Yes, yes the strip. Mis-feeds aside. Fold up threefold for massive shot/misfire gamble.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
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Posted 4 years ago #
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Garden wildlife count up to 113 with two new additions - the Sunflower Seed Maggot (a teeny little fruit fly), and Seven-spotted Ladybird. Also, the Garden Spiders are getting bigger, and the Wasps foraging wood....
Fly - Sunflower Seed Maggot by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Beetle - Seven-spotted Ladybird by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Arachnid - Garden Spider_4 by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Insect - Common Wasp_2 by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Posted 4 years ago # -
Three or four owls (I think they were probably long-eared) hunting together between Arthur's Seat and The Crags a little earlier this evening. Awesome.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Two cushy doos, one magnificent Roe Deer and two Gallus Hares all in the one field off west Linton moor road this am at 8.15am
Not one of them warned me of the deluge forthcoming at 10.30 a.m. when I still had 2.5 hours to cycle
Posted 4 years ago # -
a record 5 buzzards sitting on various telegraph poles between here and Moffat.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Record numbers. Of buzzards and no reduction in grouse/pheasant. Yet the gamekeeper in Berwick was after a licence to kill (English story on BBC website0
Posted 4 years ago # -
Twice in the past week I have had a close encounter with a hedgehog in our garden. First time an adult one ambled round the corner of our house as I sat on the step outside the back door, and walked right past me as I kept very still.
Last night, a little baby one made an appearance on the drive next to the A7. Too close for my liking so we shifted it up to the back of the garden.
I haven't seen a live hedgehog in Stow for about 30 years, so to see 2 different ones within the space of a week has been very encouraging.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Nice view of a stoat near the Meldons.
In other news on Twitter, someone spotted an immature WT eagle by Hopes. Cross fingers it doesn't disppear on the local grouse moor.
Posted 4 years ago # -
A brown hare haring off down the drive that leads to the Spear Gate Lodge of the Penicuik estate this afternoon. Also, the path alongside the North Esk was teeming with tiny froglets - care required!
Posted 4 years ago # -
A red squirrel and a kingfisher next to the Botanics in St Andrews this morning, both too fast for me to get a photo.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Family of fledgling long-tailed tits on my peanut feeder this morning. Charming!
Posted 4 years ago # -
Saw a long mouse.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Easily recognised
Posted 4 years ago # -
the Wasps foraging wood....
My Dad reports three separate wasp nests in his emergency backup shed. I told him to just let them be, as I'd rather not get the bee suit out.
Penicuik estate this afternoon
I wonder if our paths might have crossed at all? I was there yesterday, a bit after 5pm, and then took the track up the south side of the valley to emerge on the A701.
There were absolutely loads of Red Admiral butterflies in the grounds, and lots of small, dark brown butterflies that wouldn't stay still long enough for me to photograph.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Cricotopus, a type of non-biting midge. About a mm long, BUT LOOK AT THE HEAD ATTIRE!
Insect - Cricotopus by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Posted 4 years ago # -
Crazy!
Posted 4 years ago # -
Non-biting midge, that’ll be right
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Arellcat: I wonder if our paths might have crossed at all?
Possibly, though it sounds like we were on opposite sides of the river. We walked down from the car park past the house to the Low Pond then along by the North Esk for about a km before taking the well-made steadily rising path back up to the Chinese Gates, whence back to the car park. My missus is still rehabilitating a badly sprained ankle so our outings together tend not to be too strenuous. We were there from about 16:15 to 17:45.
We did encounter an older fellow with a bike at the bridge near the Low Pond. He was bemoaning the lack of fish in the river. When we stopped again at the Roman Bridge there appeared to be a good number of fish rising to the insects. Maybe they just weren't the kind of fish he wanted? Also noticed a dude on a bike cycling up to the house as we were heading back to the car park; that would have been about 17:15.
Did the small brown butterfiles have thin white or silver borders to the wings? We saw one or two of those. Also what I think was a moth, all brown, a bit over 1cm long, wings completely folded, with what looked like a tiny radome on top of its head. Or maybe it was one of the latest CIA surveillance micro-drones.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Mr fimm spotted an immature badger last week.
Also we saw the Saughton Park otters on Friday.Posted 4 years ago # -
Pretty sure I spotted a group of three peregrine falcons above the road around Arthur's Seat towards the south-east. I initially heard a loud, quickly repeated call, which sounded a bit like 'meh-nuh', and looked up to see them heading up towards a craggy section above the road. As I continued my walk, I then spotted a kestrel hovering and diving in front of Salisbury Crags. Too early for owls today.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Three goldfinches in close formation flew across the path a couple of metres in front of me this morning. A second later I looked up and caught a glimpse of what I think was a sparrowhawk.
Posted 4 years ago # -
A wee white bird in our garden. Best guess is it was a sparrow, but could easily be wrong.
Like this, but an adult: https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/685991/British-bird-rare-white-sparrow-animal-pictures-Wales
Posted 4 years ago # -
We were very confused a couple of weeks ago because something had attacked two (and only two) of the pots in the garden. They'd turned over the soil without leaving holes, but apparently spilled narry a speck outside the pots. Oddest of all, they'd only done it to the two muddy ones that had got a bit waterlogged and had soil (not compost) in them.
It's now clear that we've got a blackbird nesting in our Virginia Creeper, and when Mrs G was online checking whether the empty green eggshell she'd found in the garden was a blackbird egg (it was) she found that blackbirds line their nest with mud. Now we know who dug up our pots. I'd never thought of putting mud out for the birds, but I will again.
Mrs Blackbird uses a railing outside the window as a perch for doing a quick safety check before she dives into the nest with a beak full of worms. She's been looking increasingly knackered...
Posted 4 years ago # -
Scything swifts twixt Harlaw and Thriepmuir this evening.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Greenroofer: Other things that are good to put out for birds to use as nesting material (assuming there aren't already naturally-occurring supplies locally) are sheep's wool and moss. Some pals of mine had a wren build a nest in one of their hanging baskets - including stealing most of the moss that their other hanging basket was lined with as nest construction material!
Unfortunately that nest appeared not to satisfy the desires of any lady wrens so they didn't have any baby wrens in their garden this year :(
Posted 4 years ago # -
@ejstubbs, troglodytes troglodytes in a hanging basket, well I never.
Farmer out the Whang Ainville with the Clydesdales has been taking in the hay from the perimeter as if they had corncrakes
Posted 4 years ago # -
underweight baby hoglet ambled down my path at 5pm
cracked open a bag of dried mealworms and hoglet scoffed the lot
popped indoors to rustle up some peanut butter dessert but brazen hoglet had gone and done a runner without paying
Posted 4 years ago # -
Wee walk down the coast on Tuesday...
Common Blue Butterfly_1 by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Northern Brown Argus by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Greater-spotted Woodpecker_2 by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Peregrine_5 by Anthony Robson, on Flickr
Posted 4 years ago # -
young horace is back again
Posted 4 years ago # -
Next door's chimbleypot-seagull's fledgling sliding backwards down their roof with wings stretched out flat until it reached the gutter. Couldn't hang around to see where it went from there. Hopefully that'll soon mean an end to the excessive close scrarking.
Posted 4 years ago #
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