A wee bit about birdwatching

I'm not sure when I first became aware he was there. On the recent hot nights the open window had let in even more than usual of the raucous squawking and high thin keening of the gulls, enough to disturb sleep and cause grumpy, swearword muttering, turning and adjusting of sheets. I've been watching him for maybe a week or slightly more, a fledgling herring gull, clumsy in his first attempts to fly, his whole world the roof of the tenement opposite mine.

Over this time I've become attuned to his voice, his repetitive calls for food as persuasive as those of a human child. I've seen one or other of his parents respond to his cries and to his strange head-bobbing dance with regurgitated chips and kebab meat, human rubbish forming the staple diet of the urban seabird.

Herring gulls are reportedly in decline in their natural habitat of coastal cliffs and have been accorded a 'red' conservation status by the RSPB. Yet they are so ubiquitous in our towns and cities that they are considered a pest by many. As an omnivorous scavenger they are perfectly suited to living off the waste our society produces, and the landscape of high flats and tenements forms a not bad approximation of the habitat they evolved to live in.

Watching this gull as night and a light rain falls, his form silhouetted against the darkening sky, the flats across the road are transformed into a sea-cliff. The short, dead end street I live on becomes a sheltered cove of the sort that invariably brought thoughts of smugglers to my mind as a child. The broken down fridge, discarded digi-box and mess of plastic bottles and old video tape that fills the corner against the wall are so much flotsam and jetsam left behind by the tide.

At first he flapped a bit to no real purpose, or used his wings for frantic balance as he stumbled down the slates after a morsel of food. After a few days I began to see him manage short flights, a couple of metres at best, across the rooftop where he was born. These flights were hilarious, almost tragically lacking in the grace with which an adult gull can hang in the wind, or swoop and glide high above the city streets.

I would love to have photographed all this, to have a permanent record of so much fascinating animal behaviour, but I couldn't get past the idea of the neighbours seeing me leaning out my window with a camera and telephoto lens.

When I got home from work today, I have to admit, I went straight to the window to look for him. There was no sign, not a bird in sight. I can only assume his slaptstick attempts at aviation have graduated into real flight. In my minds eye he glides out along the Clyde, out past Ailsa Craig and Arran, to the Atlantic.

A moment of great promise....

What an election. What a result. I don't think anyone, not even Alex Salmond at his most arrogant, saw that one coming. I suppose I could be sitting here in despair, head in hands, at the dismal vote scored by the SSP, and yes there is a certain sadness at the utter marginalisation of the movement I've been part of for the last 10 years. But those feelings are overwhelmed by excitement and hope, and by visions of the possibilities that this sea-change in Scottish politics bring into being.

The Labour party's stranglehold on the Scottish working class has finally been broken, no longer will we be subject to their conservatism and small-mindedness, to their assumption to rule as of divine right justified in the name of keeping the Tories out. And more excitingly still, is the opportunity before us of escaping the stultifying dead-hand of the Great British State, of moving forward to a democratic independent republic. A republic free from imperialism, free from the burden of trident. A republic whose wealth is built on the latent energy present in our wind and our waves, and where the working class's role in releasing that energy gives us the power to demand our due share of that wealth. A republic of equals, that welcomes those of all Nations who wish to make their home here. A republic of peace and internationalism.

OK, so maybe I'm a bit overexcited, these may turn out to be utopian dreams. I could come up with a billion caveats and grumbles about the likely nature of the SNP government. But right now doesn't feel like the time for that. Now is the time to marshall our forces, to unite those who share our visions. I'm genuinely sorry for using such a cliche, but now is the time to work as if we live in the early days of a better nation.

Scottish Labour Are The Absolute Worst Of The Worst Of The Absolute Worst

There's an election on, although you wouldn't really know it, there seems to be much less street campaigning going on than in previous Holyrood polls and the only leafletting round my way has been by the Greens. The postie did bring me an 'election communication' from Labour this morning though. Obviously I snatched it up from the floor with eager anticipation to find out what those great champions and leaders of the Scottish working class plan to do to resist the assault on our lives and livelihoods being perpetrated by our ancient enemies the Tories and their Liberal minions.

Well apparently nothing. There's nothing about the cuts which are destroying our public services. There's nothing about an entire generation of young people being condemned to poverty and unemployment. Nothing at all about the experiment in extremist neo-conservative economic policy being conducted at our expense.

No, Scottish Labour in their great wisdom and foresight have decided that what we really need is for more of us to go prison. In what might just be a new high-point in Labour's already illustrious history of ugly right-wing gutter politics, the leaflet focuses entirely on their plan for mandatory jail sentences for anyone caught carrying a knife. Not only that but they also try to pin the blame for the damage that knife-crime does to our communities onto the Scottish National Party.

'Knife crime wrecking lives under SNP   Carry a knife - go to jail with Labour'

Now I'm no fan of the SNP, but credit where it's due, Kenny MacAskill's period as justice secretary has shown them to be willing to put forward some at least vaguely progressive criminal justice policies rather than the usual hang'em and flog'em populism we can expect from Westminster politics. For Labour to not only characterise this as being 'soft on crime', but to suggest that a highly complex, generations old, social problem is caused by this approach shows just how low they are willing to go.

In the early days of New Labour, Tony Blair famously claimed that he would be 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime'. Scottish Labour haven't even bothered with that rhetorical nod towards the obvious fact that violence and crime have complex social origins. Instead they want to remove all consideration of individual circumstances from the sentencing process in a move that will likely fill our already overcrowded prisons to bursting point.

I've lived in a variety of communities right across Glasgow over the last ten years and worked, on and off, as a youth worker for six years. I'm well aware of the terrible harm done and lives destroyed by the macho culture of knife carrying which many (in the main) young men can get caught up in. But the violence in our society won't be stopped with simplistic, headline grabbing ideas like mandatory sentencing. If some wee guy decides to carry a knife, maybe with the idea of protecting himself, or even, yes, with the intention of hurting somebody, is locking him up, removing him from any stability in his life and putting him in a situation where violence can be seen as a norm really the best way to deal with it?

In the current climate of cuts and economic chaos, the poverty, hopelessness and alienation which are at the root of much of the violence in our communities are only going to get worse. There are going to be a whole lot more angry and lost people on our streets and rates of mental ill-health will soar. If we are going to help people to make the choices in life that lead them away from doing stupid things like carrying a knife about, then imaginative approaches such as community based, restorative justice or approaching knife-crime as a public health issue are needed. If we really want stop the violence though, the one thing we must do, the thing that people's lives really depend on, is to fight the cuts agenda tooth and nail, tackle the poverty and inequality in our society head on and build a world where every single one of us has a future of hope.

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly

So after an initial burst of enthusiasm this blog seems to have died a wee bit. It's partly down to my own laziness and partly due to factors like moving house and not having the internet set up yet, things being mental at work and going on holiday. I'm away walking in Sutherland over the next week but should have internet access by the time I get back. I've got a few topics ruminating in my head to post so do not fear reader, normal service will resume shortly

An Exploration Of Avian Political Economy

Just for a wee change, this post isn't about a protest or an occupation, its about waxwings. This winter saw a huge influx of waxwings into Scotland and the rest of the UK, with regular sightings of flocks well in excess of 500 individuals. This was due to the particularly harsh winter conditions in Scandinavia, Northern Europe and Russia, leading to a shortage of the berries which form the bulk of the waxwings diet and thus causing the birds to migrate across the North Sea in far higher numbers than usual.

Waxwings are incredible birds. They have some of the most striking plumage of any bird regularly seen in the UK and its absolutely amazing to witness a flock of them descend and strip a berry tree of it's fruit. They are intensely social birds and are known for sharing food as a way of strengthening social bonds as well as during courtship rituals, behaviour which can be seen here and in the video below:



Groups of waxwings have also been known to line up along a twig or branch and pass berries along the line from beak to beak ensuring that every bird gets fed, which to me is one of the most beautiful examples of sociability and cooperation in the animal world. In fact I can't think about it without a smile coming to my face.

I'm never a fan of simplistic and reductive comparisons between human society and animal behaviour, and I'm not holding waxwings up as some kind of glorious example of avian communism. Having said that though, the next time that somebody tells me that selfishness and competition are natural, or mutters something about 'survival of the fittest', I'm going to tell them how waxwings get berries from the end of a branch.

p.s. For more on sociability and cooperation amongst animals check out what my good friend the Socialist Cephalopod has to say about ants

Welcome To The Free Hetherington

Last time I was in the Hetherington Research Club I was dancing away at a packed and sweaty club night put on by Argonauts Sounds. It was a quality wee place to go, with the dancefloor looking out of the first floor window on to the trees outside. It was also somewhere students could get decent cheap food and study during the day. About a year ago the university authorities decided to withdraw their funding, all the staff lost their jobs, and its been sitting empty ever since.

Until yesterday that is, when students occupied the building and re-opened it, issuing the following set of demands:

'The Hetherington Research Club to be returned to democratic control by students and staff, with the return of the block grant [ie. the funding the uni gave the club]. All those who lost their jobs as a result of the closure should be offered their jobs back.

Anton Muscatelli [the university principal] should condemn the cuts and student fees and take the average wage of university staff, or resign.

No cuts at Glasgow University. We demand no job cuts, no course cuts, no cuts to student services, no cuts to teaching budgets and an end to the voluntary severance scheme.

Glasgow University must become a democratic place of lifelong learning for all residents of Glasgow.

We demand investment in higher education and wider public services and an end to the Government's programme of austerity.'

I went down to the Free Hetherington at about 10:30 this morning, planning to drop off some food for the occupiers and maybe stay an hour or so to show my support. Instead I ended up spending most of the day there, chatting to folk and getting involved in various wee jobs that needed doing. I can't say enough how impressed I am with the people who've planned and carried out the occupation. Entering the building the general atmosphere is really welcoming but I also quickly got a sense of the seriousness of everyone involved about what they're doing and why they're doing it. Decisions about the practical running of the place as well as the political meaning of the occupation are being made in a democratic and collective way, and its clear that people are in this for the long haul.

This is a space not just for students and staff of the university, but for the wider community as well. It's already beginning to act as a base for the broader anti-cuts movement with meeting by various groups being held. It was great to see the support the occupation already has with people dropping in all day to say hi, see what's happening or donate supplies (well done Campsie SSP for the massive food donation). There are also great events happening like today's brilliant talk by anti-war Iraq veteran Mike Prysner.

Anyway, don't just read what I've got to say about the place. Get in touch, or get down there yourself to find out what's happening and show your support. As someone said to me today "the point of the occupation is the occupation".

EDIT: if you're planning on a visit the occupiers have a wishlist of things that they need

Glasgow Uni Occupied

Students at Glasgow Uni have occupied the former Hetherington research club - a space for postgraduate students and popular venue which was recently closed by the university authorities and was due to be converted to offices. More on this here