I made my third kingfisher spot of the season on the way to work this morning. Just after the double-bridge going towards Meggetland, I weaved around a dog walker and dog and caught a flash of blue as I moved to the left of the path again - the kingfisher had just caught a very small fish and was nipping back up to a perch in a bush on the far bank behind the Tesco Express. That's the first time that I have spotted a kingfisher on the town side of the aqueducts, possibly because I have not looked that hard!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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Bicycled to the shops again today. Stopped to take a picture of a donkey doing yoga and spotted this wildlife lowlight.....
Posted 8 years ago # -
Donkey yoga? Is that in the realms of the coconut dog?
That birdie has shuffled off this mortal coil. Looks like a fricking penguin?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Moorhen! (Poor hen...)
Posted 8 years ago # -
Poule d'eau? Or common gallinule?
Posted 8 years ago # -
@gembo
Poule d'eau. Pining for the étangs.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Saw the canal kingfisher today, just city side of Gogar Station Road. My first sight of it this winter.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Nuthatch, in my parents' back garden. Never seen one before.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Musselburgh scrapes - oyster catchers, black-headed gulls, canada geese, redshanks (thank god for them - easy to identify) and what? Bar-tailed godwits and a couple of turnstones? Or snipe and a couple of sanderlings? Aaargh.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Cyclingmollie if you didn't know for sure what they are, best just to go with the rarer option
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Amir, or sidle up to groups of birders and listen to them. There's always one trying to direct the others to look somewhere: "past the collared pratincole, just to the left of the red-necked phalarope".
Posted 8 years ago # -
Peregrine hunting at Aberlady
Posted 8 years ago # -
I put up a buzzard on Gogar Station Road this evening. It flapped resignedly at head height in front of me for a couple of wingbeats before peeling off over the fields.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Saw a deer up ahead today after leaving murieston and taking the harburn back road. Jumped the hedge Tommy right, ran across the road and jumped the hedge to my left. Thing of bewuty
Posted 8 years ago # -
Buzzard scoffing on a deer carcass near Aberlady
Posted 8 years ago # -
Buzzard on branch next to the water of leith in Currie. If we clapped it twitched its tail. Declined to fly off. Later a massive Clydesdale horse above Balerno on the lymphoy. Maybe 17 hands high. major major
Posted 8 years ago # -
A kingfisher on the Lancaster Canal this morning on the way to Preston Railway Station where I stood around for around 90 minutes before a train finally arrived to take by then a large number of people to Carlisle. I then had a great view from the rail replacement coach and spotted various bird life, including buzzards. I was unimpressed when the driver overtook two cyclists on a blind corner, although he did keep the coach in position in the middle of the road somehow, even when a car came the other way.
Posted 8 years ago # -
A few shadowy comorants around the east end of the canal this morning, but too dark for any kingfisher spottings.
Posted 8 years ago # -
It wasn't quite as dark this morning which helped me to spot a kingfisher opposite Meggetland. It was perched on the branch of a small tree on the far side of the canal, facing away from the towpath presumably to avoid having to acknowledge the passing pedestrians and cyclists...
Posted 8 years ago # -
@jdanielp
You are the kingfisherking and no mistake.
Posted 8 years ago # -
He does not even wear his blue tinted specs anymore and still he spots them maybe they find him Irresistible?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Maybe we should have another kingfisherfishing expedition?
Posted 8 years ago # -
@IWRATS thanks! Meggetland may not be the best place for a kingfisherfishing expedition given how busy and narrow the towpath is there but I'd be happy to give it a go if it becomes apparent that this kingfisher is established.
@gembo I'm still wearing the same glasses which react to sunlight, it's just there's not been all that much of it lately and they are quite old so not as reactive as they used to be in any case, but they're more grey than blue.
Posted 8 years ago # -
ah that would explain the number of sparrows being logged as kingfishers in bright sunshine (definitely blue to the cyclist going the other way) but not the incredible number of spots in poor light.
I am still going with special kingfisher attracting pheromones and also very good eyesight?
Posted 8 years ago # -
@gembo I wouldn't say that I have great eyesight given that I wear glasses to see properly and the pair that I use for cycling are over ten years old so presumably it must be the special kingfisher attracting pheromones...
Perhaps doppler blueshift is responsible for incorrect logging of sparrows as kingfishers given that any spots will be typically made while closing in on the birds ;)
Posted 8 years ago # -
A great encounter with a barn owl on my ride home tonight. Riding towards town along Long Dalmahoy Road, between Linburn Road and the quarry, accompanied for several hundred metres by barn owl seemingly following the pool my lights were making on the road, flying at hedgerow height, sometimes a few metres in front of me, sometimes alongside me dipping up and down behind/above the hedgerows on either side. All this on the gradual descent to the burn, I'd slowed right down to prolong the moment. Made my day !
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Pintail that sounds exciting!
Posted 8 years ago # -
That sound cool Pintail, I was escorted by something large and winged along the section behind the Dalmahoy Hotel once it got away from me despite my best sprint.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Fox on Fife-bound route 1 between Corstorphine and Water of Leith last night.
Posted 8 years ago #
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