Birding guides from Portmoak primary school manage RSPB Scotland’s re-opened Loch Leven Nature Reserve on it’s re-launch day, following its’ £500,000 makeover.

Tweetdeck – above: youngsters bird-spotting from behind a hide-screen as they train for their day as twitching guides and reserve managers.

Above: reserve management at the RSPB Loch Leven Nature Reserve, formerly known as Vane Farm Reserve.

Pictures for RSPB Scotland.

The former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway launches his long-awaited memoirs “Leaving Alexandria” in the noble surroundings of Edinburgh’s Royal College of Physicians on Saturday evening.

Richard Holloway (above left) pictured with BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme presenter James Naughtie who lead the discussion and Q&A session with a 160-strong audience.

Commissioned by Canongate Books and in The Scotsman and other daily newspapers and online yesterday. Portraits of Richard also featured in The Sunday Times on 8th April.

An art prize created in honour of Edinburgh sculptor and artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was launched yesterday by his sister Yolanda Tartaglia. The Paolozzi Prize is open to fifth and sixth year pupils in the Edinburgh council area.

Above: Yolanda Tartaglia, sister of Eduardo Paolozzi, launches the Paolozzi Prize with some of her brother’s artworks.

Commission for The Scotsman and in today’s newspaper on page 23.

Richard Holloway, widely respected thinker, writer, broadcaster and former Bishop of Edinburgh publishes his long-awaited memoir today.

‘Leaving Alexandria’ takes us on a journey starting at Richard’s childhood home in Dunbartonshire.

My pictures of Richard for Canongate publishing taken in and around Old St Pauls Church, Richard’s former parish church.

Above: the view of North Bridge, Edinburgh, and left: Richard in Old St Pauls Church in the city’s Old Town.

Richard will be talking to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme presenter James Naughtie in an event on Saturday March 10 – see more details here.

“A powerful autobiography of faith and doubt, with a strong meditative and philosophical heart”.

Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative managing director Jeremy Miles launches a year-long project for Scottish Enterprise and Cooperative Development Scotland.

More details of this project here and here.

Above: Chain gang: team-work from the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative staff keeps the firm moving ahead even in current challenging times.

Rooted in Edinburgh: Jeremy and EBC staff take their new stock of 2012 bicycles out for a spin beside the city’s Meadows park.

Photography for Scottish Enterprise / Cooperative Development Scotland.

My pictures of the charming Ed Reid, star of “Britain’s Got Talent”, who recently released a Christmas i-Tunes single in aid of the Aberlour Child Care Trust charity for disadvantaged youngsters.

Ed, from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, is still a drama teacher, keeping his feet firmly on the ground despite his success in the top TV talent show.

His “Twinkle Twinkle” EP download features seasonal old favourites “Last Christmas” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”, as well as the nursery rhyme title track specially re-worked by Ed.

Above: Ed Reid with Aberlour Child Care Trust children. Ed paid a surprise visit to children at the trust and gave them a sneak preview of his EP songs.

You can hear Ed’s tune and download his EP here.

Pictures for Aberlour Child Care Trust / Grayling PR.

The Scottish Friends of Bhopal charity hold a memorial service in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh, to mark the anniversary of the gas disaster in the Indian city in 1984.

Pictures for the Bhopal Medical Appeal / Scottish Friends of Bhopal and used on their news website: www.bhopal.org/news

 
Left: The granite memorial at Edinburgh’s historic Greyfriars Kirkyard, with a ceramic tile QR code link for smartphone users to take them to the BMA website – thought to be the first use of a QR code on a memorial or gravestone.

The Scottish Friends of Bhopal hold a short memorial ceremony at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh

The Bhopal Medical Appeal has been campaigning against Dow Chemicals, the owners of the original Union Carbide factory which exploded. A total of 25,000 residents have died as a result of the explosion and by water contamination which still continues.

In the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics the BMA is campaigning against Dow’s sponsorship of the games – see this report from The Times Of India: www.timesofindia.com/dow-at-olympics

The story so far: my recent pictures of Previously…. Scotland’s History Festival – the nation’s first celebration of Scottish history – from 17th to 30th November – timed to finish on St Andrews Day.

Above: Nigel Planer and Ian Rankin head up the History Festival at an evening dedicated to the life and work of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Above: Fiona Hyslop, minister for culture, discovers a little-known ancestor at the festival’s launch at Edinburgh’s New Register House – Scotland’s official records office.

Above: “Devine Judgement” – a good-humoured panel group with Lesley Riddoch and Prof Tom Devine discusses the nation’s ‘talent drain’.

Left: Comedian Jo Caulfield leads her Comedy Collective “HIStory / HERstory” at The Stand Comedy Club.

And (above) bright new comic talent Eleanor Morton joins Jo, with her fresh look at socially awkward comedy.

Photography commissioned by festival director Susan Morrison and producer Ian Harrower.

The BBC’s ‘Afterlife’ presenter Dr George McGavin in the ‘Rot Box’ documentary film set, surrounded by cooked and uncooked foodstuffs starting to decay

Not for the squeamish…. my stills report of the BBC’s 8-week documentary on the natural process of decay – set in an ‘ordinary’ house.

Or, as the BBC website explains:
“Ever wondered what would happen in your own home if you were taken away, and everything inside was left to rot? The answer is revealed in this fascinating programme, which explores the strange and surprising science of decay.

For two months this summer a glass box containing a typical kitchen and garden was left to rot in full public view within Edinburgh Zoo. In this resulting documentary, Dr George McGavin’s team use time-lapse cameras to capture the extraordinary way in which moulds, microbes and insects break down our everyday things and allow new life to emerge from old.

The BBC’s ‘Afterlife’ presenter Dr George McGavin in the ‘Big Rotter House’ of decay

Decay is something that many of us are repulsed by. But as the programme shows, it’s a process that’s vital in nature. And seen in close up, it has an unexpected and sometimes mesmerising beauty”.

I ventured into the ‘Big Rotter House’ on 2nd August, in week one of the experiment, when cooked and uncooked foodstuffs like raw chicken and a spit-roasted pig were starting to hum with bacteria. After eight weeks the house was filled with flies, maggots, beetles and bacteria.

Look our for the programme on BBC4 on Tuesday at 9pm – fortunately after most peoples’ dinner time, as it’s quite gruesome viewing. See more information on this fascinating one-off programme here.

Above: a raw chicken, a dead mouse and a spit-roast pig start to decay in week one of the documentary

Pictures for the BBC and published widely in the national and local press, websites and TV listings.