Extinct wildlife is still on topic, right?
"Swans imagined as though they were featherless dinosaurs" [can't resize embedded image, sorry - there are two horror-swans at the link]
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7166 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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Crikey. I wouldn't want to bump into a family of those on the canal towpath.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Or a near-skeletal kingfisher with membranes for wings?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Depends how big it was I suppose... I saw two normal kingfishers today and there is sad news about an aardvark at London Zoo:
Aardvark dead and four meerkats missing after fire at London Zoo
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/23/more-than-70-firefighters-tackle-blaze-at-london-zoo
Posted 6 years ago # -
I saw two normal kingfishers today
Kingfishers must be like those magic eye pictures.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Trixie spotting kingfishers is magic; it's certainly easier when you get your eye in.
Posted 6 years ago # -
In raptor related research findings:
Posted 6 years ago # -
Christmas Eve kestrel hunting in the wind above the edge of Edinburgh Academicals grounds alongside Portgower Place at dusk. Wee crowd of humans gathered to watch. Phone pics may or may not come out.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Kingfisher in bright sunshine on the Chalaronne.
I seem to have selective Scottish kingfisher blindness.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Inverleith Park water rail on twitter.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Dozen or so buzzards and a couple of kestrels between Lockerbie and Edinburgh. Also, at Innerleithen, an enormous kingfisher.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I was very pleased with the Kingfisher spot as I've not seen one before.
It was particularly difficult to spot with its white winter plumage blending in with the snow, but being so big it stood out against the river
Posted 6 years ago # -
I like you both best now.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Busy day in Balerno. Dog called Ruby, one of those Rhodesian Ridgebacks (I know the owners) chased Bob, one of my neighbour's cats along the water of leith path and up the tree in the wate ground beyond my garden. I went down to help out. My neighbours were already there. Just as we were resolving the situation, a horse came up the WoL path on its own. Quite a big horse. Had a blanket and passing walker said it was always escaping from its field ( do not know the name of the horse). The owner of the dog was keen to atone and reported to the fuzz.
The rain came on. Bob climbed down the tree, he had gone quite high up. The parents versus children hockey match continued.
Glad we turned back at the waterfall in the pentlands this afternoon when still sunny. Route only safely passable after the waterfall with walking stick to give support as river up over the path and stepping stones slippy. It is almost dark out there now so the fire is on for some cheer.
Posted 6 years ago # -
New flat has new mice. Hmm!
Posted 6 years ago # -
Are you sure they aren't the old mice from the old flat and they have just moved with you? Did you pack them?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Twenty something fawns, and many more adult deer, yesterday. Some of them stotted. I stroked most of them, so they probably don't count as wildlife, but neither would I call them tame.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@HankChief you are the second person to suggest that. I wonder if they stowed away...
Posted 6 years ago # -
"
However, Lothian Tory MSP Miles Briggs, a member of the cross-party animal welfare group at Holyrood, said it was time for a rethink on spending so much money on a bird handler coming to Holyrood.
“I don’t think they have looked at how effective it is actually being,” he said. “For a lot of building users it has become a bit of a joke. The pigeons are sitting up on Arthur’s Seat waiting for him to go away. The pigeons seem to be quite bright.”
"
https://www.scotsman.com/news/call-for-rethink-over-birds-of-prey-at-holyrood-1-4651579
Posted 6 years ago # -
Deer today , crossed in front of me at the cycle path near the Golf club !
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is cool (no kingfishers though):
"If birds left tracks in the sky, what would they look like? For years Barcelona-based photographer Xavi Bou has been fascinated by this question. Just as a sinuous impression appears when a snake slides across sand, he imagined, so must a pattern form in the wake of a flying bird. But of course birds in flight leave no trace—at least none visible to the naked eye. Bou, now 38, spent the past five years trying to capture the elusive contours drawn by birds in motion, or, as he says, “to make visible the invisible.”"
Posted 6 years ago # -
I saw the general idea before being asked to take out National Geographic subscription.
In other wildlife news I popped into the grey horse this afternoon and came across the original Balerno Folk Club. Some lovely fiddle and singing. Went a bit downhill with the kazoo/comb and paper
Posted 6 years ago # -
Try via Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/948239430279720963?s=09
Noone playing the spoons?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Nice other photos on Twitter.
No spoons, some discordant singing after First Fiddle left. I think I have a memory of her arranging this gig every NEw year. Her husband was leaving as I came in with some kind of albino long haired husky. Also a child he must have smuggled into the public bar.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Not while cycling, but, from the slopes of Fuar Tholl above Achnashallach on New Year's Day, a large soaring bird which one of my companions suggested was a eagle.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Bird tracks good.
Would also be interesting to see a visualisation of the wake left by geese (and the other geese riding on it).
Xavi can thank me later.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hare tracks in the fresh snow at Green Cleugh this morning
They took the same route as we did which was the opposite route to the chap on the fat bke, he had gingerly approached us coming down a frozen Beech Avenue at nine a.m. His ride must have started in darkness.
I have to raise this point, his tracks created a melt water river all the way to loganlea and then all the way up maiden's Cleugh. I am concerned about the erosion caused by bikes. Most of this route that the fat bike took could be called road but the green and the maiden's Cleugh's are both badly eroded, first by walkers and then by bikes. No axe to grind just noting the erosion.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@gembo
All ways require to be maintained. The basic techniques for paths in our climes were worked out by Wade in the 1730s.
1. Big rocks then broken rocks then two feet of gravel on top.
2. Back ditch and fore ditch linked by stone culverts at local minima.
3. Bridges twice as high as you think you need.
4. Re-shovel the gravel every spring.
5. Do not allow logs to be dragged on your path.Children could do the Spring maintenance as a school project?
Posted 6 years ago # -
I am with The General
Posted 6 years ago #
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