Chiffchaff in garden yet. First time noticed but this may because I have never had so much time at home before.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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@amir apparently not: 'It was calm, so sweet and nice.'
Posted 4 years ago # -
“Excellent story but not sure it has been categorised correctly?”
“Isn't the pelican temporarily "wild" during its period of escape?”
Well...
At what point does a ‘wild’ animal cease to be wild?
Farm animals are descended from untamed variants. Are bulls wild or just dangerous?
Ditto some ‘pets’.
Are wild animals no longer wild because someone has put a fence around them?
Are they not wld because they are being fed?
If so, perhaps many birds are no longer wild because they rely on human intervention??
Posted 4 years ago # -
It is an offence to release any non-native animal in Scotland apart from pheasants and red-legged partridges which are covered by an exception to the Wildlife and Countryside Act written in special ink that only the upper classes can see.
So the pelican must alas be hunted and destroyed.
Posted 4 years ago # -
A deer running west on the pavement along Wilkieston Rd out of Ratho around the old quarry. Ever few leaps it tried to jump towards the quarry but there is a tall wire fence there so the deer was bouncing back. As I was getting closer (from its behind) it visibly was getting more nervous and trying to escape. Soon a van came from the other direction (so very close to the deer) and then the deer panicked and repeatedly was trying to get through the same spot in the fence and as a result bouncing back. It actually looked quite funny. The driver and I stopped to let it sort itself out.
Eventually it crossed the road and ran into the open fields on the other side of the road.
The fence ends about 20m from the spot.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Deer are skittish, very wise to stop
Have seen your frost early this morning and yesterday @bill on lang whang verges and indeed in the fissures of the road surface down at Tarbrax
Posted 4 years ago # -
@amir @chdot just realised that I have confused things. I was originally querying the Scotsman's categorisation of the article within the "What's on > Things to do" section of the news.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Ah!
Still, this pelican seems to be not very wild...
Posted 4 years ago # -
Indeed. The typical wild swan would be far more aggresive.
Posted 4 years ago # -
These might be wild with joy -
Posted 4 years ago # -
Where is that video of the pelican swallowing a pigeon alive in St James park when you need it?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Posted 4 years ago #
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Love the way the goose piles in and then thinks better of it.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Presumably The Corstorphine Pelican wasn't hungry...
Posted 4 years ago # -
Government Guidance walk by the Water of Leith this morning. WoL is very low. Another week or so of this dry weather and it will be a trickle. In February it was a torrent.
Heron, also a cat stalking ducklings, which was seen off with loud quacking from the drake and an exit downstream.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Thousands of Gannets circling The Bass Rock today, and lots of Primroses and Lesser Celandines brightening up the day further. The tandem ride back up the coast was brisk due to the stiff tailwind. Many cyclists out everywhere enjoying the fine weather.
Cheers
ColinPosted 4 years ago # -
It's world curlew day today. It is worth cycling out to the coast or up to the high grasslands and moors to hear their evocative calls. I think we are relatively lucky around here. Around the borderlands of Wales, where I'm from originally, they seem less common than previously (and lapwings pretty scarce).
Posted 4 years ago # -
There was a small chevron of curlews regularly flying over south Edinburgh in the winter. I would love to hear the breeding territory song right now. Scotland's most evocative sound by far.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I do love the curlew song.
But divers/loonies run it pretty close. Imagine either of these on a misty still day. Wonderful.Posted 4 years ago # -
Lapwings are pretty special too:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=475542516553778There is a much beefier lapwing in south America
This is pretty common in the pampas. It's also more aggressive than our local version. Some have kept teros in their gardens like guard dogs.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@amir
Black-throated diver, yes! Instant memory of camping by Loch Pattack.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@amir I hear the curlew most days out on the Lang Whang Moors, they are much more around than they have been,
Their call takes me back to the video of Dick Gaughan (from a telly programme of extreme brilliance that Billy Kay made about him) Dick is singing Now Westlin’ Winds by Robert Burns it is a thing of great beauty that makes me cry. It always did with the words of Burns and Dick’s muscular yet tender singing and beautiful guitar work. Sadder than ever because Dick is laid low. Anyway at the end of the song it cuts to moorland and the curlew. Very apt.
The paitirck lo’es the fruitfu fells
The plover lo’es the mountains
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring heron the fountains
Thro lofty groves the cushat roves
THe path o man to shun it
THe hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnetThus ev’ry kind their pleasure find
THe savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander.......Also lovely deer this morning up at thriepmuir, it did not see me so I pinged my bell to make it scutter.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I saw a jay on Mortonhall golf course yesterday. These are shy, shy birds and while I think they are present in leafy Edinburgh (you hear them sometimes) that was, I think, the first time I've seen one in town.
Top places to see them in my experience;
Glen Muick
Drummossie Woods
Inchnacardoch ForestI was only in the last two scouting British military roads of the 18th century that being one of my things.
PS Brother Gembo that is powerful music. Dougie Maclean's Caledonia can tighten my throat and the unexpected sound of the curlew on French TV once made me blub out of nowhere. How is Dick laid low?
Posted 4 years ago # -
He had a stroke alas. Or something akin. It appears only have dawned upon him gradually such is his fighting spirit.
I saw him at Edinburgh Festival maybe 1987. Victor Jara of Chile stays with me. My mate Mac reminds that as he picks and strums very hard the guitar has to be retuned an inordinate amount between songs.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Oh I'm sorry to hear that about Dick Gaughan. I love his music and I did meet him once.
Posted 4 years ago # -
There's a very good if sad series on Radio 4 at the moment about extinct species. Today was slightly more upbeat about the return of the white-tailed eagle. It made the point that we think eagles live among rocky crags, but they were so persecuted that that might have been their redoubt rather than their natural habitat.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“It made the point that we think eagles live among rocky crags, but they were so persecuted that that might have been their redoubt rather than their natural habitat.“
Heard that in passing.
Wasn’t clear if it was ‘likely’ or ‘possibly’.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@chdot @rosie, heard it too, paleo-genetics suggesting Somerset LEvels
Posted 4 years ago # -
@gembo
Birds live wherever there is food, safety and nesting sites for them. Eagles are in no way limited to mountains. Any open ground with trees and crags is cool.
Goshawks that are a ghostly forest presence here live openly in downtown Berlin and Prague.
Posted 4 years ago # -
One orange tip butterfly and several willow warblers in the Dreghorn training area today. Plus a solitary chaffinch - gone are the days when they were an unremarkable sight, sadly.
Posted 4 years ago #
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