Sunday 18 May 2008

Weekend Walk


We walked over to the Botanic Gardens yesterday. We walked over the Water of Leith (see photo above) wandered through Inverleith Park, round the pond in the park. We saw a pair of coots feeding their four chicks in the new reed bed area that has been created recently. The open part of the pond was full of swans and mallards and there were several house martins and swallows flying around and swooping down to catch insects.

Walking into the Botanics, we noticed the new bird feeding centre that has been set up near the North Gate. We saw a greenfinch, a chaffinch and a couple of blue tits here as well as a grey squirrel and several feral pigeons, waiting underneath the feeders to pick up food dropped by the smaller birds. We had a very good view of a long tailed tit just at the edge of the Chinese Hillside.



We had a cup of tea in the Botanics Cafe, which is always a good place to get close views of more common birds such as robins or blackbirds. Today we were lucky enough to see a treecreeper climbing up a tree and then flying from tree to tree. We also saw blue tits, dunnocks, chaffinches as well as blackbirds and robins.

7 comments:

this is my patch said...

What a great outing. The pigeons and doves pick up all dropped seed etc from my feeders too, they certainly come in very handy. A lovely selection of birds to be seen around the area you visited. x

Janice Thomson said...

Just outside the window a finch is singing out his heart as I read this post - a lovely beginning to the day...on both accounts :)

Jade said...

heaven on earth

polona said...

gosh, this looks (and sounds) so beautiful

Anonymous said...

Talking of coots, we had a dead coot fetch up in our garden on Friday. This is a tenement garden in Marchmont, some distance from the nearest water, so it’s an absolute mystery how the coot got there. Could it have been flying over and just dropped from the sky? Normally I don’t much care for coots, as they’re so aggressive, but I felt sorry for this one meeting its sticky end. It is now buried in our garden.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Golebnik - coots can be very aggressive, you're right. We were astonished that the pair we saw were so nice andcaring with their chicks, as they often kill their own brood. I have no idea where your coot came from, how odd, the closest place they could have come from is the canal I guess...

Crafty Green Poet said...

this is my patch, polona, jade - thanks - it is a lovely walk and lots of birds!

Janice - I love birds singing outside the window too...