Fox you say? Foxy. Lady.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
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Posted 3 years ago #
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Lucky Frenchy’s dug is not about
Posted 3 years ago # -
CushIe doos getting jiggy in the garden. They have been chasing each other all day, four of them. Five now and the squirrel seems to be hanging with them too. Went out with bin, six wood pigeons flew out of the tree. One must have been round the back of the foliage.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Sparrowhawk skimmed the path in front of my tyre at hunting speed in Braidburn Valley Park. Suspect many people wouldn't even have seen it in the gloaming.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWRATS: Just a thought: was it you who passed me on my Kermit-green electric bike going through the park southbound on Monday afternoon last week? Whoever it was had quite a sonorous bell.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Otters in the braidburn valley park now too
Posted 3 years ago # -
A OWL. Emerged from the bushes near the Lochend Road bridge on the bike path, flew over it and disappeared under the other side. Sounded like a Little.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@wingpig, just possible. Little I mean as an owl in southern Scotland. Non native. Introduced from Europe. La manche having been a barrier previously?
Posted 3 years ago # -
@ejstubbs
Nuh. Was deskbound.
Highlight today: opened curtains to reveal a male bullfinch and a goldcrest footerin aboot in i gairden.
Bullfinches seem to have taken over from greenfinches in a like ethnic cleansing move. Haven't seen a green for years, bulls everywhere.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@gembo From the brief glimpse in orange silhouette I'd've guessed Tawny rather than Little, but the only owly noises were screechy rather than hootish.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Little owls common at my mother-out-law's house, not so common in Scotchland. Tawny owls numerous in Mbra.
Posted 3 years ago # -
First skylark song of the year for me. In the Moorfoots. Also squeaky toy call from lapwing.
Posted 3 years ago # -
There is a kestrel flies across my path on the climb up to Buteland from the a70. Bonny.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Peak snowdrop spotting this week, well yesterday and today
The sun has led the little memento mori flowers to open their petals
Posted 3 years ago # -
Had to go outside and tell the foxes to push off as they were making such a racket copulating in the front garden it was putting me off making the paella. Normally I'd leave them to it, but jeezo there's limits.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWARST that's brilliant! What exactly did you tell them?
Posted 3 years ago # -
@amir I stopped on my cycle on Saturday because I thought I heard a skylark but I convinced myself that it was too early in the year...
Posted 3 years ago # -
@bill
I just used the classic 'Get a room, you two!'. One of them looked at me in exactly the way you would expect to be looked at in those circumstances and vanished through the hedge.
It all started again in a neighbour's garden.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWARST Haha!
Polite: tick
Pony tail: tickPosted 3 years ago # -
The last shreds of ice left our garden yesterday morning and by lunchtime a small tortoiseshell was out sunning itself. It was pretty lethargic so I hope it got enough warmth.
Come the evening we were also treated to a visit from this wonderful silhouette. I'm guessing it's a barn owl but happy to be corrected.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Lovely. I would say tawny. Barn owl a bit slimmer and more upright and doesn't seem very common in the Lothians.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Any red admirals? They used to be prevalent
Posted 3 years ago # -
Moffat is to host a golden eagle festival in September. Assuming the four chicks relocated to the Moffat Hills survive.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWRATS: opened curtains to reveal a male bullfinch and a goldcrest footerin aboot in i gairden.
Bullfinches seem to have taken over from greenfinches in a like ethnic cleansing move.
Small birds appear to have all but disappeared from our garden recently. The robin which used to survey its territory from a perch in the gap in the hedge where the old cherry tree used to be hasn't been seen for a couple of weeks, and finch activity has flatlined. I'm hoping that they've all just moved to lower altitudes during the harsh weather and will make their way back as it starts to warm up properly.
So there's not much here to keep an ornithologist amused at them moment, unless you're a fan of wood pigeons, jackdaws or magpies. OK, I did get shouted at by a blue tit when I had the temerity to enter the exclusion zone around the tit nestbox earlier today, and I did hear a dunnock singing this morning. But it's still pretty thin gruel.
Posted 3 years ago # -
unless you're a fan of wood pigeons, jackdaws
I am a great fan of wood pigeons and jackdaws. The first shot dead, butchered and grilled and the second cheerfully going about its business.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWRATS: Agree that jackdaws can delightful and charming. Too great a preponderance, especially in gloomy weather, can give the place a bit of wuthering heights feel. Comes of living near the top of a hill maybe.
Agree also re wood pigeons. Unfortunately the immediate neighbours would likely not take kindly to my purchasing and deploying a suitable firearm for said purpose. (As I write this two of them* are playing "let's get jiggy no let's not" on the flat roof of one of said neighbours. A good clean shot but they** might object to stray pellets buried in their woodwork.)
Woken up at 3am this morning by a fox barking persistently up the road. Had a peer out of the curtains and spotted a rather fine big dog fox trotting towards the source of said disturbance, then pausing before veering off down a side road. Didn't fancy getting involved with whatever was going on up there? (On returning to bed I did wonder why the street needed to be so brightly illuminated at that hour.)
* i.e. wood pigeons
** i.e. the neighboursPosted 3 years ago # -
@ejstubbs
We are on the flight path between a jackdaw roost and wherever the jackdaws' office is. All through the winter they pour back and forth at sunup and sundown, chattering and yacking. I guess I'm used to it, but for sure it has a slight bat cave feel at times.
Wood pigeons' heads are far too small for their bodies and they are a challenging shot. You need to have planted some vegetables (to protect) and have an air weapon certificate to legally shoot them but it is worth it in my view.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@fimm @amir First skylark for me on Sunday as well. Near the monument at the top of the Skimmer hills ((Pencaitland). A group of roe deer ran past me through the forest on the path up from the old mill, near the river. Also a solitary buzzard and a couple of bullfinches.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Proper plump woodpigeons lived in and made lots of pleasant soothing noises in the tree outside my room when I was small. Much prefer them to the ratty grey city things.
Posted 3 years ago # -
My zoophagy does not extend to city pigeons. I think it might well be fatal to eat one even if autoclaved. Sparrowhawks must have the digestive juices of Kinshasa sewer rats to survive eating them raw.
My grandmother used to object to the cooing of cushie doos making its way down her chimney and into the living room but in retrospect she was really very neurotic.
Posted 3 years ago #
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