Austerity Cuts. The Changing Face of Glasgow's Parks in Aug 2024. New Glasgow Murals.

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 A recent walk around Glasgow's Victoria Park, and several other city parks seemed to confirm what I had been thinking. Although I'm all for re-wilding in certain areas to help wildlife, mammals, birds, bees etc.. I have also been suspecting that letting some areas go wild is more about a lack of garden staff, money saving cuts, rather than any wildlife benefits involved.

 The Victoria Park Fossil grove, seen in both photos above, is a perfect example of this. The second photo is one I took around five years ago, pre- pandemic, showing off the rocks of the old quarry where the fossilized tree trunks were found and was an absolute joy to walk through with loads of flowering plants from early Spring to late autumn. No weeds in sight.

 This is it now in Aug 2024. Hardly any flowers due to wall to wall ferns and bramble growth. Obviously if left another year the entire area will need to be dug out and renewed with new plants... if it's ever going to recover to its former glory. I also noted no tadpoles or aquatic life of any kind that I could see in the Fossil Grove pond whereas I always have frogs, toads, hoverflies, dragonflies, bees and butterflies every year March to October in my own modest garden. Without even trying. Build it and they will come. So much so I'm tripping over the little buggers every time I hang a washing out. " Feed us!" they shout or croak around my ankles. I'm a proud Daddy to hundreds of strange tiny creatures. 

Young Gull.

Young fox.

Frogs.

 

 One of my pet hoverflies. If I read a book outdoors this particular one sits on the page or on my deck chair or finger all summer. Even a cheap £4 plastic tub dug into the ground ( with a shallow end DIY created for amphibians to crawl in and out of easily or a shallow plastic container dish will attract these friendly guys. Easily my favourite fly. Doesn't bite you, sting you, or try to get indoors, lays its eggs in stagnant water instead to produce yet more hoverflies. The UK equivalent to tiny hummingbirds. And if I can do it anybody can. I'm a one person wildlife reserve.....that's helping wildlife in reality. Even if you can manage a tiny permanent puddle in a quiet spot in your garden wildlife will find it and use it. The Fossil Grove pond is that rare exception for some odd reason. Never seen much in it at anytime. Year in year out. Maybe it needs fossil fish.....

 Bluebell carpets and other spring varieties, once a joy to see here in March, April, May will stand little chance against this green fern blanket covering the entire fossil grove area. The Fossil Grove is also shut most of the time and only open very occasionally for interested visitors.

 Same with the back woods which have been left to grow wild as well. It used to look like this just a few years ago.

 This area surrounds the Fossil Grove and was a delight a few years ago with colourful azaleas and rhododendrons everywhere.

 That area , the back woods, has been abandoned as well, with brambles and other weeds running rampart here and rapidly out competing any flowers and bushes left alive. I noticed the same with the main border in the Botanic Gardens and the Walled Garden in Bellahouston Park, Half the flower beds than before. And apart from the main glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens, which are still there, all the other glasshouses in the various city parks are either gone altogether or in a very poor state of repair. 

The more popular half of Victoria Park is much the same as before, the obvious decision being made to concentrate any maintenance and border planting around the parts of the park where the majority of the public and families congregate.  

As here in the formal garden area...

And in the rose gardens... which look just the same as years ago.

An overview of the formal garden area. Incidentally, this was taken from the esteemed park bench which Jack and Victor repeatedly tried to claim but didn't often get in a memorable episode of Still Game. A Scottish TV series filmed around Glasgow. The other park benches in that episode being lower down dotted around the formal garden area.

Three flying ducks on a wall. A Hilda Ogden, Coronation Street favourite house decoration given new life covering the Victoria Park toilet block.

Swan mural. same place. Note the blue water in both images.

Grey Heron over a blue pond.

Victoria pond reality in Aug. 2024. Coots make a nest out of twigs and floating rubbish. As we haven't had much rain the past few months in 2024 most park ponds are half empty and this one had an additional green scum covering it. Despite this obvious drawback nature is always compelled to try and breed each year.

The biggest surprise here however was this sight. It was so unexpected that from a distance viewpoint I thought it was a sculpture at first. Made of metal.

It turned out to be four fledgling grey herons sitting on a nest. Either they have hatched in a tree in the adjacent smaller wooded pond, which is covered in trees, many of them blown down recently, or they have hatched  here for some reason. 

That was the main shock of the day as previously I've only seen coots, ducks, moorhens and swans nesting in the main pond.

This coot had a very high nest but once the recent heavy rains topped up the pond back to it's former glory it wouldn't look so weird and maybe the green scum would dissipate.... or be scooped off  by park maintenance teams eventually. It's been a very dry summer so far... same as last year.

Some new Glasgow Murals down at the railway arches to end with. War Bird.

Creepy character. Either a friendly creature or more likely just a very hungry one happy to spot a passer-bye at last.

Scottish thistles.

My new favourite. Very elaborate design. Mexican or South American at a guess.

BFG. Big friendly giant perhaps... given the dream jar... or just a Guinness drinker in horizontal repose... or poetic contemplation?

Cowboy mural. Part of the reason for capturing these murals is that they often change every year replaced by new ones. For instance  I noticed my old favourite, a modern Cleopatra depiction with the wine glass and pearl story is now gone. So just as well I photographed it a while ago.

This railway arch is situated below Yorkhill Hospital and can also be reached from Partick or Finnieston by walking next to the Clydeside Expressway.

The lane immediately behind this railway arch wall is also covered in murals and a small garden is now open here through glass doors but only on fri, sat, sun, I think. Also a proposed 12 floor high stylish hotel might be built here in this lane.

https://www.glasgowwestendtoday.scot/news/revealed-urban-garden-emerges-from-wasteland-1429/

"Get your coat... you've pulled."

Scottish mural...

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, usually with gold, all the rage now, in fashionable western circles, but also a philosophy of life in Japan. It's also an album by American rock group Death Cab for Cutie. A band/artist who also wrote one of the best 'couple splitting up' songs of the past 20 years.    Black Sun.

An old favourite. The red fox mural.

And a new favourite. Galatea. The goddess of calm seas who was wooed by Cyclops but fell in love with a mortal youth with two eyes who didn't live in a smelly dark cave all the time. She probably just wanted a bit of bling and a handsome bed partner but when old one eye squashed him under a rock she turned her dead lover into a river. Symbolic or what. Any goddess should be feared, revered, and trusted in equal measure... so a fitting portrait.

This mural is not found beside the railway arches.