CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years 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.
Anyone interested in comparing notes on what they are seeing in their gardens ?
Just now the main thing I'm noticing are the large-ish parties of bullfinches, up to a dozen at a time. They've been here most days since the start of the winter. A welcome splash of colour :-)
A flock of sparrows (we used to call them speugs) this morning. Yesterday there was a robin. I've not seen the blackies for months.
Not birdlife, but there's a rose in bloom, as are the primulas in my window box!
Not my garden, but I saw some Waxwings in the Airport Car Park this afternoon. First time I've seen them!!
Sparrows, robins, tits both blue and coal, squirrels, four cats. No slugs as yet.
@stiltskin glad you've seen some waxwings, they're beautiful aren't they ? There's been tons of reports of them around Edinburgh this winter but you just have to be in the right place at the right time. I was lucky to see a group around the corner from work in Sighthill one lunchtime.
Spent ages last winter looking for them in trees in Balerno and eventually I was there when a flash mob descended
Sadly not in the garden, and not this year.
Waxwing Scrum by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr
So far in the garden this year it has been a wee bit slow - blue tits, coal tits, spuggies, blackbirds, woodpigeons, collared doves, magpies, herring gulls, carrion crows. Canada and Greylang Geese flying over, as well as occasional Sparrowhawk.
Those waxwings are mad for red berries
Amazing pic of waxwings!
Bluetits, an Owl, Fox(es), Squirrels, Cats a plenty, midge like bugs last week, blossom on one of the front garden trees, and Daffodils poking up - all a bit early?
This morning I've seen six wood pigeons (all at once), three crows, two robins, two chaffinches, two blackbirds, two bluetits, one coaltit and one starling. And a partridge in a pear tree.
Oh, and one big cat, who was more interested in sleeping than slaughtering pigeons.
@arellcat A 'Big Cat' or a 'big' cat - a big cat would be something for wildlife watch!
A sparrowhawk flew past a little while ago. Quite a regular visitor but I've yet to see one of them try to catch anything.
A brief visit from a great spotted woodpecker this week, used to visit daily but absent for ages, nice to see one again.
Several visits from the local neighbourhood fox today, looking good against the snow.
If you're not out and about cycling next weekend here's an idea for an alternative activity...
http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/
Had spuggies, dunnocks (one on the feeder, wow because they are hardwired ground feeders) blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, and a mini flock of long tailed tits x 5 (unusual in my garden) and the resident robin, so far. One cat passing through much to the chagrain of my cat...as it is his pet hate, who spotted us both staring at it and sloped off.
Logged my Big Garden Birdwatch hour this morning - blackbird, blue tit, chaffinch, dunnock, great tit, magpie, woodpigeon, bullfinch. Curiously no coal tits or robins in the hour, odd cos they are usually about.
Registered my garden bird count, they stayed away today mostly, which apparently quite a lot of people reported as being the case. The usual host of sparrows were nowhere to be seen, neither was the woodpecker, and I am a bit concerned because I have not seen the three regular coal tits for some time now and I wonder if they have succumbed to the cold, I am hoping that this is not the case. My cat has not been involved in their murder either, as I have seen no evidence to suggest that he might be. Did see the robin, a couple of blackbirds and 20 starlings, couple of bluetits and a couple of great tits, oh and one dunnock. A poor turnout chaps and chapesses.
Unless the birdies were having a laff at our expense some of them must have been in someone else's garden at the time of the count. Let's hope the other garden belonged to someone who was doing the count.
I got our usual suspects this weekend, which is never a high count. Herring Gull, Carrion Crows, Coal, Great and Blue Tits, a lot of Dunnocks (nice to see since they're red status), Blackbird, Robin and Woodpigeon.
A few years back we got swarms of House Sparrows, a couple of dozen would completely take over the feeders. We're lucky if we see 2 or 3 these days. Greenfinches only come if there are sunflower hearts in the feeders. Saw a Goldcrest fleetingly last week - only turns up 2 or 3 times a year.
The Coal Tits were the most frequent (rather than most numerous) visitors though - thoguht we had a resident pair last year, and that looks to be the case. Naturally I was sat there with the camera snapping away.
I didn't add the three chickens scrabbling about my feet to the count; and the cat stayed sleeping indoors.
Craws huners and huners of craws...
My garden sounds like a scene for a Stephen King film most mornings, we very occasionally get twetty birds but most of the time its just crows barking at gulls and pigeons. Highlight of the year was a small buzzard having his dinner on the edge of my raised vegetable patch.
Saw a bullfinch in my garden for the first time on Saturday. I really must get the wall-mounted bird feeder I got for christmas fitted up, just got to nick my Dad's masonry drill.
I haven't seen our Bullfinches this winter at all. :-(
A siskin paid a brief visit today, the first time I've seen one this year. Also a collared dove, again a first of the year.
Excellent shot of the waxwings, Mr Cow!
We see the daily hoard of coal-tits, blue-tits, great-tits, longtail-tits.
The resident dunnocks and wrens hop around all the time, as do the blackbirds.
The greenfinches who used to just visit the topmost branches of our big ol' Birch are now coming down to feed in the garden regularly.
A couple of bullfinches put in an occasional appearance.
Recently a pair of twites visited for a couple of weeks, but are away again now. They liked the Niger seed in one of the feeders. As does a greater spotted woodpecker, who occasionally visits.
A sparrowhawk regularly flies through, just on the off-chance of an easy meal like he got last year when he took our blue-tit mother straight out of the air at about 40mph! Bet he couldn't believe his luck...she flew right into his talons!!
The fieldfares (and possibly redwings) were around until a few weeks ago, but not in the same numbers as the last few years...must be a relatively mild winter in Scandinavia. There are a few of our own thrushes too.
Quite a few magpies.
Some big, fat woodpigeons.
Crows, jackdaws and gulls come to feed on the whole bread rolls that the neighbour scatters across his lawn.
And rabbits...loads and loads of rabbits!! Anyone got a ferret??
Matt
Just Bike Repairs
I watch the sparrows going inside my neighbour's roof from my attic shower room. Today,i also checked my roof and could see two ( neighbour has about twelve). They are taking over.
Nice to hear the sparrows are doing well somewhere! When we first moved here dozens would colonise the feeders - there are precisely none now (though that does mean the tits get plenty to themselves, and yesterday we had an all-too infrequent visit from some Long-tailed Tits).
A rare visit from a house sparrow today. There's plenty in the neighbourhood (the hedges near the Bonaly shop are full of them) but this is only the 3rd one I've seen in the garden in 2 years.
A treecreeper this afternoon
Very pleased to be hosting regular visits now from a pair of house sparrows, they seem to 'be together' so hopefully there's a nest not far away.
This afternoon we had visits from a brambling and a siskin. We don't see many siskins and bramblings are very infrequent.
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts