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IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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Another cycle on WOL path,this time with youngest only who has bikeability coming up and is getting used to her bigger bike.
This time spotted mR and Mrs mallard on rock whilst their pal Mrs Gosander was mucking about diving against strong current. Gosander quite common, especially at fords road bit of the WoL. I just haven't spotted them this far upstream before.
Possibly a juvenile cormorant just beyond WHEC - the shape gave a distinct impression of a cormorant, but the colour was more that of a young seagull. The adult cormorant had speared a huge fish on the bend prior to the Scott Russell aqueduct. Most impressive. A buzzard soared over the City Bypass and the aqueduct, and then flew over the next canal bridge as I cycling under it, landing at the top of one of the trees beyond. A heron looked like it was getting ready to catch a fish as I approached my exit at Hermiston House Road bridge, and something small whizzed past along the surface of the canal. Quite possibly a kingfisher, but I wasn't sure.
A Brown Rat, in a trap, in my shed.
Humane trap, he's now forging a new life out in the countryside.
Billy don't like it livin here in this town...
@jdanielp I saw those two cormorants this morning too. I passed the black one fishing by the bridge under Wester Hailes Road, but it then came flying past me and landed on top of the really tall floodlights at WEHC beside the lighter grey one. They both looked a bit unsteady right up there. I stopped for a while to admire them.
A large flock of green plover just below Stobshiel in East Lothian. A driver stopped to see if that was what I was looking at. So she confirmed the identification. BTW are green plover the same as peewits and lapwings or are these different things?
Plover and dotterel looking similar, lapwing has the quiff and sings peewit. All similar wading types. Can't locate a green plover in my guidebooks. Can find a grey, golden, semi-palmated, ringed, Kentish, etc
"
The northern lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), also known as the peewit or pewit (imitative of its cry), green plover (emphasising the colour of the plumage) or (in the British Isles) just lapwing (which refers to its peculiar, erratic way of flying), is a bird in the plover family.
"
Wow, should have gone wiki instead of guidebooks. Never heard a lapwing called a green plover before but not outrageous as of the same class. Would have gone for plumed plover or somesuch as the quiff is the bigger difference? Peewit for sure.
The Southern Lapwing from South America, on the other hand is much butcher. It will take on humans when defending a nest and has often been used as a kind of guard dog
@gembo, I cannot work out waders at all. I only know dotterel because they live up in the mountains and run about instead of flying off.
@chdot, thanks. And in Fife it's a peeweep.
@amir, a bit like using geese?
Like a cross between a goose and a tern. An uberuce version of lapwing
Dotterell only at tops of mountains apparently. Lapwing flocks more abundant but a visually striking bird and a call that is also distinctive.. They both look like standard plovers but the little ringed plover looks more like a sparrow. However the waders category then takes in avocets and other distinctive birds so quite a wide category.
The Southern Lapwing's Spanish name is tero. Tero Real (royal tero) is another completely different wader, a kind of stilt (like an avocet)
Remember gembo, however, that a little ringed plover is an entirely different species to a ringed plover.
Dotterel in the Pentlands apparently.
Lapwings at Tarbrax this morning. Peewit beng the name the chap I was out with called them.
This morning I made what was only my second confirmed spot of a kingfisher on the canal so far this year. It was at the bottom of Hermiston House garden, as usual, but it was perching upon one of the very few branches protruding from one of the thicker trees towards the non-road bridge for a change. I was passing at around 10am, which is about an hour later than normal, so I wonder if its 'schedule' has merely not been tallying with mine lately given the relative lacks of spots...
Cyclingmollie and I saw and heard skylarks out on the run today - spring! Unfortunately we also saw a dead otter on the side of a road near Lyne
Noticed this story in the margins of another story.
Grey Partridges return to Co Dublin. Cool, I love partridges.
A bit of phenology:
Weasel tackles woodpecker. Blimey!
Spoiler alert-the woodpecker won.
Couple of years since I've seen a woodie in the Figgate, used to be a resident pair. Heard a familiar drumming this morning, and hope he's going to stick around
68. Greater Spotted Woodpecker by -blackpuddinonnabike-
Also got our four visiting Gadwall back, two males, two females. Swans and Coots rather feisty now.
And especially for chdot
Thanks to chdot for this poem by John M. Caie:
A puddock sat by the lochan's brim,
An' he thocht there was never a puddock like him.
He sat on his hurdies, he waggled his legs,
An' cockit his heid as he glowered throu' the seggs.
The bigsy wee cratur' was feelin' that prood,
He gapit his mou' an' he croakit oot lood:
"Gin ye'd a' like tae see a richt puddock," quo' he,
"Ye'll never, I'll sweer, get a better nor me.
I've fem'lies an' wives an' a weel-plenished hame,
Wi' drink for my thrapple an' meat for my wame.
The lasses aye thocht me a fine strappin' chiel,
An' I ken I'm a rale bonny singer as weel.
I'm nae gaun tae blaw, but th' truth I maun tell-
I believe I'm the verra MacPuddock himsel'." ...
A heron was hungry an' needin' tae sup,
Sae he nabbit th' puddock and gollup't him up;
Syne runkled his feathers: "A peer thing," quo' he,
"But - puddocks is nae fat they eesed tae be."
Heron Frog Killer by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Heron Frog Killer_1 by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
Dem's da breaks
The Meadows in Edinburgh carpeted with Scandanavian Redwing this morning @LTNBirdNews @ScottishBirding #migration
Desperation setting in:
Kingfisher in Alva/William Street, Edinburgh by Cycling Mollie, on Flickr
Desperation for me too. Yesterday something with a blue back flew in front me of very fast, all the way through the tunnel with the burn that goes under the bypass at Edinburgh Park. I was so excited that I just have to believe it was a Kingfisher, and had to stop in the rain for 10 mins to peer wistfully up the burn looking for it.. Might just have been hallucinations.
From last week: either a weasel or an unusually sleekit rat, on the Loanhead path.
Are weasels ever grey? Rat if not, I spose.
@Cyclingmollie quite a menagerie, although the blue of the kingfisher is decidedly dull compared to real life.
@shuggiet did it maintain a consistent, minimal height above the water as it flew? I reckon that it probably would have been a kingfisher if so, although you will never be satisfied until you see one perched anyway...
@Uberuce if the mysterious creature wasn't taking a ride on a woodpecker then it was probably just a rat.
I was out in town on a Friday night for the first time in some time at the weekend and when wandering back up Leith Walk from Woodland Creatures (no, this wasn't my wildlife spot, although it is a fairly pleasant animal themed pub that I hadn't visited before) I spotted a fox nonchalantly saunter around the corner of McDonald Road, wait by the edge of the pavement for about 10-15 seconds until the traffic cleared, cross the road purposely as I stood watching, and nip away down an alley by the Tesco.
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