CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure

Wildlife highlight of the day

(7166 posts)

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  1. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    My wife and I signed up a while ago to a citizen science project called "Capturing Our Coast". We had our training about a month or so back, so we've been out recording along transects of rocky shoreline, and it's great fun having some purpose to our rockpooling.

    Out at Gullane Point yesterday we got a Blue Rayed Limpet, loads and loads of Brittle Star starfish, Hermit Crabs, Barnacle and Mussel Beds galore... Spent almost 6 hours there.

    A group of four fatbikers made their way by at the lowest of low tides.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. Stephan Matthiesen
    Member

    Does this count as wildlife? Saw a large dog carrying some small animal, about 40cm, longish body, long tail, short legs, obviously dead. thought it was a large rat, but when I came closer, it turned out to be a plastic dinosaur.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Stephan

    C|N>K. Well done.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. gembo
    Member

    Spotted winter hare near johnscleugh farm on the road from whiteadder reservoir to
    t garvald this morning in torrential rain. Not going back to east Lothian dry everywhere else. Also some mallard in flight, nothing exceptional saving we were above them as we were climbing on the road and they were flying through the valley of john's cleugh. Grouse also on the road at the head of the peloton, sheep on the road too. Did not get as far as steam punk in north Berwick as weather was bad.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Oh, and first butterfly of the year yesterday on the slopes of Allermuir. No idea what kind - small, tabby coloured and fluttering round gorse bushes. Small tortoiseshell perhaps?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. gembo
    Member

    Thought I spotted a swallow at thriepmuir yesterday, tail not long, no houses nearby, no sandbanks, quite small.

    I was buying my friend a shirt last week from the surfer dude company Finisterre blue with white spots but on closer inspection the spots were storm petrels, they are the smallest seabird, about the size of a swift.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. amir
    Member

    We went to The falls of Clyde today. Spectular with all the recent precipitation (even the snow we passed through around Romanno Bridge). Flowers coming out - saxifrage x 2 types and wood anemone - I'm not an expert but the SWT kindly labelled them. Sadly the peregrines have not returned yet and are presumed dead of old age. They're hoping for a new pair to adopt the site.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @amir

    Sad news. On a related note, in late March I was headed to the airport in the tram. As we passed Jenners Depository I was quite convinced that a peregrine was making itself very obvious over that building but I had no binoculars so couldn't be sure.

    Returning last Friday to investigate, I noticed an imitation anti-pigeon peregrine on a brick ledge. I wonder if a young bird was trying to impress the dummy?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. gembo
    Member

    @amir, our water bottles froze at Romano bridge last year and we defrosted them on rads at the red barn much to the disgust of some of the patrons

    There is a billboard in the cleugh between Balerno and loganlea advertising Merlins. Looked like Sparra Hawks to me

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. Min
    Member

    A BBC article for Buzzard fans.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35916515

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Looks like our Figgate Mandarin has moved on - certainly not seen him the last two trips, and I was finding him every time before that. Pity, however the Chiffchaffs have started arriving, and our first Swallows flew over the house yesterday, so the pond should soon have a gaggle of them (and House Martins, with the occasional Sand Martin) buzzing about above it.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. AKen
    Member

    Saw something this morning I'd not seen before - a cormorant on the canal, just west of the aqueduct.

    I'd seen a heron yesterday and thought the cormorant was the same bird as I came towards it but I was mistaken. Normally, herons fly away ponderously if you approach but this one was poised on the same bank as the towpath - quite unperturbed by the passing bikes.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  13. wingpig
    Member

    There's at least one cormorant which sometimes dries itself out on the Wol on the weir round the back of Warriston and/or the wee bits of tree sticking up near the Sandport. May or not be the same cormorant or cormorants which sometimes dries itself/dry themselves out on the old jetty thing between the Gormley and north-west corner of Ocean Terminal.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  14. jdanielp
    Member

    @AKen cormorants are fairly common visitors to the canal - on one occasion I saw a pair of cormorants in one spot and another cormorant further along. I've never seen one out of the water on the same bank as the towpath though. They usually dive or swim away when I am passing them...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  15. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Friends Of BBVP (@FBbvp)
    14/04/2016, 8:19 am
    First event in our BioBlitz, Dawn Chorus on Sat 23rd. Help fund at @myparkscot

    http://bit.ly/1RLtOhm

    http://pic.twitter.com/IGTO7Dlowk

    "

    Posted 8 years ago #

  16. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Figgate Park, 28th May, provisionally 1-5pm, we're having an 'event' (still to be named) in the park. There'll be yarn bombing (a giant spider web is planned, with kids taking part to make things to scatter around the park), circus performers, naturally some face painting.

    But of relevance to this thread there will be an exhibition of wildlife photos from the park in the ATC hut (which is then going to tour the libraries of Edinburgh, before being part of the BioBlitz in Duddingston Kirk at the end of June*).

    AND a nature trail around the pond for kids to take a map and a picture list of birds and the like to tick off.

    Will be reminding everyone closer the time ;)

    *the RSPB visited the Figgate, and was rather impressed by the variety of wildlife, so we're getting our own BioBlitz in 2017...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  17. AKen
    Member

    cormorants are fairly common visitors to the canal

    That's interesting because I've never seen one before despite it being on my commute. Perhaps I've just been unlucky - or unobservant!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  18. jdanielp
    Member

    @AKen there could be all sorts of reasons. I could also claim that kingfishers are fairly regularly spotted on the canal, but usually it is just me spotting them (not so much lately, unfortunately); a reasonable number of us have spotted cormorants over recent years, reassuringly.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  19. jdanielp
    Member

    A couple of ducklings by one of the quieter edges of the loch at Heriot-Watt with their indifferent mother, while the swans were in the process of tidying up their nest on the island despite the fact that they still haven't fully driven away three of last year's cygnets who were hanging out by the picnic tables. I also saw a treecreeper, which I suspect was building a nest in the tangled growth of ivy (or some other parasitic plantlife) on the side of a tree.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  20. gembo
    Member

    @aken, seen the cormorant a fair few times in the canal. Kingfisher once miles west of my commute.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  21. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    "That's interesting because I've never seen one before despite it being on my commute"

    Cormorants come inland for winter, and you do see them on the canal quite often. If you're lucky you'll get one to surface unexpectedly just after you come round a blind bend. It's like having Nessie pop up they are so reptilian.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  22. AKen
    Member

    @aken, seen the cormorant a fair few times in the canal. Kingfisher once miles west of my commute.

    Never seen a kingfisher on the canal but have seen them numerous times on the Water of Leith at Longstone, Dean Village and underneath the bypass bridge.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  23. AKen
    Member

    There used to be a family of swans at Wester Hailes that had seemingly adopted a goose. I wonder if they just chased it away with the cygnets when they got too big?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  24. jdanielp
    Member

    As I passed beyond Gogar Station Road bridge just now I was scanning the far bank for kingfishers as I do, only to realise that there was a small, whiskery face staring back at me from the water. It was only a bloody otter... It dove almost immediately as I came to an abrupt halt and jumped off my bike. I alerted a cyclist coming in the other direction who stopped as the otter surfaced for air and dove again. We had a brief chat as we waited, seeing bubbles rising from underwater, but it then remained elusive.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  25. Stickman
    Member

    jdanielp - the Dr Doolittle of CCE! Any chance of heading up north to try to find some of the remaining wildcats? ;-)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  26. Min
    Member

    Awesome jdanielp. :-)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  27. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    It is 'always' a special moment seeing an otter :)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  28. amir
    Member

    An otter! Lovely

    Posted 8 years ago #

  29. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @jdanielp

    You are a lucky, lucky man. Did your neck-hairs bristle?

    I once had an otter laugh at me as I fruitlessly lashed a rain-battered loch in the highlands in search of pike to make quenelles. They are magical creatures. (Otters, not pike.)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  30. chdot
    Admin

    @jdp will it be there for tomorrow's ride to Ratho??

    Posted 8 years ago #

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