Big Gordon and I fished wee Scottish streams a 2 pound trout was a whopper, and rarely seen or caught, I often used to harbour a notion that fishing the wild undisturbed American rivers for trout would be so natural, wild fish, in wilderness, you, a fly rod, a camp fire, fresh fish. It would have been like fishing Scotland’s streams in the 17th century, only the catch would be comparable to catching a good sized salmon. I had no notion of cougars or bears disturbing this idyll.

What did disturb this idyll, was the BBC world service, I heard a report about mercury in all of America’s rivers, turns out 291 rivers had fish that had mercury and of these 1 in 4 exceeded EPA guidelines. Gees I said in an America accent this is new, not so, papers were being produced in 2003 (and perhaps earlier) to recommend reductions in mercury emissions from coal fired power stations. I knew about gold mines and mercury and the infamous Cisso corporations poisoning of Minamata bay in Japan in the 50s and 60s, but coal fired power stations?  It is true, it’s what the world service reported and of course I have googled it since.

So that pristine wild west environment of childhood movies is a pricked balloon, I am surprised by the Americans though, where there’s a problem the solution can often make money. I am guessing the power companies were not made to clean up and or the capture of mercury in hot gasses is difficult ie expensive in a limited market.

So when in America eat steak, it’s only full of steroids and antibiotics !!

Does Chinese coal contain mercury? perhaps the poor will inherit the earth !