wildlife – EalaCreative

Put the flags out! Finding Bunting!

Illustration page showing *Lapland Bunting* (left) and Snow Bunting (right)
Image: *n341_w1150* *Birds of Britain*
*London,A. and C. Black,1907.*[etc.]1883-85. by Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Public Domain at Flickr

May the 4th (#StarWars Day) 🙂 is usually a day for all things intergalatic but we also like to find about things nearer home, as well as those species that have a shared heritage across the northern regions.

At EalaCreative we are exploring how to work with archives and digital collections as resources for learning and creative inspiration. This image of two ‘bunting’ birds -Snow and Lapland – is from the Biodiversity Heritage Library available online. For some info on Scottish birds see for example the page posted here by The Scottish Ornithologists’ Club (SOC) on snow bunting sightings in Scotland.

In the Cairngorms – a mountainous tundra climate plateau region in Scotland – a number of ‘Arctic’ and -sub-Arctic species are found including the snow bunting. See here for more information on the Norsk Polarinsk resource site where you can listen to the song of the Snow Bunting, Svalbard’s only ‘songbird’.

“The snow bunting is the most northerly passerine bird in the world. It breeds in a circumpolar range, south to Scotland and Iceland, and it is a common breeder in suitable habitats in northern Scandinavia, Greenland, Svalbard, arctic parts of Russia and the northerly parts of North America.”

See also a like below for a Wildlife Photography video available on YouTube of Snow Bunting in the Cairngorms.

“904 views 6 May 2019 4th May Scottish highlands, a couple of days snow brought the Buntings down from the high tops of their breeding grounds, They are a scarce breeding species in the UK, in Scotland around 60 pairs, in winter numbers can be 12,000 birds up and the UK”. “Wildlife Photography Snow Buntings highlands of Scotland”. “

Eala explores “The Swan of Tuonela”

Tuonela – the realm of the dead – is the setting for the Kavela’s mythic hero Lemminkäinen‘s fate. Read more here about this famous Finnish tone poem by Sibelius The Swan of Tunela.

You can read much more on this epic tale as the inspiration for Jean Sibelius, – Finland’s famous music composer – composition – the Lemminkäinen Suite – here.

The Kalevala – Finland’s national ‘story epic’ and work by artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela will be forever entwined.

“Koru-Kalevala, The Illustrated Kalevala- sketches for Väinämöinen’s visit in Tuonela D-GKM-3837.tif” by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. This file is shared by The Gallen-Kallela Museum. CC0 1.0.

You can read more about these links between ‘ancient stories’ and ‘modern times’ in an essay by Michael Hunt (2019), for the exhibition The Kalavala – In Other Words.

Elsewhere you can read more about “an alternative Kalavela” and research by Juha Pentikäinen, Professor of Modern Ethography at the University of Lapland. Juha Pentikäinen‘s research includes a focus on the deeper shamanic roots of the Kalavela’s folktales. See also here a discussion on the Kalavela’s philosophy, its story roots as ‘deep knowledge’ and links to folk healing.

Tuonela

“Tuonela is described as being at the northernmost part of the world but is sectioned apart from the world of the living by a great divide. In the divide flows the dark river of Tuonela. The river is wild, and the dead can be seen trying to swim across it. The dead must cross the river, either by a thread bridge, swimming, or taking a boat piloted by the daughter of Tuoni.^[1] The river is guarded by a black swan that sings death spells.” Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuonela

The Finnish word for swan is joutsen. The word derives from jousi, the Finnish word for arrow.

Celtic Swans and Children of Lir in the Cairngorm National Park

Scottish and Irish mythology – a ‘Celtic mythology’ also features swans and here is a link to the famous Finnish story The Swan of Tuonela (and also a mention of the Irish story ‘The Children of Lir‘) as told by “The Irish in Finland”.

Finally, find a storytelling link here to the Scottish links to this folktale of the swan Children of Lir that includes a link to the history of Insh Church (the chapel of the swans) as told by Scottish musician Hamish Napier. The children turned to swans – as it is told here – flew between Ireland and Scotland for nine hundred years before eventually – on being turned back to their human form – they crumble to dust. Find some more information on Insh Church at the Am Baile Highland archive collections site. The church is near Loch Insh in Badenoch, located in the Cairngorm National Park in Scotland’s highlands. Nearby to the church is Insh Marshes a national nature reserve rich with ecology and wildlife as”one of the most important wetland areas in Europe”.

Broken ice on Loch Insh, Cairngorms by Masa Sakano (CC BY-SA 2.0) at Flickr

Looking West – Looking North

The EALA project is a OER connections project based at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and working in creative practice and arts pedagogy partnership with the University of Lapland. The EALA project was funded by the Scottish Government’s Arctic Connections Fund 2022-2023 to explore and expand Scottish and Arctic creative contexts and commons.

EalaCreative – the working group of participants – have used the symbol of the swan – jousten (finnish); eala (scots gaelic) – as a theme for our cultural, environmental and socio-ecological pedegogy focus.

In Finland the swan holds a very special symbolism for the nation and this Tuonela swan myth is explored by the EALA creative project team here.

We have looked west, south and east in our focus on looking north! This post speaks a little more to looking west and the islands of the Outer and Inner Hebrides.

Mute Swans in Flight by Caroline Legg (CC-BY-2.0) at Flickr

Energy “at the margins” – powercuts! Across the islands of Scotland’s west swans (most usually Mute Swans) are often seen flying high overhead as they migrate but so too they might fly low and occasionally power would be lost (“powercut“) as they might fly into the electricity cables that hung from the wooden poles across the islands’ moorland. In Uist in the Hebrides to the west of Scotland, for example, it might occasionally happen that a “downed” swan might be found dazed and slightly disorientated in the narrow water course channels of the intricate loch and peatland bogs and the land drainage systems. Having hit the wire the swan might rest and recover in these low lying bogs and ditches.

Elsewhere across the cultural history of Scotland and other landscapes and nations the swan is a symbol of life long partnership. Images of swans paired together consumed with their ritual return nesting habitats are common across digital resources and informed our EALA logo design.

Archives and Wildlife Science

In exploring the open accessible resources available online (creative commons) for images of swans at South Uist at Loch Bee we discovered the work of Dr Mary Gillham, a wildlife scientist. An archive project offers her collection of photographs for others to view and re-use and includes many images taken in Scotland, but also in regions such as Antartica:

“Dr Mary Gillham MBE (1921 – 2013) was a pioneering naturalist and prolific wildlife author, who took an active interest in the environment for over 80 years. In 1959 Mary was a member of the first Antarctic expedition to include women scientists,” Dr Mary Gillham Archive Project

Below is just one image from Dr Gillingham’s archive – an image of Loch Bee on South Uist, Outer Hebrides. Although rather difficult to see the swans in the distance (small white dots on the dark blue water) the image offers a sense of the area’s assets low lying natural ecology of the loch, alongside its working landscape that includes crofting (cattle are seen grazing), estate management (loch fishing), and the ‘open skies’ of the islands north Atlantic ‘periphery’ situation for the nearby defence missile testing site (the”rocket range”) Range Hebrides. A view of a rusting oil drum can be seen lying in the peat moorland bog in the foreground.

Image : Mute swans over west half of Loch Bee (Bi) South Uist, *South Uist Moor. MT* (Outer Hebrides Scotland). Courtesy of Dr Mary Gilliham Archive Project (CC-BY-2.0) at Flickr.

“Among the birds”

Nest of a Whooper Swan (*Cygnus cygnus*) (image “n106_w1150“) by BioDivLibrary
is licensed under Public Domain Mark 1.0 at Flickr.

EALA has taken the swan as its motif. The EALA participants explored a number of resources related to swans, and other birds in both Scotland and the Arctic using online resources and digital repositories of images. This image of a nest of a Whooper Swan is from a collection of images held by the Biodiversity Hertiage Library from the book by R.H. Porter (1904) Three summers among the birds of Russian Lapland, London. Source: biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40161711

Biodiversity of the Arctic is a key safeguarding focus for the Arctic Council. You can read a full account of this here at the Arctic Council’s safeguarding the Arctic biodiversity pages.

“Ever since its establishment, environmental protection has been at the core of the work of the Arctic Council. In the Council’s founding document, the Ottawa Declaration, the eight Arctic States affirmed their commitment to protect the Arctic environment and healthy ecosystems, to maintain Arctic biodiversity, to conserve and enable sustainable use of natural resources. It does so through defined actions based on scientific recommendations.”

Quote Extract available from: https://arctic-council.org/explore/topics/biodiversity/

Group of flying whooper swans. Free public domain CC.0. 1.0 at Open Verse

NatureScot operates to manages Scotland’s biodiversity. In December 2020 the Scottish Government published the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Post-2020: A Statement of Intent. This paved the way for the Scotland’s new, ambitious 25-year strategy drafted and review, to be published in Spring 2023.

“Our work contributes to the Scottish Government’s purpose of “creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth.” NatureScot

Scotland’s natural capital plays an important role in:

supporting economic growth

improving health and well-being

reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping us to adapt to climate change

strengthening communities