Birds at the Botanics

I was recently asked at short notice to take over teaching Beginners Birdwatching for Edinbugh City Council so I've been doing that since last week. I realised last week that many people in the class are not beginners as such and so if I get to continue teaching this class I may rename it! Today we had a walk round Edinburgh's wonderful Botanic Gardens. Before we even got into the gardens we had a birding treat as a medium sized flock of oystercatchers passed overhead flying away from the school fields opposite the Botanics, to be closely followed by a large flock of curlew doing the same thing. Inside the Gardens we had an excellent view of a heron perched unexpectedly on a chimney and a pair of sparrowhawks flying around the trees, we got a very good view of the male, with his orange barred breast and blue back, a much more handsome creature than the larger drab brown female, but exciting to see them both at such close range. There were also lots of tits and robins flitting around the trees and a number of dunnocks who were less shy than is normal for that species. Altogether an excellent class and perfect weather too!