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.
A big, fat female sparrowhawk slipped across the canal just short of the railway bridge and perched in a tree on the opposite bank. Pleasingly I spotted her while many of the birds in the area didn't.
I stopped to admire her at a discreet distance but she spotted me, got nervous and flew off ostentatiously, causing the previously sanguine pigeons and blackbirds to have kittens.
Oh, and also, between the big and concrete aqueducts on the canal last night about 19h00 a small bird was engaging in persistent liquid trilling song in the pitch black.
I've no idea what it was or what it thought it was up to, but it was very welcome.
Yesterday, a pair of grey wagtails as dusk set in, in Colinton Dell, and some fine views of Dippers feeding mid-stream.
Then today, 1400 Oystercatchers from the hides by Musselburgh Race Course (the warden from SOC was doing a wader count) and a dozen Partridges.
Cheers
Colin
Pheasant in my parent's back garden at the weekend.
Just went to the break room to rinse out my mug and saw a beautiful male kestrel flying past. Only struggling a wee bit in the wind.
Most wildlife was hiding from the sleet, but a flock of fieldfares just beyond the bypass were made of sterner stuff.
axrenton: Wow! Wild Britain... Just found this hawk (what sort?) killing a pigeon outside John Lewis, Edinburgh. Cheered me. http://t.co/UEEli9IlrT
@SRD
I can't see that link, but it will be a female sparrowhawk.
The falconer with the contract to clear pigeons from the Holyrood parliament got his money essentially for cleaning up the carcasses left by the local wild sparrowhawks.
It is. Your Sparrowhawk superpower is strong.
Variously identified as a sh!*$hawk, buzzard, a peregrine and a female sparrowhawk on the tweets. With the sensible money on the latter.
There will be panic on the streets of the capital the first time a buzzard kills anything outside John Lewis. And it's only a matter of time...I'm hoping the victim is a toy dog.
One of the Fidra pair of peregrines occasionally comes up from the sea, has a go at the pigeons under North Bridge and then the seagulls on the roofs of the 'financial district'. But not often.
Liverpool and Glasgow both have more than one pair of urban peregrines. Aberdeen has a pair on the town house. Why not Edinburgh?
Apparently it used to (on the Tron Kirk ithink).
Edinburgh used to have some nesting peregrines I recall? I'm sure there were some on the Salisbury Crags and possibly a breeding pair on one of the church steeples in Morningside?
I've certainly seen peregrine over Arthur's Seat and once zooming over Corstorphine hill.
There was a pair on St Mary's Cathedral for a while, but they gone.
The two nearest pairs are on Fidra and near Dalmahoy. It's quite possible Edinburgh just sits on the boundary of two natural territories, but the amount of scoff by way of pigeons alone makes the city look like an obvious stand alone territory to me.
I once got to watch a big female eyeing the city up from Caerketton Crags at close quarters. Even I could see the wood pigeons flopping about asking to be eaten.
Up until recently, Peregrines used to nest on the gasometer at Granton.
A rare victory in the fight against raptor persecution today ;-
Cheers
Colin
ON the BBC too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-30430768
Scottish Gamekeepers Association whines "It's no fair!"
This one doesn't even seem to make sense -
"
The spokesman added: "It is not right for Scottish government to deny people whose livelihoods come under pressure, due to the activity of certain species or animals, recourse to a legal solution to solve that conflict."
"
Presumably the "legal solution" wasn't used!?
Clutching at straws a little given that I've been on the bus this week, but I detoured via Craiglockhart wood and pond this morning to intercept the bus route and saw the swans for the first time in a while (although there were only three cygnets evident, but I am sure that there had been seven previously this year - does anyone know what happened to the others?), as well as coots and moorhens.
I hope that the kingfisher is keeping well on the canal.
Presumably the "legal solution" wasn't used!?
I had to read that a few times and it still didn't make sense. I think they are just angry that one of them got caught and that they have been shown up. They are not used to that.
"I had to read that a few times and it still didn't make sense."
Yep.
I wonder if it was an email/press release quote or accurate reporting of a confused 'soundbite'.
I wonder if Neil Greig is also the press release guy for the SGA as it sounds very much like him!
@Min
You must read Pelican's Blood. I'll bring it to PY in a week.
I'd like to find some way of explaining to the people that shoot pheasants that they would be engaging in a more sporting activity if they went after domestic hens with a tennis racket. It's quite revolting and anyone who stoops to killing a goshawk - which is a magnificent bird - to protect pheasants should spend a few nights in a crow trap themselves.
It had better be good after all this. ;-)
"
Wildcat conservation project given almost £1m
"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-30465805
I only hope it isn't too late. :-(
I spotted more wildlife this morning than the entirity of last week when I was catching the bus. Notably, the kingfisher was perched on a low branch of a tree on the section of canal just beyond the Scott Russell aqueduct, which is the second time I've seen it so close to town.
@jdanielp
from your own virtually unique records from this time last year the mythical Kingfisher comes in towards the environs of Wester Hailes at about this time of year?? (though I think Pintail who was chased away by cybernats type activity did corroborate?)
@gembo I have never confirmed a sighting of a kingfisher east of the Scott Russell aqueduct, although I have seen flashes of blue on rare occasions between there and the Slateford aqueduct. I do believe that Pintail spotted a kingfisher around Wester Hailes a few times last winter, however, so I will certainly try looking for it there...
Fox sitting in the middle of the garden watching me through the back doors at about 1am. Didn't come close enough for a snap, wandered a bit further back, then watched me some more (they don't even bother checking out the chooks when they're locked up int heir run).
Four Canada Geese low over the garden as I got the bike out this morning.
Thursday I'm hopefully heading over to Cammo to meet an astonishingly good wildlife photographer friend. He's got some very confiding Bullfinches, but has also had Stoats and Kingfishers out there. Got a few hours to spend there if I can make it so I want all his best spots!
Friday... Hopes Reservoir.... Hares in their white coats (fingers firmly crossed).
Very small rodent on the concrete aqueduct at Slateford this evening. Too small for a rat. Cowered in my bike light: on the concrete aqueduct there's no cover at all, so it had nowhere to run to.
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