CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

Wildlife lowlight of the week

(611 posts)
  • Started 5 years ago by dessert rat
  • Latest reply from chdot

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  1. nobrakes
    Member

    I get the same experience opening the door of my daughter’s bedroom. I sometimes think we should just tape up the door and forget that the room ever existed.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  2. Rosie
    Member

    @bax:-
    "Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind.
    Cannot bear very much reality."

    Posted 3 years ago #
  3. mercury1and2
    Member

    Gosh william buckland- did he eat a part of a human brain-? Takes me back to Dorset- anyway I was cycling back from wardie and saw the tail end of a badger? I think or hope - cant think in my frozen state what else it could have been...?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  4. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Far be it from me to turn CCE into Corrections, Clarifications & Errata but many substances fluoresce under UV, particularly modern plastics and, notably, washing powder and anything washed in washing powder.

    Fluorescence under UV illumination is not equivalent to insalubrity.

    Though that said mouse urine does famously fluoresce.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  5. gembo
    Member

    With silver fish you don’t even need fluoride

    Posted 3 years ago #
  6. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Silver fluoride, huh? Long time since I crossed paths with that wholesome halide.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  7. gembo
    Member

    Dead hare near the chicken farm heading west of balerno.

    A creature of great beauty but nevertheless dead.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  8. chdot
    Admin

  9. jss
    Member

    For once the scholars of Dalkeith High School Campus were safely locked in their seats of learning yesterday ,so I escaped their missiles and abuse as I made my recumbent way towards North Berwick via some rough forest tracks around Winton House that were not really suited to a laid back bike with narrow tyres
    I noticed numerous warning signs in the woods warning that “Vermin control shooting “was in progress. Poor wee mice perhaps?
    The thought did guiltily cross my mind that their blunderbusses could be more usefully be aimed at the varmin whose gauntlet I usually have to run every time I pass this Midlothian Educational Institution
    Disgusted Retd (Deceased) of Midlothian

    Posted 3 years ago #
  10. gembo
    Member

    @jss see if the head teacher will have you in after Covid to give a talk on recumbents and Equalities?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  11. gembo
    Member

    Crow eating pheasant in puddle Lang Whang right in front of me, unmajestical

    Posted 3 years ago #
  12. chdot
    Admin

  13. Arellcat
    Moderator

    I am wondering if my house is in fact the pigeon killingfields of Midlothian.

    After killing one stone dead a few weeks ago with my patio door, I came out the other morning to a dead pigeon in the flowerbed. It'd already been had a go at by something because there were feathers lying all around, and it had definitely ceased to be on account of missing certain important parts, like its head. I shovelled it up and chucked it under the bush in the far corner of the garden.

    Two days later the same ex-pigeon reappeared in the middle of the lawn. I shovelled it up and chucked it into the opposite far corner of the garden where even the nettles fear to tread.

    Yesterday the same ex-pigeon reappeared again, on my patio this time. I shovelled it up and chucked it back into the corner, noticing that in fact it wasn't missing its head after all but most of its insides.

    I really need to get a trail camera.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  14. gembo
    Member

    The cats are bringing you their dead pigeon tribute

    Posted 3 years ago #
  15. wingpig
    Member

    Most of a seal at the high water mark on the Seafield beach.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  16. chdot
    Admin

  17. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    Last week; I was bird watching at the Musselburgh lagoons, someone with a dog walked out among the ponds. Scared the birds off.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  18. gembo
    Member

    Why would someone do that? Unthinking, or do it every day as they are very important and so is their dog?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  19. amir
    Member

    It's also a problem for the birds near the river mouth, though not a reserve. Each time they are disturbed reduces their chance of survival. It would be good to have signs up, but it won't stop some.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  20. ejstubbs
    Member

    As at Aberlady: there are signs saying dogs not welcome at the massively over-busy car park (so of course people park in the cycle lanes, because cars) and it's also mentioned on the council's web site, but some folks choose to ignore it.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  21. ejstubbs
    Member

    Rare Scottish wildcat kitten rescued in Highlands passes away (reference chdot's post in the 'highlights' thread).

    Posted 3 years ago #
  22. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Any of the academics on here got access to the papers on the hair trap DNA analysis of Scottish wild-living cats?

    If I remember rightly only hairs from mixed feral cats were recovered, consistent with F. silvestris silvestris being extinct.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  23. gembo
    Member

    MacDonald and Yamaguchi claim it is Felis Silverstris Grampia?

    Hey man, just on Google Scholar.

    Though same Mac Donald is Felis Silvestris Silvestris in 2015 Hair trap seems to estimate o.1 per 10km2

    In this 2015 study they found 4 wildcats and nine crossed with Felis Silvestris Catus

    Kerry Kilshaw from same research team is claiming less than 400 in 2016

    Posted 3 years ago #
  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    If the population is under 400 they are definitively knackered come what may. Genetic bottleneck. Insufficient variation for population survival. A virus will get them in the end.

    Domestic cats in Great Britain are all descended from the Egyptian strain of the African wildcat. The genotype that allowed them to tolerate contact with us has proved beneficial.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  25. gembo
    Member

    hybrids and introgression also big factors

    The colleague’s brother keeps a pure strain going just.

    Other European Wildcats also Felis Silvestris Silvestris could be introduced?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  26. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    It is not considered ethical to reintroduce a species unless the original cause of its extinction has been removed.

    For sure lynx and wildcat should both be back, once we have reversed the desertification of the Highlands to some extent. Not sure what to do about domestic cats insisting on copulating with their wild cousins.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  27. gembo
    Member

    Wild? They were livid

    Posted 3 years ago #
  28. chdot
    Admin

  29. gembo
    Member

    Orphaned otter Cubs found wandering the streets of Inverkiething. Social services are involved.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  30. wingpig
    Member

    The head and upper neck of some sort of goose thing on the path round the back of Seafield water treatment. There's been a few flights heading over recently on their way back so presumably it's one which ditched into the water and got a bit fish-nibbled before washing up and being carried up from the shore by a seagull, dog or child.

    Posted 3 years ago #

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