What I’ve been reading this week, 14 March 2021

Getting Scotland’s outdoors ready for busyness — Helen Todd: ‘The pandemic has shone a light on the sector – and while nobody would have wanted Covid to come along, it has provided an important opportunity to show what needs to be done to make Scotland the best destination for outdoor recreation it can be.’

Lucy McRobert: call it out — ‘To make birding a truly safe place for women, especially welcoming new faces, this behaviour needs calling out by peers as it happens. Men have the power to hold their male friends to account and to stop this. Speak up, report it, challenge it, tell your friends that it is not OK to degrade women: not even in the name of banter.’

Landscape, nature, and outdoor activities — an excellent response by Chris Townsend to my recent essay on nature and the outdoors.

‘The Outdoors’ and Nature — another good response to my piece, this time from John MacGill.

A Sand Martin, Diver In Breeding Plumage And More — some top wildlife sightings and images here from Pete Walkden on Mull.

Nature notes — Bumblebees and blossom — the latest in Andy Wasley’s series of nature notes. ‘Only after a full year of paying close attention to the changes in the Farmlands can I really detect the ticking of a seasonal clock here.’

Environmental Principles & Rewilding Statistics — this week’s Inkcap Journal contains some excellent links.

A Freelance Editor’s Experience of the Pandemic — Sophie Playle writes on a subject that many of us who work from home will be able to identify with. ‘But the uncertainty of the effects of the pandemic itself burrowed through my brain like a parasite. There were days I could barely function because I was so frazzled.’

How I learned to deal with freelance anxiety — great observations and lessons here. ‘When I started freelancing, and for a good few years afterwards, I suffered from this feeling again, this gnawing sense of threat. I tried to approach it by not allowing myself to look down … but actually I was looking down the whole time, terrified that I would run out of work and therefore money.’

Food for Free: Early Spring Foraging — good stuff here from Richard Prideaux. I’ve been munching at the fresh hawthorn shoots myself.

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