I had the jackdaws for the first time this summer, and found their chak chak chak good company. Wood pigeons are great lumps of things that jumped all over my sweet peas - I have had to make tubes from plastic bottles to protect them at the base. I like their cooing down the chimney. As I live lose to the city centre I enjoy the jackdaws and wood pigeons - the former reminding me of cathedral closes, ruined castles and the like, the latter of the lofty groves the cushat roves.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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Sparrowhawk on the roof of the toolshed just now, getting badly blown around in this rather brusque wind. Seemed to give up and fly off in disgust (see also: absence of small passerines chez nous in recent days as previously mentioned).
Jackdaws currently investigating a chimney belonging one of our neighbours out back. It looks like it's out of use and just has a ventilation cowl on it. I thought they were supposed to be jackdaw-proof (the one on our disused chimney does appear to be so) but these birds seem to be trying to drop sticks down...
Our sweep pulled six bin bags full of sticks out of our 'live' chimney one year, before fitting a cowl which really did defeat them. We had to have a new cowl fitted last year when the woodburner went in. The chap assured us that it is bird proof. Hope he's right.
Once when I was climbing in Northumberland I snugged my fingers on to a good edge and stepped up, only to find myself face to face with three on-the-verge-of-fledging jackdaw chicks clustered in a horizontal crevice. They appeared unconcerned at my presence. I bade them good morrow and continued upwards.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Took the
dogmissus for a walk along the WoL and the Lymphoy track today. She was very chuffed to spot two goldcrests (in different locations, so not the same one twice). Good to know that some of them made it through the cold weather. Also seen: one nuthatch in a tree by the Kirk Brae bridge over the WoL, handsome buzzard near the rugby club, two dippers, two song thrushes, a goodly number of wrens, and innumerable robins proclaiming their territories - roughly one every five yards, so notable for their sheer quantity as much as anything. Also heard a woodpecker drumming somewhere in the shelter strip that crosses the track where it does a sort of wriggle to cross a burn by a small arched stone bridge.Good time of year for seeing smaller birds while the deciduous trees are still largely leafless but the birds are getting out and about claiming territories and finding mates. A lot of the birds seemed noticeably spruce and well-turned-out, presumably for that reason - even the wrens' tiny eyestripes seemed much more prominent.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Skylarks. Absolutely definitely. On Capelaw on Saturday (I ran up there) and at the Maiden's Cleugh col on Sunday (mountainbike).
My mother tells me she heard a skylark a fortnight ago, near Dunbar.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Plenty of territorial lapwings in the Moorfoots this weekend, despite the ongoing muirburn.
Roslin Glen scented with garlic.
Hares abound in East Lothian. One field with 8!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Nice article about the wildlife on the bings
Posted 3 years ago # -
Bings are suddenly in vogue. Athena shale trail, the excellent book Bing Bagging and this detailed article (the joirnalist’s parents live in West Lothian).
Elsewhere, the high ponds above Balerno have been emptied. So Harlaw still full, thriepmuir low and Bavelaw mid. big Heron there last night amidst the swans all standing up
Posted 3 years ago # -
West Lothian is an exotic realm for those of us in Midlothian
Posted 3 years ago # -
West Lothian has everything. bings, Bathgate alps, coastline (@Abercorn Kirk where you can see the replica Celtic cross, maybe it is real? And the lovely tombstone of Iain Hamilton Finlay)
Posted 3 years ago # -
Jay and hare on this morning's "commute". First ever sighting of a blackcap in our garden.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“
Lake-wading water buffalo in Suffolk, forests of waist-high “wee trees” on Scottish mountain peaks, and even the idea of lynx roaming Northumberland. These are just a fraction of the nature projects being given a push by the rewilding movement in the UK, and which will be marked by the first Global Rewilding Day on the spring equinox on Saturday.
“
Posted 3 years ago # -
Was watching two pigeons flirting on the neighbour's hedge when suddenly they both flew off. Half a beat later, a sparrowhawk skimmed the hedge just where the pigeons had been.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Spotted a Buzzard (I think) over Cammo earlier in the week.
Posted 3 years ago # -
got a nod from the jackdaw this morning for my rudimentary crow-speak
he could tell i was not a native speaker but i got the nod for making an effort
Posted 3 years ago # -
@bax San coincidentally I was chatting to a grouse up the red Road yesterday morning. I tried to warn her about the bullets
Posted 3 years ago # -
Chiffchaff calling in Carlingnose Quarry earlier today. First one this year. Same again in the woodland behind Port Laing beach - might have been the same bird.
Male eider and herring gulls bobbing about by the remains of the "Guv'y Pier"* associated with the submarine mining station looking very spiffy in their new breeding plumage.
* Giving this structure listed building status seems a trifle optimistic, given that it's over 100 years old and has been sitting unused and slowly rotting away in the Firth of Forth for most of that time.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Goldfinch on the bird feeder. I've not seen one in the garden before. Such a pretty bird.
Posted 3 years ago # -
you never forget your first goldfinch
Posted 3 years ago # -
Donna tart?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Goldfinch again this morning, and its friend turned up briefly. I'm hopeful that they may have set up home nearby and will drop in frequently.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Curious start to morning with Jackdaw in my living room. Came down the lum. Odd as all pots have cowls on them. Mrs Garto in bed so put No Entry - Crow in Room Note on door. Phoned at apple pie asking why I had gone out cycling leaving a crow in the room. I invited Mrs Garto to remove it. Then did the ca-caw noise from Schitt’s Creek.
Heard lambs yesterday but saw them today at Tarbrax. Also the pigs. Two will live and two will grow into bacon. Then donkeys and mules on carstairs esker.
Blown home quickly. Jackdaw on mantelpiece looking at itself in the mirror. We has
Had sheets. It did not like the electric light so I went to open the shutters and it tried to fly out through the glass and became sort of trapped. Tam grabbed it and I had the window open and off it flew.Posted 3 years ago # -
let me get this straight, gembo-san
a jackdaw turns up early doors to offer you saturday morning lessons in crow-speak
possibly even a fundamental course with oral exams
and you spurn the opportunity, leaving him in hanging around your front room with no one to tutor ?
Posted 3 years ago # -
@bax, guilty as charged, in my defence I had to go out cycling. Anyway here is the song
The first craw was sittin on the so-fa
The second craw was a wee Heid the ba
The third craw was actually a Jack Daw
Posted 3 years ago # -
Looking over at the Water of Leith in Roseburn Park I saw something swift and brown run into a burrow on the bank. Then 2 of them begun to run about and took headers into the water. I thought they might be water rats but later googling has suggested they were brown rats, which can swim. I suppose they will start preying on the ducks and swans that nest there.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Being pedantic (moi?) there's "no such thing" as a water rat, in the same way that there's "no such thing" as a seagull. The name is often applied to the water vole - when you can see them, which can be tricky as they are in serious decline and would be a marvellous addition to the inner city WoL fauna had they been what you first thought.
As you say, yer common or garden* brown rat can - in fact happily will - swim perfectly well**. They are often mistaken for water voles by overoptimistic dilettante wildlife spotters who see a rat in the water and make the connection: water + rat = water rat = water vole - hurrah! The easy-to-spot differentiating features are the visible ears and longer, hairless tail on the brown rat but TBH once you've seen a water vole IRL you can't mistake them (IMO).
I think IWRATS has mentioned before that the citizens of Morningside seem to be perfectly happy to share Blackford Pond with a healthy population of brown rats. They are quite cute when you see them popping in and out of the foliage by the side of the pond but they are a common vector of Weil's disease, which humans can contract through contact with water or soil contaminated by urine from infected rats. Perhaps more of a risk to kiddies than adults, but that doesn't seem to stop some folks letting their wains grub around in the same bits of dirt that will almost certainly have been peed on by a rat fairly recently. That said, I'm not aware that any cases have been traced to that location so perhaps your Morningside rat is a superior form of the creature.
* We have them in the gardens round here. Which I'm OK with so long as they stay well away from the house.
** In fact most. maybe all, mammals can swim, though not all choose to do so.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@gembo here is something for you: the Polish word for a jackdaw is 'kawka' (little coffee) and pronounced as 'kafka'.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@ejstubbs - I was hoping for Ratty from the Wind in the Willows but I'm pretty sure these are common rattus norvegicus. This pair of rats is below the ramp at the entry to the park from Roseburn Crescent, so quite out of reach of children. People drop food down to the ducks and the rats may have been tempted by this. I thought they might scare off the goosanders, which congregate on this bank, and attack eggs and ducklings.
Posted 3 years ago #
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