Corstorphine Hill

Corstorphine Hill is one of Edinburgh's wonderful green spaces. Yesterday we walked up the gorse covered hillside hoping to see some of the rabbits that live there. There were none but plenty of birds were singing. In the woodland even more birds were singing, I even heard a willow warbler behind the louder songs of blackcap and song thrush, and we saw a family of long tailed tits. The bluebells are still wonderful and here they are found in multicoloured patches, blue, lilac and white, all together. And what was that strange grey shape bimbling through the bluebells? Too grey to be a fox or a deer, too small anyway to be a deer, moving too labourously to be a squirrel or a rabbit and too big to be either of those. My goodness it must have been a badger! Then later we came across what must be the badger sett, complete with paths in all directions.

Another highlight of Corstorphine Hill is African Savannah home to zebras and antelopes (part of Edinburgh Zoo!). Yesterday we got good views of both these animals.

We finished our walk with a sunny rest in the walled garden, which is a lovely place to catch a bit of sun. Lots of blackcaps singing. Just outside the walled garden on the field at the edge of Corstorphine Hill we saw a cheeky squirrel posing with its white tummy on show. Silly squirrel too because the next thing we saw was a buzzard flying down from its nest and sweeping across the field. That time it didn't see the squirrel, but next time it probably will!