CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure

Wildlife highlight of the day

(7161 posts)

  1. gembo
    Member

    Clever bird the jackdaw. Probably jacked the door when you weren't looking and crawled in

    Posted 5 years ago #
  2. minus six
    Member

    the jackdaw.. king of birds

    pioneers of the transgender drift

    Posted 5 years ago #
  3. Stickman
    Member

    A colleague was excitedly sharing the video he took of two otters (possibly mother & young) walking on the frozen canal at Polwarth this morning. Very very cool.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  4. jdanielp
    Member

    Wow! Is the footage likely to appear online?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  5. Stickman
    Member

    Not sure - I’ll ask him if he’ll share.

    Edit: his wife will upload it to her instagram - I’ll share the link when I get it

    Posted 5 years ago #
  6. jdanielp
    Member

    I was spotted by a young deer with budding antlers this morning. It was stood in the field opposite the canal towpath between Gogar Station Road and Hermiston House.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  7. unhurt
    Member

    On the iced-over Inverleith Pond - one of this year's cygnets getting very annoyed with a crow that spent nearly five minutes trying to yank its tail feathers (and sometimes succeeding).

    Posted 5 years ago #
  8. gembo
    Member

    Crafty crow dismantles swan feather by feather?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  9. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Craftier crow remantles swan elsewhere, inventing teleportation along the way.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  10. Frenchy
    Member

    Sparrowhawk disembarking from a lamp post after we disturbed its peace.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  11. Juanito
    Member

    Urban fox crossing the road near St Leonards police station.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  12. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    At the weekend me and another jogger caught a fox in a pincer movement. It laughed and vanished.

    Later on I flushed a sparrowhawk from a yew tree and it evaporated into the low sun after a knee-height blast down the path.

    Fox and hawk probably edinburgh apex predators given the local peregrines' apparent reluctance to hunt in town?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

  14. gembo
    Member

    Birds excited in garden today, they think it is Spring. Coal tits up at the window, chaff inches in trees, sparras darting from one hedge to next.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  15. paulmilne
    Member

    Blue tit tapping on our office windaes. Joins the crows and magpies in this futile endeavor.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  16. There are at least two otters enjoying the fish, and I think the attention, in the Figgy Park at the moment.

    I cycled through the park on a mosey back from the shops on Monday and they distracted me for about 2 hours!

    Pair of show offs at times. annoyingly good at hide and seek at others

    Posted 5 years ago #
  17. minus six
    Member

    very close call on the pheasant flightpath across Dalmeny Hill this morning

    was tempted to give chase across the field in retaliation but realised its quite unreasonable to expect children or small animals to understand the convoluted logic behind shared use paths

    in all honesty i find it hard to come to terms with myself

    Posted 5 years ago #
  18. gembo
    Member

    @paulmilne, I know a chap who was wakened ever night by a crow tapping on his bedroom window at 3a.m. He bought a rifle. But never used it, he went to Australia instead.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  19. jdanielp
    Member

    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
    As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  20. gembo
    Member

    Raven (they do not make kids programmes like that anymore)

    Posted 5 years ago #
  21. paulmilne
    Member

    Mallards and oystercatchers by the flock, a stately ascending heron rising into the air and shag rising up from the depths of Biel Burn this morning - Dunbar/West Barns.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  22. Greenroofer
    Member

    A dozen or so geese in a tight 'V' low over Gogar Station Road yesterday morning, honking away in the way that they do.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  23. paulmilne
    Member

    Little egret in the cold morning on the Biel Burn by West Barns.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  24. gembo
    Member

    @paulmilne, little egret first bred in UK in 1996, in Dorset.(Brownsea Island). Have spotted them many times in East Anglia, e.g. public boating pond, Southwold. Pretty common down that way. Less so in Scotland but not unknown. So must be getting warmer n'est-ce pas.

    From Aigrette, Provençal French diminutive of Aigron, Heron.

    Genus Aigrette Garzetta

    Garzetta being the Italian name for the birdy.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  25. fimm
    Member

    Wildlife lowlights on the Lang Wang - one dead badger and one dead rabbit or maybe hare - is the latter possible?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  26. jdanielp
    Member

    Otters in the canal at Wester Hailes by the towerblocks! I was initially alerted to their presence by squeaking and movement in the reeds opposite the towpath. I then saw one adult otter heading east, in and out of the water, and shortly after that spotted another adult (I think - squeaking noises were still coming from the direction that the first otter had been heading in at this point) with at least one otterling (the official term is puppy, but this seems better) watching me from the reeds. Big John then appeared on the road behind the canal so I beckoned him to come and look over the fence so he too spotted them and we then had a brief chat by the bridge. I then saw formerly Lilac Helmet Lady after I set off on the bike again so told her to look out for them as she passed the area. I hope that she saw them!

    Posted 5 years ago #
  27. gembo
    Member

    @fimm, spotted two very dead rabbits of a very large size on Sunday morning, either just killed before we cycled or frozen earlier in beautiful repose but not yet squashed by motor vehicle. Did also wonder if one might have been a hare.

    Yes possible to have a dead hare out on the Whang but they are a good bit bigger than your average bunny. Also rangier or scrawny if you like. You will be too young to remember Hartley the Hare from Pipkins.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  28. paulmilne
    Member

    @gembo, smaller than a heron (one of which I saw yesterday at the same spot) and white, can't be anything else really, the RSPB fact page about them has a distribution map that puts their winter range extending up to the East Lothian and Berwickshire coasts.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  29. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Little egrets now not uncommon at Aberlady etc. They come north with the newfound warmth.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  30. jdanielp
    Member

    Otters still at large on the canal heading east according to a part time colleague who I tipped-off.

    Posted 5 years ago #

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