CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
@jdanielp
Once the kingfisher settles in, would you be willing to lead an outing of the CCE (Twitchers Subsection) to track it down one morning? I would be delighted to share in your bounty. Perhaps @gembo will come along to recite famous literary passages about birds? (I'll request the waxwing stanza from Nabokov's Pale Fire.)
Watching goshawk on BBC4 flying through narrow gaps!!!
@IWRATS I'm sure we could mount an expedition to try to spot the kingfisher, but I won't guarantee any results. I'll see if I get into a rountine of spotting it first of all, like you say. That will hopefully also give it time to adjust to the lack of cover, although I don't expect that it will hang around for too long if several people are staring across the canal at it in any case!
I heard an owl hooting as I left HW Campus last night.
Oh no! Reappearance of phantom kingfisher means I need to extend my daily commute to try and spot it.. So I too would like to join the IWRATS expeditionary force.
An owl, balefully hooting in the woods on Gogar Station Road last night. Probably trying to hook up with @jdanielp's Heriot-Watt hooter.
We had owls calling in the back garden area last night. Must be the time of year.
Very cool. I love owls.
I did stop and hoot back to it. Sometimes you can get them to come to you that way, but best to be wearing a helmet and glasses when you do that - the hooting is a call to battle and I have heard of people getting their scalps split open.
That sounds like it could be the plot to the next bird thriller. A man is found lying dazed and wounded on a cycle path, with no recollection of how he got there. Whodunnit?
Maybe not..
"Whodunnit?"
Hootdunnit.
I have heard the owl calling (or maybe Call My Name) is a sombre if beautiful book by Margaret Craven set I think in British Columbia. It is a very sad read. Also quite religious, which I am not but also spititual, outdoorsy and not too long, I recommend it (over on the Book Group thread)
I Heard The Owl Call My Name
A man is found lying dazed and wounded on a cycle path, with no recollection of how he got there. Whodunnit?
"The Curious Incident of the Uberuce in the canal in the Night-Time."
Lord Sepulchrave is devoured by owls in Gormenghast, a book which is spiritual, indoorsy and just the right length.
just observed a small starling murmuration somewhere over central South Gyle. Given the starlings all hang out of an evening on the tram catenary on the bridge over the railway at Saughton Mains, I think I will head that way later in case there's a good show on.
Bird murderer gets light tap on wrist with goosedown feather.
I suppose at least we should be grateful he got caught and charged. I will be interested to know what will happen here:-
The Stody Estate is now being investigated by the Rural Payments Agency which could withdraw tens of thousands of pounds of subsidy if the estate is found to have been negligent, prosecutor Kevin Eastwick said.
@Min
Pelican Blood by Chris Freddi is still available on loan...it will actually make you feel better if you care for raptors.
Happy to hand over if our commutes cross, or at PY...
Thanks IWRATS, that would be cool. Maybe at the next PY, unless you can persuade a seagull in the seagull column to drop it off for me one morning. ;-)
Some excellent photos of the Gretna Starlings on the BBC.
@Min
Amazon will be furious when they realise they wasted all that money on delivery drones. I'll put the book out tonight for tomorrow morning's gull parade.
In the order they occurred, which happens to also be the order of delightfulness;
1) A wren skimming just above the towpath, right in front of my wheel, from one bramble bush to another.
2) The first goosander of the year - a handsome male.
3) A dabchick cruising the canal at Wester Hailes Education Centre.
I inadvertently startled a couple of seasonally visiting ducks (maybe also goosanders?) as I rang my bell before heading under the bridge just beyond the Scott Russell aquaduct on the way out of town this morning. They took flight very briefly before settling back onto the canal.
I then briefly mistook what might have been a chaffinch or a bullfinch (or something else entirely) as a second kingfisher sighting, but quickly realised that it wasn't.
@jdanielp
Oddly, I also saw the white-rumped bird there and had a 'kingfisher?' moment.
The two ducks beyond the Scott Russell were female goosanders.
Not very wild -
There was about a dozen goosanders of both sexes on the canal in the big basin at Wester Hailes this morning. Usually I see them in the water, but this morning they were lined up on the quay below the petrol station.
For the last few years there has been a sole Shoveler in the Figgy mixing it with the Mallards for the affections of the wrong-species females. Popping round this weekend he's now got competition from a second male. No female Shovelers yet...
Last Import-0 by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
And nice this time of year when the leaves are disappearing that it gets easier to spot the wildlife flitting through the trees. Especially when that wildlife is in the form of wee gangs of Long-tailed Tits.
Camera Roll-287 by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Camera Roll-288 by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
A lone Teal in Lochend Park on Saturday. I've always wanted to get a good view of a Shoveler that wasn't at the end of a very big telescope.
As I was cycling out of town beyond the Scott Russell aquaduct this morning I heard the distinctively mellow chiming call of an @IWRATS approaching from behind, and slowed down to converse. I offered the opportunity of an impromptu kingfisher spotting detour, although given the continued levels of foliage and my lack of sightings for the last couple of weeks we decided against it today. As I approached the turn off up on to Hermiston House Road, shortly after, I then proceeded to spot said kingfisher.
@jdanielp
Is this an instance of antiserendipity?
To compensate, when I arrived in the gloomy office, I noticed that there is the perfect dusty imprint of a tawny owl, wings outstretched and eyes wide open, in the plate glass window.
Presume you checked to make sure it wasn't at the bottom of the building?
I once found a very dead peregrine falcon on the floor of a house I was living in, near the remains of a double glazed window.
It was a small room and certainly not 'see through'.
@IWRATS perhaps, but it certainly worked out well for me!
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