@gembo
Yes, and madame IWRATS stole/collected some while exclaiming 'gorse cordial' and I am a little scared. Nettle soup is fine but gorse cordial?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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Gorse in flower smells of coconut when it gets the full sun on it.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yes heady coconut with hint of vanilla
As a school boy I tried smoking it mixed with tobacco down Prestwick beach. Quite a pleasant evening but not worth the picking and drying that this involved.
Posted 4 years ago # -
The gorse is wonderful. Especially on the Braid Hills.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“
Manifesto for grouse moor reform“
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63332041/revive-manifesto-2021
Posted 4 years ago # -
Farmer out at Ainville which is dairy, with sheep and Clydesdale horses has put a second perimeter fence round a field (I assume of grass for silage) just one string of barbed wire - maybe to keep the cows out. One of the posts has a flat stone on top of it. Could not figure why until today when a buzzard pretending to be Aquila was perched on the stone. Very regal from a distance but scruffy closer up
Another buzzard out by Kelly Syke Gate and a song thrush singing its wee heart out, buntings , Siskins, Goldfinches in spades
Sadly on very dead deer smacked right in the kisser just outside balerno - East bound lane
Wind light but was headwind out and back
Posted 4 years ago # -
Very regal from a distance but scruffy closer up
Testify, brother!
Posted 4 years ago # -
A stoat scuttling across Braid Hills golf course last night.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Hunners of mayfly or hover fly or super fly hovering down the garden
Neighbour who is two doors down and real piece of work now out sanding his fence making the WoL path a bit of a hazard - he certainly doesn’t look like he gives a flip
Posted 4 years ago # -
Academic paper title of the day:
Statistical inference on tree swallow migrations with random forests
Posted 4 years ago # -
A bird this morning that I heard but didn't see, sounding just like the "clack clack" of a typewriter.
The internet tells me that the bird which sounds most like a typewiter is a yellow rail. They only live in North American marshes though, so what I heard was more likely to have been an actual typewriter...
Posted 4 years ago # -
Swifts and Eider ducks down at the Leith port area.
Posted 4 years ago # -
A Cuckoo calling near Herriot yesterday, as well.as Stonechats, Sandmartins and lots of Lapwings with chicks. Also, a Dipper and Whinchat. We watched a Kestrel being harassed by Swallows too.
Cheers
ColinPosted 4 years ago # -
Peregrine scouting the pigeon lofts of Magdalene. Better watch out for the Lowland Air Fusiliers.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Gaggle of excited house martins over the house then a swan.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Something I've never seen before - coming down the Borestane path in the Pentlands, a fluffy grouse chick scurrying off the path into the heather. I assume the mother and any siblings were concealed nearby.
Posted 4 years ago # -
A lone swift over New Town yesterday evening. Hopefully I will spot more than one at a time at some point soon.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Swifts are so sparse these days. They seemed to be courting over the city for a while, now dispersing to feed?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Clydesdale foal recently arrived in this world, skittish on its feet, spindly and small, but not for long. Ainville Farm A70
Posted 4 years ago # -
Goldfinch, bats and lots of bugs caught my eye on tonight's ride. And by caught my eye I mean on several occasions literally caught my bloody eye. Stupid wildlife.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Thing with a very prominent black end to its tail bounding across the road near the Gowkey Moss roundabout. Stoat, apparently.
"A stoat’s tail is around half the length of its body and ends in a bushy black tip."Posted 4 years ago # -
“I try my best to learn about humans”
Posted 4 years ago # -
At 04h00 there was a large fox cub running furious circles round our garden yapping loudly. It was clearly out of its mind with joy - first time it had encountered wind?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Smallish rather scrawny-looking fox in our back garden late-ish yesterday evening. Seemed to be foraging among the detritus from the bird feeders. Pretty sure it wasn't a cub, I suspect it was a vixen taking a break from her litter, though it was too dark to see whether she had enlarged mammaries.
Something quite had had a go at my hedgehog feeder/refuge a few days back. Whatever it was had had to shift a couple of heavy old-style house bricks out of the way to get at the food tray. I suspect that was a fox too.
(We had a vixen in the garden one evening a couple of years back, clearly suckling cubs and looking hungry. I was unexpectedly upset when I found her run over on Oxgangs Road the next morning. We saw the dog fox much more frequently after that. We hoped that meant that the cubs were ready to take solid food and he was foraging for them but we couldn't be sure.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Some very scabby cows out at Auchindoon Brae by Harperrig reservoir. Scuzzy grey colour with two belted galloways in the herd.
Very anemic cows at farm up towards Buteland. All white with a big white bull in neighbouring field
Yellow necked mouse (on telly, Hugh fearnley what’s it)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yes or maybe cross. The bull is a mighty beast
Posted 4 years ago # -
Loose sheep at Harperig the farmer whose face is chiseled from the stone of Auchindoon Quarry was rounding them up on my return - he waved at me from his quad. Then Kestrel hovering 10 ft above the asphalt. THink waiting to catch the wind. Very red, very long tail but cant make it a Kite.
Auchindoon is the oldest contact Dolorite quarry in W Lothian 335 million years (some of the words might be wrong as from memory rather than a wee sign, can be googled if you like quarries)
Posted 4 years ago #
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