An albino sparrow on Hutchison Crossway this morning, fluttering around on the pavement with a few pals.
(might be leucistic - didn't stop so not sure if it has pink or normal/dark eyes but definitely white)!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 7 years ago #
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Here's my ten plants I've found in East Lothian and one I haven't. With a bonus point for spotting the odd one out:
Ground elder
Pignut
Samphire
Ramsons
Comfrey
Alexanders
Monkshood
Nettles
Tansy
Wood sorrelPosted 7 years ago # -
Samphire, which I have gathered in Norfolk, is recorded in the great Food for free by Rchard Mabey as available in ast Lothian. So not samphire, not ground elder, not nettles. I askedmy neighbour who is a botanist what would grow in my jungle which his very shaded. He replied, you are doing all right with that comfrey. So not comfrey.
Here is whAt Mabey says about Pignut
"the custom of grubbing for pig or earth nuts seems to have died ou now, even amongst children. there was a time when they were one of the most popular wayside nibbles, even though extracting them from the ground was as delicate a business As an egg and spoon race.
Monks hood is poisonous so I pick that as the one you have avoided.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Jeez gembo, you're good. Yes, I've never found pignut, yes, I referred to Mabey to confirm nine are edible and the odd one out is indeed Monkshood which is deadly poisonous.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Scan the skies people. High pressure will bring the swifts north. They should arrive in the next seven days.
Posted 7 years ago # -
I saw three orange tip butterflies today. I hadn't even heard of them until this thread.
Still watching for the swifts Iwrats.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Posted 7 years ago #
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East wind all week might mean more birds from the east such as the red winged black bird the twitchers are flocking to north ronaldsay to spot. Never been over this far before.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Slammed on my one remaining brake on Whitehouse Loan to avoid a collision with a greater spotted woodpecker heading for a feeder on the east side of the street.
<sadface> Brought back memories of the one I decapitated in my spokes at Birnam. </sadface>
Posted 7 years ago # -
Cheeky bright eyed wood mouse playing under trees in Colinton Parish Church graveyard.
Duck with nine ducklings who practicing accelerating paddling in different directions just north of Slateford Aqueduct. Quite a handful. Fun to watch.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Got off bus about 10pm, fox ran down the road, then a hedgehog waddled across, in my gate and rooted around for a while.
Genuinely the first unsquished hedgehog I have seen.
Exciting!
Posted 7 years ago # -
@nelly, had it been doing your laundry?
Posted 7 years ago # -
@gembo, I had to Google that one!
Posted 7 years ago # -
" had to Google that one!"
This
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Mrs._Tiggy-Winkle
Or this?
http://www.kleeneze.com/shop/around-the-home/laundry/hedgehog-laundry-and-drying-balls/
Posted 7 years ago # -
@chdot Laundry hedgehog, must be my day for "stuff I've never seen before" !!
Like the bamboo bike in the office.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Was Beatrix potter option
Posted 7 years ago # -
Bat last night while heading home from the polling station. At least I'm fairly sure it was a bat. Those blighters are too fast and agile to get a good look at. It was quite happy with me standing there as it flew backwards and forwards between 2 lampposts.
Posted 7 years ago # -
A diminutive jay fleeing my approach that turned out to be a beautiful and confident bullfinch.
Posted 7 years ago # -
My first swallows of the summer, twittering about on the towpath near Cultins Road Ford Garage this morning
Posted 7 years ago # -
@greenroofer, I saw them. First in Wales
Love gembo
Posted 7 years ago # -
Scan the skies, bicyclists! The swifts will be with us soon. The swifts are coming.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"
Leo du Feu - artist (@LeoduFeu)
06/05/2017, 11:44 am
9.30am - read @mike__clarke in @Natures_Voice - 'swifts nearly home'. 11.30- my first 2017 #swift! #BlackfordHill #Edinburgh @BBCSpringwatchhttp://pic.twitter.com/rDUlPUNpDc
"
Posted 7 years ago # -
Swallows up Harlaw
Orange tip and red admiral in garden
Posted 7 years ago # -
Afternoon flutterbies in garden
Pieris brassicae and pieris rapae
Both cabbage, both white, some large and some small
That is a lot of varieties for one early summer /late spring day. The peacock is hiding
Posted 7 years ago # -
Skies over Liberton slow to fill with swifts. I was catching flies even with my own unspecialised mouthparts whilst bicycling the other day. What can be keeping them?
Posted 7 years ago # -
East wind.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Posted 7 years ago #
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Further butterfly Intel, from my neighbour the botanist who just whacked me in a game of butterfly top trumps
There is a peacock in his garden but apparently a tatty one from the over wintering brood.
The small white I spotted may have been female Orange tip or it may have been a green veined small white (think I did see that) these are different from the small white cabbage
Posted 7 years ago # -
Cuckoo calling in Glen Quaich
Posted 7 years ago # -
I just spent twenty minutes on my back scanning the excellent canopy with binoculars in case the swifts are here but flying high. I don't think they are here, but I did see a sparrowhawk on high altitude reconnaissance.
Posted 7 years ago #
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