Yesterday airborne seeds smoked and billowed from the downy heads of thistle plants. It always seems to me that, like the mayfly, thistle seeds seasonally pour forth in one of those blink-and-you-miss-it profligate events nature is so good at. Suddenly the air temperature is just right, the wind just so, and the seeds take to the air.
Little Owl calls the thistle seeds ‘fairies’ and tries to catch them in her cupped hands in a sweet frog-like dance of leaping hops. In the draught of an open shop door one circled just above her head. She shooed it outside only to turn and find four or five had snuck in behind her. She conscientiously picked each one up between thumb and forefinger and deposited them outside, only to find a breeze had sent another flurry in. “Like trying to stop the tide,” remarked the shop assistant. True enough, thistles are to Scotland what bread is to butter.
I have some prints up in a new exhibition happening this month at Maple Arts on Candlemaker Row in Edinburgh so do take a look if you happen to be nearby.
