Might try Fife or Bathgate Alps tomorrow to see if any better.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7223 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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Lots and lots of geese feeding in the fields off the A70.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I saw those geese too, having earlier heard them honking overhead. On the way out of Edinburgh before dawn I passed a sleek fox trotting up Comiston Road,and later rode for a while behind a real live badger(a first for me, and a change from the three dead ones I'd seen by then)
Posted 6 years ago # -
I think I saw a sparrowhawk the other day. Looked like a pointy crow, solid grey back and wings, gliding just over the tops of houses on Gilmerton Road.
Hopefully this will be one of those things where, after you first notice it, you suddenly start seeing it everywhere, Baader-Meinhof style.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I bought a wildlife camera trap from lidl. I put it up last night - it took 3 photos but couldn't seem much due (or dew) to condensation. I'm hoping to catch something rare and elusive, like a hedgehog.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@frenchy, yes or it was a crow..?
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Frenchy
Sparrowhawks are not very pointy. Quite rounded in fact. Built for Star Wars type speed through bushes with short, blunt wings. Flight in the open is flap-flap-glide-flap-flap-glide. Females colour of wet cement, males colour of slate.
Peregrines are like pointy grey crows, but much less common and they don't seem to really like Edinburgh even though it's full of food and nest sites and surrounded by breeding pairs on all sides.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@amir I hope that it traps many wildlife cameras for you.
Posted 6 years ago # -
:)
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hmm, this bird didn't flap once in ~20m, which was what caught my attention. Pointy perhaps not the best description, but I'm struggling to remember exactly what it looked like now. Slate would be about the right colour.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hooded crow?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Something (possibly a coot) began a pile of sticks on the floating platform on Inverleith Pond over the weekend. Artistic bird included a couple of daffodils.
Have also seen my first squashed frog of the year.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Sqaushed amphibians were a bit of danger on this weekend's riding (slip and eye hazard esp without mudguards/specs)
Posted 6 years ago # -
I was just pondering on @Frenchy's 'pointy crow' when a male sparrowhawk shot across some urban grass in front of me at startling speed like a slate skimmed on a pond.
Reminds me that the adult females will all now be on eggs and the normally invisible males will be forced to show themselves a bit more. I think that's the sixth I've ever seen, all bar one in summer. I expect to see a female every fortnight in Edinburgh.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Just walked over Craigmillar Hill and in the lovely golden sun there flew past, in the distance, heading for Bawsinch and Dudingston Loch....
...well if I was in central Europe I wouldn't have hesitated to say they were white storks. But that would be odd here. Very odd. And I didn't have binoculars.
I know there's an ibis on the loose at the moment. Did any storks get out too?
Posted 6 years ago # -
I heard that a significant group of Whooper Swans were spotted over the weekend at the mouth of the Esk - perhaps you saw them?
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Colin
Ah no. Black and white and quite unswanlike in the wing beats. I've seen white storks in Morocco and that memory was triggered. They can really fly while swans always look like a WWII bomber trying to lug a full load to Dresden.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Common Cranes? Some visit this area from time to time and flight pattern is graceful!
Posted 6 years ago # -
There was a crane on the Ythan for a while when I was a wee laddie. Beautiful bird.
I was struck by the gannet-like whiteness of the white first of all. Much whiter than a gull.
Probably the low sun playing tricks on me. Unless the twitchersphere goes bonkers.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@iwrats, remember the two boys you met earlier? Passive smoking?
Ibis picked up at industrial estAte in Bathgate
Posted 6 years ago # -
Ibis picked up at industrial estAte in Bathgate
'Get yer hauns aff me I'm sacred by ra way...'
Posted 6 years ago # -
The next time the weather cheers up should see the first swallows here.
I start looking for swifts from the 4th of May.
Spot of first swallow and swift on CCE wins a haiku, as ever.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The Heriot-Watt Stoat slinking along the edge of The Loch.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Two wrens afighting
Posted 6 years ago # -
A single wee bone (femur?), less than an inch long.Posted 6 years ago # -
@Frenchy that's rather lovely...
Posted 6 years ago # -
spot of first swallow
and swift on CCE wins
a haiku - as everPosted 6 years ago # -
Several haiku in the wes Anderson film Isle of dogs. A bit slow that film.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I have spotted a cormorant swimming around on the canal by Boroughmuir High School a couple of times lately. It will have to watch out else it may be adopted by the school as a mascot and then risk having linseed oil rubbed into it.
Posted 6 years ago # -
It would be a brave child rubbed linseed oil into one of those basilisks. Evolution needs to go up a gear and make a waterproof one.
Posted 6 years ago #
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