Fraser MacDonald

@frasermacdonald.bsky.social

2816 Followers 521 Following

Geographer, historian.

A photo of very worn, cracked and taped ear defenders .
Pm 2.5 monitor reading 82 ųg/m3, against a gloaming sky in the direction of Arthur’s Seat.
An orange and black bug on a green leaf, Corizus hyoscyami is a species of scentless plant bug belonging to the family Rhopalidae.
A man stares at the camera, a photo made famous by the Clickhole article 'The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point'
A concrete foot, nine feet across, nestles in grassland on a sunny May afternoon. It looks odd, inexplicable.
Imprint of wood pigeon on glass
A photo of buttered steamed green kale on a plate.
A handful of cherry red radish in the sunlight.
A photo of an active compost bay full of cut grass bathed in evening light.
A photograph of a lane leading on to Portobello promenade. Two LED streetlights illuminate the damp air, against the night sky over the Firth of Forth.
Timelapse of a weekly addition to my compost heap, consisting of shredded paper, straw, coffee grounds and food waste. The pile is initially turned, showing a mix of dark compost and white actinomycetes bacteria.
A view over moorland and forestry to tthe newly transformed beaver habitat of Loch Laude in Abriachan, Scotland.
View of Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat looking west over Salisbury Crags and the old town, with the upper Forth in the distance.
A single red squirrel postcard lies on Princes Street, beneath the Scott Monument
Paper title: Black Death Land Abandonment Drove European Diversity Losses in Ecology Letters ABSTRACT The current prevailing perception is that human impacts on the biological realm have been overwhelmingly negative. Here, we test this narrative by considering the consequences for aspects of floristic diversity of the ‘Black Death era’ (1300–1400 ce), where one third of Europe's population died within half a decade. Based on evidence from 109 pollen records spanning the Common Era, we find increasing floristic diversity from 0 to ~1300 ce as human populations increased, followed by rapid and substantial diversity reductions during the famine- and disease-driven human mortality events of the ‘Black Death era’. As human populations recovered following the mortality shock, diversity also recovered. Strikingly, it was landscapes characterized by cereal cultivation that generated both the overall Common Era increases and the Black Death era declines in diversity. The highest diversity levels were achieved in human-generated, mosaic landscapes, highlighting the integral role of human action in biodiverse European landscapes.
timelapse of hot compost on a cold day, steam billowing from the pile as it is being forked over.
A short time-lapse film of me turning and adding to my compost heap. The film shows aerating the pile with a long manure fork as steam rises, followed by the addition of new ingredients – mostly coffee and straw – in layers.
View from a bird hide looking north east over Duddingston Loch, the later afternoon light reflecting in the water. Arthur’s Seat rises from the left of the frame.
Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Epstein on a private jet.
A close-up photo of dark crumbly compost in its thermophilic phase. Straw is visible in the foreground. A compost thermometer reads 70°C / 160°F.
A man in a three-piece tweed suit and tweed cap stands by a river on moorland. He is holding a small travel bag and looks serious to the point of annoyed. The bag doesn't look heavy.
A middle aged male model with grey hair and tortoiseshell glasses sits outside on a moorland looking earnest and academic. He is wearing a green jumper with a cutsie bear cartoon with a walking stick. The contrast between model and bear is jarring.
A woman model stands outside wearing outsize tartan 'country' trousers in muted green and purple, and a purple woollen jumper with a cutsie bear cartoon mascot. She looks commandingly into the distance.
A model stands outside against a stone house, wearing blue moleskin trousers that seem to mysteriously absorb light. He has a tweed baseball cap, green wooden jumper and tweed waistcoat.
There's a lot going on. A page from the catalogue showing a model wearing tartan trews and waistcoat. The velvet slippers have tassels. He is weight a tartan bow tie, white shirt and velvet dinner jacket.
A black and white photo from 1915 of an older rural man in fisherman's clothing is flanked by his granddaughter in law and granddaughter, standing against a field of (perhaps) potatoes.
An oblique view of Portobello beach, Edinburgh, showing a line of an 18th century harbour wall. In the far distance, is the island of Inchkeith.
View east over Edinburgh across Arthur’s Seat, autumnal leaves, grey sky, and the gothic rocket spire of Buccleugh Free Church.
20 litre bucket of spent coffee grounds being mixed with a garden fork.
A photo of two soil thermometers in a compost heap, each reading at or around 80°C.
Black and white studio portrait, late 19th c, of James MacDonald.
Five primary school kids and a snow man on freezing, snowy UCU picket line in February 2018, coincidentally the same month that Sir Peter Mathieson became Principal of Edinburgh University.
A hols hausen free standing log pile in a garden.
Photo of 1934 book, A Life of One’s Own by Joanna Field aka Marion Milner, in very good condition with dust jacket.
Shetland kale seedlings emerging from a seed module tray, bright green leaves and purple stems.
Image of Edinburgh's G&V Hotel on George IV Bridge which is covered in scaffolding.
Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher meets Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street 30 July 1997
A handful of kale seeds.
Close up of Great Skua on a close pass.
Mousa broch, Shetland.
Front cover: Cottage Gardens and Gardeners in the East of Scotland, 1750-1914 by Catherine Rice.
Escape From Earth, a book on early US astronautical history, and on the politics of misaligned credit to V-2 engineers over those at Caltech/JPL.
Newspaper report of talk on Russia by Nan Shepherd in the Cults WRI in 1944
Gif of empty wallet
Screenshot from live footage of NS-31 New Shepard launch of reusable space craft taking an all women six person crew up to the Kàrmàn line.
Close up of bearberry flowers on plateau of Carn na Leitire, above Loch Ness.
fragment of china featuring a duck
assorted coloured shards of tableware – fragments of plates and dishes – unearthed from my garden
View of Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh on a spring evening.
Headline from Independent: "Labour MP invites Donald Trump ‘home’ to visit the Scottish island where his mother was born". The standfirst reads: 'Torcuil Crichton, whose party leader Keir Starmer is expected to offer the US president-elect a state visit, sent the message in a Christmas card'
Steven Bannon on the cover of Holyrood Magazine, December 2018.
Image of a digital billboard screen in Edinburgh advertising Stormzy x McDonalds over a deserted A1 against a grey February morning, framed by electricity pylons.
QUOTE: "Anyone who thinks the way to head off the tide of fascism is by limiting the range of political choices to either fascists or pro-business neoliberal technocrats is dooming us to fascism." - David Graeber
Headline from Independent: "Labour MP invites Donald Trump ‘home’ to visit the Scottish island where his mother was born". The standfirst reads: 'Torcuil Crichton, whose party leader Keir Starmer is expected to offer the US president-elect a state visit, sent the message in a Christmas card'
Page from History of the Parish of Banchory Devenick regarding land ownership of Cults.