CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Saw a flash of blue (surely a bluetit not a kingfisher) and a hawk cluthing at feathers as the intended target made a quick escape down the Water of Leith.
Further long the WoL pathway just before Stockbridge came across a grey squirrel moving slowly with what looked like a dead baby squirrel in its mouth. I watched it make its way up the embankment until I was distracted by a guy with a metal detector by the river who started to dig with serious intent.
@ivangrizni. Sounds as likely to be a kingfisher
A 4am start and a lot of wildlife - deer crossed the road less than 10m in front of me, some muntjacks, bats, many small rodents and dozens of suicidal bunnies. Also heard owls.
Sparrowhawk on Kingfisher action is some spot. Brilliant.
Lovely view this morning of two roe deer stotting in an unharvested wheat field off Clifton Road.
@bill
Excellent use of 'stotting'.
@IWRATS Thank you but I must admit that I learned it only this morning.
Stotting in an unharvested wheat field? How incredibly naughty of them.
@bill
Some people would argue that 'stotting' is a divisive term when the perfectly good British word 'pronking' is available, but I'm not one of them.
Swans with 6 signets near that big housing estate just inside the bypass.
Pleased as I thought that they were down to 5 signets.
A startled roe deer pronking with a mouthful of leaves on Craigmillar Hill.
A startled (or possibly suicidal) tabby kitten that shot right across my front wheel on the Ferry Road path. I pulled an emergency stop, a passing ped went "woah, well done!" and the kitten still has the same number of lives it had before we met.
Edit: And a big bird of prey on the hospital side of Craigmillar Castle hill.
The canal swan family was being corralled (probably unintentionally, but certainly ill-advisedly) by the occupants of three rowing boats by the boat shed to the east of Meggetland as I was passing last night.
And a big bird of prey on the hospital side of Craigmillar Castle hill.
There is a buzzard's nest there.
Then it was surely a buzzard out on the hunt. Too big to be a sparrowhawk.
The Kingsknowe Rat was lying deceased on the towpath this morning.
The Kingsknowe Rat is dead. Long live the Kingsknowe Rat.
@greenroofer, wet or dry?
Don't worry. All his sisters, brothers, half-sisters and brothers, cousins, second cousins, second cousins twice removed (etc etc) will be around to help you get over it!
A peacock butterfly today. I think it is the first I have seen this year.
@gembo - dry, and gone by lunchtime.
@Min - that reminds me: I saw the first Red Admiral of the year on the towpath up near Sighthill on the way home.
Early summer when there was a hot week I had tons of different species of butterflies in the garden. Including the two mentioned above. One of the peacocks had over wintered was looking a bit scruffy. Since the colder air came in far fewer to report. The sunshine does bring them out.
Long live the Kingsknowe Rat.
Amen to that.
Saw a frog hop across the road in front of me earlier (whilst I was in a car). Made me think that I should cycle more at night.
A fawn stotting in the barley park by my parents' house. Don't think my dog's ever been so excited on his life.
Several grasshoppers stridulating away near the herb patch at the allotment.
A roe deer on Craigmillar Hill stotting away from me into the path of a fat, old, confused rottweiler. Double take from both before the deer doubled back.
Lots of hares today, near Fala Dam. Some may have been trying out stotting
Belated report of a feral-life (gone wild-life? invasive-species-life?) sighting in Germany a few weeks ago: a whole family of coypu / nutria, startled by my passage on a bike, hurling themselves into the drainage ditch to escape. One wasn't as concerned and hung around to look at me.
My friend in Bonn informed me that their German name means "beaver-rat". Since I like both beavers and rats this pleases me (it's also a very accurate description).
Standing on the Avon aqueduct, avoiding Robert the Bruce filming, watching swallows, camera on phone can't get them but must be at least 100swarming over river Avon. Just seen kingfisher under me again !!!!!!
Juvenile sparrowhawk learning to hunt along a row of thorn bushes, all the song birds keeping just out of range. She got tired or annoyed and perched in plain sight (adults rarely do that), looking at me from twenty metres or so before melting into the undergrowth with a flick or her wings.
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