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IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
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Men arrested and charged following the death of red kites in Aberdeenshire
Two men have been arrested and charged in connection with wildlife offences following enquiries into the death of red kites in the Strathdon area of Aberdeenshire in February, 2025.
The men, aged 39 and 42, will be reported to the Procurator Fiscal.
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Swung by Blackford Pond yesterday*, which on reflection was the first time I'd been that way in several months. I was saddened to find no sign of the swans. The mound in the reed bed which they'd nested on in the last couple of years was deserted and had new shoots growing up through it. I thought they might have relocated back to the island, given the low rainfall this spring, but I couldn't see any sign of them there either, and nor were they to be seen on the water. I hope this doesn't spell the end of swans there. Maybe the poor state of the pond in recent years finally forced them to leave? (That said, it seemed to be looking noticeably less manky yesterday.)
On a more uplifting note, the swans nesting at the Shore in Leith seem to be raising a fine brood, based on posts spotted on Bluesky and *cough* the other place (which I'm afraid I still find myself having to check from time to time, not least because because certain entities - I'm looking at you, Lothian Buses and Police Scotland, amongst others - don't post on Bluesky despite apparently having accounts.)
* En route to and from Craigmillar Castle, hoping to be able to follow up @Gembo's second-hand report of swifts there. No luck with the apodidae but I was surprised at how straightforward it was to get there and back, once I'd worked out how to use Inch Park as a more-or-less traffic-free route to Old Dalkeith Road avoiding Cameron Toll. Funny how long you can live in a place and suddenly find a bit of it you'd never been to before...
Having dug around a bit online, it seems that the Blackford Pond swans were attacked and killed by creatures unknown back in the autumn (reported in a Morningside-oriented Facebook group complete with "something must be done" hand-wringy comments, and on Reddit and Xitter.)
RIP Blackford Bob the cob and Marine La Pen.
Lochrin cygnets down to two
Sad times. Still a full comlpement further west. I think I must have spotted an additional swan family, presumably from further west still, yesterday evening as I passed a large family before the bypass, then saw the Wester Hailes family at Wester Hailes.
Three Mile Town outside Linlithgow has a swan family that live on the towpath. But that would be a schlep. The actual water is really Minging in places. Algae? Not sure what the Swans are up to this year muscling in on each other’s territory it maybe is linked to the two big families to the west?
We lost* the adult swans on Blackford Pond at the back end of last year so there's a vacancy for a pair there...
* "Lost" as in they died/were killed, by what or whom being unknown/not disclosed. I keep meaning to pop in to the rangers office in the Hermitage to ask if they have any more/new information about what happened.
Yesterday
Roadside
We saw a hedgehog around the place a few times. Then we found it "sunbathing" outside the front door and not looking very well. Searching the internet suggested that we should put it in a box with a hot water bottle so we did that. We let it out overnight but the following day it was back again. We tried to warm it up again, but the poor thing died. :-(
Mrs Stubbs saw a dead badger on the side of Braid Hills Drive the other day.
SSPCA will* collect sick hedgehogs and take them to their National Wildlife Rescue Centre at Fishcross where hopefully they can be made better. The number to call is 03000 999 999. https://www.scottishspca.org/advice/sick-advice/
(I know this because I used to drive one of the twice-daily runs from the SSPCA centre just outside Balerno, on the road to Threipmuir. I had a swan in the back of my van on more than one occasion, and a gannet once. Hedgehogs appeared fairly regularly on my manifest. They found this arrangement so useful that they ended up employing paid staff to do it rather than relying on volunteers - at which point I ducked out, having given up being paid to work to fixed schedule the year before.)
* Provided they're not too busy. If they don't have any Animal Rescue Officers available at the time then they may ask that the animal be kept overnight for collection by the next morning's shift.
I did ring SSPCA - their answering machine message asked that if you didn't have (can't remember what animals exactly, but the list didn't include hedgehogs) you rang your local vet to start with. The person at the vet was helpful, to be fair, but when the hedgehog came back it was a Saturday and we thought we'd have more problems finding someone to advise us. I think we actually didn't make the hedgehog warm enough. It would probably have died anyway, poor thing.
The Kingsknowe Rat was dead (or at least stunned) on the canal towpath near the Bridge 8 Hub yesterday evening.
Union canal today. The adult swans were on a grassy bit on the other side of the towpath behind the student flats. Two adult swans. No cygnets. No sign of them. Is that the end of them?
Adult swans chase their offspring away before the next breeding season starts. The time of year that this happens varies. If the habitat is not particularly rich in swan-sustaining resources (primarily pond weed) then the cygnets may be persuaded to leave in the autumn, giving the adults sole access to the food source over the winter. In places which offer more prolific food resources the adults may tolerate the youngsters for longer. Occasionally some cygnets may be tolerated into the next year's breeding season.
I don't know how much swan grub the canal might offer - my guess is not as much as a healthy pond or lake, so departing immatures at this time of year is perhaps not wholly unexpected.
I took a brief stroll around Blackford Pond yesterday and there was only one immature swan still there, out of the four that were transported there with their parents from Western Harbour, per pringlis' post on the Highlights thread a few weeks ago. The adults were still there. The missus was there the previous week and there were two young'uns present. Blackford Pond isn't particularly big, and seems to be going through another period of grotty-looking water, so maybe the parents decided it was time for the juniors to fend for themselves elsewhere.
Oh I will be glad that the cygnets have gone for a new life rather than having been eaten. As for food, people are always chucking food at them. However perhaps that isn't enough to sustain, or not the right kind of food.
There's one swan in the Water of Leith by Roseburn Park. I haven't seen a goosander there this year - there used to be loads.
There's a lot of drama at the moment around the Blackford Pond swans. The SSPCA moved them there in association with Friends of Western Harbour, but since then it seems all but two have been predated by foxes. There have been requests to remove the remaining ones away again but the SSPCA have said they won't assist as they consider this a natural event, and apparently they can't be removed without their consent. Complaints have been submitted. Tricky one really, it is natural for foxes to eat swans but doesn't seem fair to have delivered them fresh meat and then abandon them. The swans are a lovely amenity and it'd be a shame if there aren't at the pond any more.
I was surprised to see the Boroughmuir cygnets gone as well... I don't remember seeing them attempting any flights, which worries me slightly, but I only pass by briefly a few times each week so it seems plausiable that they learned how to fly and successfuly departed from the canal without me seeing any evidence recently.
Pike which are not native to the water system are eating the ferox / brown trout of loch corrib. Anglers are gleefully killing the pike, Pike lovers are up in arms.
Saw the boroughmuir cygnets last wednesday three hatched, two made it to near adulthood
@pringlis: Tricky one really, it is natural for foxes to eat swans but doesn't seem fair to have delivered them fresh meat and then abandon them. The swans are a lovely amenity and it'd be a shame if there aren't at the pond any more.
Sounds like the fox[es] would have to be dealt with before any more reintroduction of swans is attempted.
I swung by Blackford Pond yesterday for the first time in several weeks and there was just the one swan left; an adult, I think female. (Lots of mallard, many more than I remember seeing last time I was there, but no tufties that I could see in the brief time I was there.)
Also did not see the young heron that I reported on the highlights thread a while back. I last saw it on 17th October, when it appeared to have caught a rat and was trying to work out how to eat it. What I found concerning was that there are bait boxes all round the pond, and I can't help thinking that eating a poisoned rat would not do a heron much good. (Nor a fox, for that matter.)
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