Was like 1930 - no cars, beautiful hills and the reservoir
@gembo You've aged very well.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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(thread wasn't showing my last post for some reason but posting again seems to have fixed it...)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Thanks unhurt yes I watched that film by Daniel Arronofsky The Fountain - stars Hugh Jackman as Conquistador, Modern American and future Kojak guy in a bubble, also starred Yggdrasil. It was Yggdrasil that blocked your previous post she had detected that you thought it was funnier than it was so she blocked you forcing you to repost and in doing so reduce how funny you thought it was. Still funny, just not that funny.
I would love to be able to cycle on roads like it was 1930 or even 1950
Posted 4 years ago # -
Darren! He signed my graphic novel of The Fountain a while back.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@jdanielp I would love to see it on big screen in a double feature with Aguirre Wrath of God. Two more mental movies I cannot think of
Posted 4 years ago # -
Buzzard floating nonchalantly around above our street. A seagull was making a right racket as it and a crow both seemed to be trying to chase it away, without getting too close. Neighbour's racing pigeons flying in circles below them all, as utterly un-fasht as the buzzard.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Two pheasants - closest to my house I have ever seen
Two Gold Finches beside me back into the wind near the wee house built into the hill near Harperig called The Puddocks
Posted 4 years ago # -
Sparrowhawk circling over Fairmilehead Park this morning. Might have been another one over towards Greenbank but it was a wee bit too far away to be sure.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Female sparrowhawk absolutely flaunting herself over Inch Park.
Posted 4 years ago # -
[the fountain] a double feature with Aguirre Wrath of God. Two more mental movies I cannot think of
you don't mean that.. cobra verde is the eternal double bill with aguirre
you've discounted jodorowsky.. and gasper noe
and luis bunuel, depending on yr definition of mental
Posted 4 years ago # -
I was thinking jodorowsky but could not remember the spelling. I leave bunuel on his own. Fernando
Rey. Unable to get out of his dining room.`same character played by completely different actresses et ceteraPosted 4 years ago # -
fernando rey is the man, a plan, a canal, panama
gasper noe is under-rated
Posted 4 years ago # -
Shepherd out checking the gonads of his lambs near Woolfords.
Throstle on fence post and smalller birds with same chevrons
Tiny black lamb from Soay sheep ? Rare breed anyway
Longhorns near woolfords (sheep)
Big Camillty Buzzard
The birdies really loving the lack of motors. No cars at all from Kirknewton turn for 7 miles to west Calder turn, not many more to the Tarbrax turn (one car one quad bike). Bit busier on return but many, many more cyclists than drivers
Posted 4 years ago # -
Wren full ten metres away hurt my ears with its sudden burst song. Could it be any quieter?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Is the wren’s call a kind of three bar thing that gets a bit higher and louder with each peep? As I hear that a lot without seeing anything
Posted 4 years ago # -
Wren song from Xeno-canto: https://www.xeno-canto.org/27114
'tis a Swedish wren, though. The Scottish dialect will be subtly different but the fundamental structure is the same and pretty unmistakeable, especially given the volume at which it is usually delivered.
Trying to describe birdsong in words often reminds me of the widely-(mis)attributed aphorism "writing about music is like dancing about architecture".
Posted 4 years ago # -
Forgot to mention another sighting on our walk yesterday: big black toad in the short grass next to the Elf Loch on Mortonhall golf course. We debated whether to move it in to cover, since the resident heron was prowling around the shallows of the loch, but decided against on the grounds that (a) the heron was absorbed in its aquatic stalking and (b) the toad probably had a better idea of where it wanted to be than we did. TBH the nearest 'cover' consisted of roughly trimmed gorse on bare earth which looked both prickly and very dry. Plus the signs around the loch requesting people not to hang around - justified by recent incidents of families picnicing and paddling - made us feel as if we shouldn't hang around interfering with wildlife.
(We did see a family further along on the golf course who appeared to be sitting down around a picnic, though they may just have been taking a rest in the rough under the pretty cherry trees.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
@ejstubbs
Forgot to say that I heard your starling swift imitators here.
Maybe a south Edinburgh thing?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Not troglodytes troglodytes then, though their song is clearly in the background down the garden of a morning
Posted 4 years ago # -
@iwrats: Interesting, and reassuring, that someone else has heard it - I'm not going completely bonkers, then!
Another from yesterday: almost certain that I saw a couple of swallows hawking for insects over Oxgangs way as we walked back from Waterfield. Too far away to see their colour or shape at all clearly, and not in view for very long, but the flight pattern was very suggestive.
Posted 4 years ago # -
This constant east wind and sunshine have been drying everything out. According to the forecast we've got more of it to come. I've been watering containers.
Consequently far more birds than usual are drinking from and splashing in my birdbath. Nothing unusual - wood pigeons, sparrows, robins, blackbirds. Nice to see them though - the blackbird's yellow beak and black plumage combo is very smart.
Hoodies bully-boying on the feeders.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@ejstubbs - re your toad, this lack of April showers might be giving amphibions a bad time, with nowhere to breed.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yep @Rosie watering my lazy beds and containers every evening. Not massively just enough as it is very dry.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Aaargh amphibians!! Froggs, todes and knewts.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@rosie - you know you got 2 hours to correct yer spelling. I often do.
Usually find toads in my garden dry stane walls later in the year.
Once we came back from holiday and a horny toad was staring at the front door. Like they live for milleniums and it had returned to the spot to find the quarry man at Juni Green had built a house in its way in 1880. Sheesh. Part-timers.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Rosie: I think the amphibian breeding season - at least the spawning phase - has been and gone. My pond was full of frogs from mid-March, spawn followed about a week or so after. The spawn has now all hatched and we have countless numbers of tadpoles wiggling about. The Elf Loch itself had a fine crop of frogspawn (maybe some toad as well, didn't want to get close enough to check) a couple of weeks ago.
Apart from the resident territory holders the adults should largely have dispersed by now, though the heron at the Elf Loch still seems hopeful. I think it's the dispersed adults that may be finding the current dry conditions a little challenging. The next critical phase weather-wise will likely be in a few months' time when the froglets (or toadlets) start to abandon the natal pond/loch/whatever and head out in to the big wide world. (Discounting tadpoles hatched from spawn laid in bodies of water at risk of drying up during drought conditions anyway, since that is as much down to a bad choice by the parents as it is to the weather.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
@ejstubbs - ok thanks - I do wish I had toads in my garden but too small and dry alas.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Excellent story but not sure it has been categorised correctly?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Isn't the pelican temporarily "wild" during its period of escape?
Posted 4 years ago #
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