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Following on from my hopeless shenanigans today;
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=643&page=56#post-171739
who's up for an expedition to seek out the Union Canal kingfisher some weekday morning?
@jdanielp - would you be willing to lend your keen eye to the quest?
Indeed. It would need to be in a 9-9:15am window for me.
I have blue tinted glasses Inwill wear. Bit late time slot but Friday is the day for me
09h00 Gogar Station Road Bridge this Friday.
@shuggiet?
Shuggy was keen before. If we do this there will be jelly.
Ok, I'll try to be prompt (and in doing so will no doubt end up arriving early). I didn't spot it this morning so don't hold your collective breaths, but you never know...
@jdanielp
As in fish fishing, the pleasure in kingfishing is in the quest and the expectation. See you there!
Dead keen, but not enough to come back from Rome for Friday. Good luck, and hope you do it again next week!
Ancora per uno martin pescatore?
molte volte spero.
The forecast isn't looking too promising for Friday morning just at the moment. At least the bridge will offer us some shelter until the party has assembled.
Happy to postpone a week. Non-waterproof birds can make themselves very scarce when it rains.
Ok, let's postpone it. I'll see if I can shift my routine forwards a little next week so we can meet a bit earlier.
Earlier good for me though by Friday I have done the hours I am paid for so can go in later.
I feel I had easterly on way in and westerly on way home tonight but then I had some Kalimna Bin 28 with a cannelinii bean, flat parsley and carnaroli rice risotto and chestnut and puy lentil ragout followed by some mostardo di frutta, home made vegan ice cream and Italian pudding wine. So now I am happy.
I was told by a native Italian this evening that my flat-bread was as good as her mother's. We had it with roast winter vegetables and pesto mayonnaise. Good luck spotting the kingfisher.
The weather wasn't as bad as I feared after all. I half thought that I had seen a kingfisher-shaped object on a branch as I cruised by the usual area, but stopping to try and take a closer look yielded no further evidence of anything, so I'm not sure what I did or didn't see. Hopefully Friday next week will be far more conducive!
I put my blue tinted spes on and saw a sparrow
However I respotted the Solitary Wave plaque.
If you trundle along Hermiston House Road and then access the canal (I take the west ramp to maximise sparrow/kingfisher potential spotting) you go under the hermiston house road bridge. However the plaque is on the west side of the next old bridge towards town about 75 yards to the east, which is actually a bridge to a boarded up road that would take you to the front door or back door more likes of Hermiston House. See Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis stevenson or Weird of Hermiston (I think Jack Bruce rather than John Martyn) - see also Something to Live For which is a beautiful Jack Bruce song on his How's Tricks album.
Anyway the plaque says - Near this spot in 1834 John Scott Russell observed the Solitary Wave
Today is not a halcyon day. See you all in a week. If we spot the bird, I'll erect a plaque.
I have failed to shift my routine any earlier this week, but I'll aim to be there by 9am tomorrow. I spotted the kingfisher on Monday and Tuesday, but neither Wednesday or Thursday this week. I'm not sure which way it'll go.
09h00 Gogar Station Road bridge. Binoculars. 80mm bells. Hopefull aspect.
I've taken the day off work, so should be earlier than usual.
What news from the Western reaches?
Was the Kingfisher spotted?
Not initially, although IWRATS took up a position staking out Hermiston House Road bridge after I headed to work so I am looking forward to hearing whether he did spot it...
@jdanielp
Alas no. Many other wild things did turn up before my feet got too cold to stay (SPD cleats leak a lot of heat to the ground).
There were many parcels of songbirds using the canal as a motorway into town. There was a flock of fieldfares. There were more wrens than seemed possible or likely. There was a big fat buzzard sat in a tree making everything else a bit nervous. It was not though, a halcyon day. There will be others.
Thanks again for showing me the lie of the land. A kingfisher spotting outing is profoundly human.
Ah well, another day for the kingfisher then. Can't you access Gogarburn by heading down Hermiston House Road?
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