I'm glad that I didn't bail out onto a bus this morning since I spotted not one but two kingfishers; the first was by Hailes Quarry Park, alerting me to its presence with a chirp as I was approaching, while the second was at a more usual spotting area by Hermiston House Road Bridge. I also spotted a cormorant under Calder Road Bridge.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
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Posted 5 years ago #
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I spotted not one but two kingfishers
I am happy for all three of you. </seethe>
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You reminded me that I saw a cormorant fishing in Macduff harbour recently, although the toddler I was with informed me that it was a duck and I wasn't going to argue with them.
Posted 5 years ago # -
When we are an independent coastal state that cormorant will be able to land all the fish it likes unlimited by foreign ideas like quotas and we will all be rich.
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Yesterday morning, what I assume was a sparrowhawk whizzed by in front of me as I was cycling on the towpath between Gogar Station Road Bridge and Hermiston House. It had come across the canal and headed into the bushes alongside the towpath, causing quite a commotion from the birds within, but I didn't see that it had successfully caught anything.
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That is the sparrowhawk MO
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I pursued/was led by a kingfisher along the Lancaster Canal in Preston on Saturday afternoon in the pouring rain as I walking from the shops to my parents' house.
As we were enjoying lunch on Sunday afternoon, various small birds on the feeders in the garden suddenly made themselves scarce, moments before a sparrowhawk swooped down onto the patio, seemingly catching something in the process. It stood with its wings splayed for a while, presumably until it was sure that its meal was dead, before gliding to the end of the garden to consume it. A couple of bird-shaped marks on the dining room window show where it had been rather less successful recently.
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It stood with its wings splayed for a while
Mantling. Lovely. Sparrowhawks have very thick skulls for birds so that they can crash into stuff without dying.
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*Waxwing klaxon*
The internut informs me they have reached Edinburgh. Eyes peeled please.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Balgreen area around the Jenners Depository seems to be a current hotspot.
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Frozen grass crunches
In gathering dusk a flash
Hawk flies hard and lowPosted 5 years ago # -
As I rode along the canal this morning, a sparrowhawk and a pigeon decided to have a violent rendezvous about 6 feet in front of me, causing me to be showered in downy feathers.
Slightly surprisingly, the pigeon escaped by flying into the bushes and the sparrowhawk vanished sharpish.
I've never seen this happen before, let alone so close up. Sparrowhawks appear to be quite pointy and violent.
In retrospect it probably wasn't a highlight for the pigeon.Posted 5 years ago # -
Sparrowhawks are 100% mental. They will pursue prey on foot and kill stuff twice their size. Quarter pound velociraptors.
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Posted 5 years ago #
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Wow.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@jdanielp, yes wowza also Evidenza
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Going down The Wisp I spotted a bird and thought "is that a sparrowhawk?"
Two minutes later I saw a different bird chasing pigeons. "That's a sparrowhawk!".
Posted 5 years ago # -
139 days until the swifts return. Hold on. Hold.
Posted 5 years ago # -
There is a nuthatch footering around our garden. Their long march north continues.
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A pheasant waiting for me in my garden when I came back this afternoon.
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I had to double check this was the wildlife thread not the Christmas dinner thread for a minute there. We spent a while watching our resident squirrels yesterday.
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Chaffinch, bullfinch. Blue tits, coal tits, maybe great tit. Many robins, wee brown sheep, one black sheep. Finally six llamas. Elvis the daddy has finally found the necessary to reproduce the next generation of llamas. Ahh, baby llamas. Cute.
All on lymphoy top road. Xmas day 2018
My neighbour gave us an Xmas card of a painting she did of the lymphoy road thirty years back in SNOw Storm, she painted in situ. game. I was round with number one son delivering the Xmas champagne.
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A jay on Blackford Hill. Don't see them in town much.
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A rat, sneaking around the heaps of leaves in Lochend Park.
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May contain kingfishers -
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A questing sparrowhawk getting chased about by a small murmuration of starlings over Inch park.
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@iwrats, did the starling murmuration form the shape of a bird?
Large heron startled by small dog ove at Logan house between green and white Cleugh's.
Four Briwn grouse startled by same wee dug green cleuch
A massive and I mean massive fence on either side green cleuch and way beyond. To keep the deer out of the new plantation. The guillotine dog hatch we used to make our kids Crawl through replaced by humungous gate.
There is still a dog guillotine at the black springs pumping station.
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Posted 5 years ago #
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did the starling murmuration form the shape of a bird?
Possibly from the perspective of the hawk? From my point of view it looked a lot like a sequence of shellfish. Mussel, whelk, spoot etc.
Posted 5 years ago #
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