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.
Was just down at the canal (bumping into steveo and having a good chat) where there were hunners and hunners of fish - positively identified by a fishing colleague from my photos as Roach and Perch.
A couple of neds were having no success in trying to catch them.
Wildlife highlight of the day: The greater spotted (common or garden?) wildlife photographer ;).
Apparently Perch are good fried and a 500g fish is keeper so maybe that dude fishing wasn't wasting his time.
Isn't he Lesser Spotted these days?
Roach
Canal Roach by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Was out walking Max on Saturday night 10pm when I see a small vole like creature coming straight along a riverside path (in Perthshire) towards us.
Then I realised that it was a mole on the surface - moving away from wet ground maybe?
Max gave chase but pulled him back on lead. I could have picked up the mole but poor wee thing was stressed out enough ....
Took sharp turn into undergrowth and started shovelling.....
Know it's not an Edinburgh spot but thought I'd share anyway...
Free trees -
"A blackbird apparently unaffected by having no tail feathers eating Coco Pops from my parents' back step. "
Aww, poor wee thing. I wonder how he lost them?
"Then I realised that it was a mole on the surface - moving away from wet ground maybe?"
Seeing a mole is pretty cool. I have never seen one beyond a bit of scuffling just under the soil surface.
Been a while since I've posted some photos... So... The last couple of days around here...
Wary Magpie by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Mallard Family by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
How Do I Steer This Thing? by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Weather for Ducks by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Sunny Little Grebe by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Posing Cygnet by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Strolling Duckling by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Garden Fox by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Female sparrowhawk catching poor wee bird in my garden. Then sat on shed before flying off.
Went to Aberlady reserve last night. First time I have been for a couple of months and it was wonderfully peaceful. Among the highlights were the young toads crossing the path. One had copped it and was being dealt by sexton beetles (a first for me). Some were underneath, digging into the ground. If you are about to eat - look away now ....
on lang whang today just as the road rises up at harperig reservoir a mature sparrow came fluttering out of the verge, crossed my path and contiuned flying along in the east bound carriageway. As I was higher up than it, I could see the approaching car, would it notice? No. Took off from nearer the ground just in time to hit the bonnet with a sort of pip sound, go into a parabola, then hit the deck after the car had passed. Little vignette of mortality. Similar scene in HP and the PRisoner of Azkeban when a wee birdy flies into the Womping Willow.
Badger badger badger badger badger.
Last night, dusk, the sett being juuuuuust off the cyclepath near the 5 roads junction at Trinity. The light meant no photos, but there's time for plans for that...
You know it's Five Ways!
(or possibly Fiveways!)
Yep it/they are reason last 'leg' hasn't been tarmaced yet.
Interesting - the sett is just off one of the tarmacced sections... Have they moved? Or are there more????
My W highlight (yesterday) almost mundane - but good to see a fair sized brood this year.
"Have they moved? Or are there more????"
Dunno. Was one around allotments nearest Powderhall.
When I was a smallish we had a week's skive off school to do some community project stuff, which for our year was building a badger sett. The precise location was kept secret to prevent some of the more oafish Lincolnshirons finding out where the badgers were and harassing them. I take it that's not a problem round here if the council's allowed to say where they are?
"Dunno. Was one around allotments nearest Powderhall."
Aha. Have a feeling this is a different group then. That information that was sent to TIE is very useful. We weren't planning on going every night, but interesting to note that when studies were checking out setts every night that was enough to get the badgers digging more escape holes.
Ours is a long-term plan over months with food and lights to try and get some shots - and only visiting every couple of weeks. I WILL get at least one good badger photo - fabulous creatures. And big!
@wingpig - strange that the Craigleith locations were so precisely given. I've tried to find out before from the group chdot linked to where the Corstorphine Hill setts were and they (quite rightly) kept tight-lipped about it.
Oh, and across the other side of the path was another huge whole that turned out to be a fox den - though according to Springwatch badgers and foxes can live together using the same entrance hole that then divides underground into sett and den, and apparently there are instances of badgers, foxes and otters sharing entrances.
Oh, almost forgot, got a pic of an unidentified bat as well, and we heard a Little Owl.
building a badger sett
were your local badgers not capable of building their own setts?
"I take it that's not a problem round here if the council's allowed to say where they are?"
Not aware of any 'badger baiting' round here, but...
Don't think its a question of "allowed" - they are not as 'attractive to the wrong sort' as Ospreys, but I do know that badger peope are (understandably) 'sensitive' about locations.
Hard to miss the set on the Roseburn path though!
Only badger I've seen was roadkill.
I've never seen the one on the Roseburn Path!
allegedly most badger dead on road has been killed elsewhere then dumped.??
My neighbour had a sett or a den, never confirmed under his garage. Insurance pays out for vermin. Foxes classified as vermin.
Badgers are in big doo doo now that the culling for TB is going ahead. I could not work out why in the research widening the radius of the area cancelled out the displacement - I would have thought that would only work if all badgers were at the centre of the area but as with Manuel - I know nothing.
Saw Green Lizard on the WoL the other day scuttered under my wheel but before wheel rolled over it, it was away. Hinkty as Jack Kerouac would have said.
not quite edinburgh but was nice anyway, village of Cromdale, speyside, a red squirell ran across the road and up a fence, turned, twitched and looked at me as i drove past. Havnt seen one for ages !
Kestrel on the Whitecraig path. It flew in front of me for several hundred metres, only a few cm above the path, trying to escape from me. Eventually it worked out that there were better escape routes than the path.
Second Anth (mibbbe at work, mibbe not, who knows) on the surprise at the Roseburn Badger Sett. And I honestly didn't know we had lizards in Scotland, never seen one here (compared to the gazillions of them you see abroad, dubbed snap snaps by daughter)
PS, we're Bovine TB-free (or at least v.v. low incidence) in Scotland, so the badgers are a bit safter up here.
Even though I techically technically work i the agri-field I'm still with the Badgers.
There was something brownish and raptorish doing little sculling-hovering movements beside the under-crag cycle path this morning. Despite it acting like it was facing into the wind (facing north) I had a headwind so kept going.
With respect to the badgers, I cannot understand why the dairy farmers aren't a little more circumspect given that a large majority of their customers are against a cull.
"
Among the top ten species most at risk of disappearing from our countryside for good are four creatures found only or largely in Scotland.
The Scottish wildcat, the red squirrel and two birds, the capercaillie and red-necked phalarope, are all considered likely to disappear.
"
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Take-a-good-look-they.6817192.jp
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