Wildlife highlight of the day « CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum

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Wildlife highlight of the day

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Started 14 years ago by amir
Latest reply from jdanielp

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Min
Member

Well it is encouraging that at least one person wouldn't come over all bang bang at the sight of a generously proportioned kitty.

I still think that better environmental gains could come, at least initially, from reining in the people who sterilise the moorlands of wildlife in order to bring in people who enjoy blasting a few harmless wee birds. But that is never going to happen! Until it does, this idea is rather like building more motorways while all the existing roads crumble to bits.

Incidentally, George Monbiot seems to really hate farmers (I am not sure where he thinks his food comes from). I am not sure how he feels about gamekeepers.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

A crow half-heartedly chasing an insouciant kestrel over the industrial unit where the canal crosses the bypass. Both just going through the motions.

Small rodent flattened on the towpath just before the lesser aqueduct.

Posted 9 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

Three squirrels on my commute this morning. This is 3 times as many squirrels as I recall seeing on my commute in the last 6 months.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

@kaputnik

Have you read Nabokov's novel Pnin? Squirrels presage the important moments in the main protagonist's life.

Posted 9 years ago #
gembo
Member

@min George Monbiot owns five allotments. He stole them from the artisans and grows his own artichokes in them.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Homeward bound on the canal last night I heard the rhythmic tak-tak-tak of a nail stuck in a wheel so I stopped to have a look, just where the railway crosses on a low bridge at Kingsknowe. Having stopped I heard another sound - a repeated wet flapping.

It wasn't a questing vole in a plashy fen but one of the pigeons from the bridge which had fallen in the canal and become waterlogged. It was trying to climb the vertical parapet as the sun went down. All a bit film noire. It then butterflew across to the path side and tried to climb out through the reeds. No luck. I had no stick to help or kill it, so I left it to its fate. Wildlife lowlight.

Posted 9 years ago #
gembo
Member

I saw another or maybe the same pigeon doing this about a week back at a bridge nearer town, little crowd standing helplessly. Also had sparrow in my stove, they fight each other or indeed do the other thing to each other on the chimney and fall down. Sweep declines to put on a mesh as he says will affect the draw. Last one appears to have swept the hearth and then gone back up? Previously they flew out as I lit the fire causing mayhem.

Posted 9 years ago #
stiltskin
Member

Common Toad crossing the NEPN just below the Queensferry Road. Acted as a lollipop man to see it safely across.

Posted 9 years ago #
chdot
Admin

Posted 9 years ago #
chdot
Admin

Posted 9 years ago #
jdanielp
Member

Spotted on/from the canal towpath in 24 hours:
last night, a rat;
this morning, a cat;
this evening, a bat.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

As I unchained the ratty nineties hybrid this morning I was startled by the wing noise from a flock of ten swans flying low over the house.

I'd guess that they were a family group of whooper swans, but they were gone too quick to see their beaks. Lovely sight in any case.

Posted 9 years ago #
gembo
Member

Whooper swans whoop, but mute swans are not mute.

Wing noise is loud also quite a draft or is that draught

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

I was delighted to learn on Saturday that there is, there really is, a tree called a 'caucasian wingnut'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterocarya_fraxinifolia

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

And I had a pair of stock doves in the garden yesterday. I think I quite often do, but I hadn't been paying attention and had just lumped them in with the wood pigeons, which is about as reasonable as lumping house martins in with swallows.

Posted 9 years ago #
Cyclingmollie
Member

Lots of Canada geese arriving and departing on the North Esk between the store bridge and the weir last week. They come in as skeins a few seconds apart making loads of noise.

Posted 9 years ago #
Min
Member

I'd guess that they were a family group of whooper swans, but they were gone too quick to see their beaks. Lovely sight in any case.

I think I saw those swans too, Wednesday or Thursday morning? Or at least A flock of swans. I couldn't see their beaks either but I did suspect Whoopers.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

@Min

Thursday morning 08h20, on the usual waterfowl line of travel between (I'm guessing) the Alnwickhill Reservoir and Dudingston Loch.

Posted 9 years ago #
Min
Member

The ones I saw were going perpendicular to the waterfowl line but the timing is about right. They may have wheeled round and been going off to join their pals at Loch Leven.

Posted 9 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"

This week has been a pretty amazing week when it comes to Pink-footed Geese numbers. Tuesday’s count gave us an amazing, Basin recording breaking number of 70,153, but today’s counts is even higher at 78,970! This is a great sign for the health of the species and should make for spectacular viewing on our People’s Postcode Lottery Goose Breakfast next Sunday morning.

http://blogs.scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/montrosebasin

Posted 9 years ago #
amir
Member

A swan on the footbridge at Musselburgh. Looked like it has miscalculated its landing and was trying to walk out. It hissed at a wee dog but didn't seem to worried at us humanoids as it marched off.

Posted 9 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

Recent

Foxeh!

Sparrowhawk and Goldfinches_1

Untitled

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Middle one. My favourite bird. Excellent shot.

Posted 9 years ago #
chdot
Admin

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/21/prozac-may-be-harming-bird-populations-study-suggests

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/autumnwatch-2014

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

The whooper swans greeted me home. Ten of them flying around in the dark over Liberton about quarter past seven, made me think my suspended seat post was making a noise, just turned out to be their contact call.

No idea what they could be up to. Joy riding?

Posted 9 years ago #
Stickman
Member

Heard, then saw, three big Vs of geese heading south-west this morning.

Posted 9 years ago #
jdanielp
Member

I'm pleased to report the first confirmed sighting of my kingfisher for this autumn/winter around Hermiston House Road bridge as per usual. I was already scanning the far bank of the canal as I approached the bridge in case it was perched anywhere, then spotted it as it flitted away from wherever its perch had been and flew away under the bridge away from town. I suspect that it may be a little nervous just now about the disapperance of foliage cover.

Posted 9 years ago #
jdanielp
Member

@IWRATS I was concerned about a squeak that developed on my 'new' bicycle quite abruptly the other week as I was cycling through Wester Hailes, only to realise shortly afterwards that it was just a noisy coot on the canal.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

@jdanielp

I am wildly jealous of your ability to spot the kingfisher. I've only ever seen one once in Scotland - at the far end of the Glencorse reservoir.

@shuggiet's bar-mounted horn sounds just like a coot. Another one to watch out for...

Posted 9 years ago #
gembo
Member

@IWRATS, the thing about that kingfisher is that it only appears for Jdanielp.

Posted 9 years ago #