CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure

Wildlife highlight of the day

(7221 posts)

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  1. jss
    Member

    Possibly posted in the wrong thread
    Lowlife lowlight perhaps
    Attacked yet again by the swarms of scholars who attend the curriculum for excellence at Dalkeith Campus.
    Today it was handfuls of small stones thrown at my face ,previous missiles have included cold chips and coke cans. Bared bums and choruses of jeers involving the repetition of wanker modified by various expletives are constant

    What is so strange about a white bearded horizontal Englishman in motion?

    Can these institutions not lock up their inmates for longer each day to facilitate safe passage of recumbenteers?

    Posted 3 years ago #

  2. chdot
    Admin

    Suggest you contact the school and see if they are willing to do anything.

    (Can’t if they don’t know about it.)

    Posted 3 years ago #

  3. chdot
    Admin

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/meow-valous-news-edinburgh-zoo-celebrates-births-two-critically-endangered-wildcat-kittens-3049787

    Posted 3 years ago #

  4. gembo
    Member

    Big white highland cow out at Circus Alba Colzium Art Farm. We pushed on beyond the last cattle grid at the gun club for a wee nosey.

    On way home startled a deer just after the Kirknewton turn. Bobbed away towards the airfield.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  5. Rosie
    Member

    4 swans on Blackford Pond. This year's generation, as they still had brown flecks on their wings.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  6. nobrakes
    Member

    Surprised a small herd of deer in the woods up the hill today.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  7. bill
    Member

    Amazing barn owl this morning flying alongside me down Roddinglaw. It was swinging from one side of the road to the other and I kept slowing down/speeding up to match our paces. Before heading into the fields it crossed the road and looked at me. Very exciting. Amazing creatures they are. So quiet and graceful.

    Are owls generally that social/inquisitive? It was the second time this year that I was shepherded by a barn owl.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  8. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    No, owls are not usually interested in people. You have been blessed, truly. Barn owls also very particular about where they live, despite being one of the few world-wide birds.

    First sentence of your post is wonderful in French. Super chouette ce matin...

    Posted 3 years ago #

  9. gembo
    Member

    Bill you have found your Daemon

    Posted 3 years ago #

  10. bill
    Member

    @IWARTS @gembo Well, now I feel rather privileged!

    Posted 3 years ago #

  11. Rosie
    Member

    Though I would love a daemon, I'm not sure about having a nocturnal one.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  12. bill
    Member

    @Rosie both my encounters this year were in early hours (3-4am in summer, 7am in winter). I will take that. Seems to suit an Audax soul.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  13. ejstubbs
    Member

    Half a dozen or so bar-tailed godwit stotting about at the water's edge on Porty beach today. A highlight for me because I've never knowingly seen a bar-tailed godwit before. Prior to taking the BTO's online wader ID course last month I'd never known what identifying characteristics to look for, so I guess the course fee was good VFM. As I'd never been to Porty before (and given that I've lived in Edinburgh for getting on for 22 years even I'm a little shocked at that) for all I know the BTGs hang out there most days, but before now I wouldn't have been competent to identify them as such anyway.

    Also pleasant to stop for a cuppa & bacon roll in the Beach House cafe: just makes a change to be somewhere where there's a buzz of other humans getting on with their lives.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  14. gembo
    Member

    About 100 field fare in a field out Whang yesterday

    About 20 swans and something interesting chap was watching through bins on Bavelaw water meadow this lunch time

    Posted 3 years ago #

  15. jdanielp
    Member

    Moorhen, goosander and cormorant on or over the canal just now.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  16. gembo
    Member

    Deer leaping fence top of cockburnhill - right in front of me, majestic

    Posted 3 years ago #

  17. chdot
    Admin

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/11/housebuilder-fined-600000-destroying-bat-roost-south-london-bellway

    Posted 3 years ago #

  18. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Spotted the Penicuik mouse the other evening while I was trundling along the railway path to Lidl.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  19. fimm
    Member

    Saw the Dunsapie Loch otter on Saturday. It really is a right show-off...

    Posted 3 years ago #

  20. ejstubbs
    Member

    Wondered who was still going for the hedgehog nibbles I put out in a fox-proof shelter at the bottom of the garden from time to time. Dug out the trailcam and...rats (brown). Two different ones, back and forth multiple times, clearly coming in to our garden from elsewhere (if only the neighbours knew). Fox only turned up an hour after the rats had given up (presumably having cleared the dish out completely). Sniffed about, perhaps sensing rats and sloped off.

    So won't be putting out any more hedgehog nibbles for a while. Tonight will be putting trailcam up on the side passage to see if foxes are using it as a thoroughfare. They definitely poo on the back lawn, and on the drive at the front, and we often find muddy pawmarks on the lids of the bins inside the gate so it looks like they're adept at hopping over.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  21. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @ejstubbs

    Blackford pond absolutely heaves with rats that feed on the bread folk throw to the birds. The good burgers of Morningside seem to find it impossible to see them though. Voluntary blindness of some kind.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  22. ejstubbs
    Member

    Aye, we counted at least half a dozen fossicking in and out of the vegetation at the edge of the water during a stroll down that way a few weeks back. I wonder if a heron would take a rat? The heron that hangs out at Blackford was stood right by the path on the north side of the pond that time, and didn't seem particularly concerned by the people strolling past. Would be a good spot for a bit of ratting I'd have thought.

    Personally I don't take great offence at a rat or two in the 'wild', but if they get too close to the house they need to watch out.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  23. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @ejstubbs

    Pretty sure a heron would love a rat in the way that hens are mad for mice. Totally agree that rats heading for the house should be met with lethal fire.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  24. chdot
    Admin

    “

    Only 13,460 hectares of woodland were planted in Britain in the year to March 2020, mostly in Scotland, but the government’s targets should see forest cover rise by at least 2% from its current 13%. The European Union average is 40%.

    “

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/15/restore-uk-woodland-trees-report-rewilding-britain

    Posted 3 years ago #

  25. minus six
    Member

    released a mouse in the bushes behind travelodge car park this morning

    which gives him a fighting chance to get inside before the temp plummets later

    Posted 3 years ago #

  26. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Greater spotted woodpecker drinking out of a hollow in the ash tree.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  27. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Dipper making a territorial display on a rock in the Burdiehouse Burn at Ellen's Glen.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  28. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Flights of curlews going past my home office window. Ten at a time.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  29. minus six
    Member

    a bumper day at the feeders

    double bullfinch gracefully tolerating the squabbling tit families

    Posted 3 years ago #

  30. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @bax

    What is the greenfinch situation where you are? They have been supplanted by bull- and cowfinches here.

    Posted 3 years ago #

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