Wednesday 27 August 2014

Liking lichens and watching birds

Lichens are fascinating! This xanthoria parietina is growing on the sea wall at Musselburgh.

The velvet scoters are back for the season on the water, such wonderful ducks with their fabulously weird faces. Swimming alongside them were two red necked grebes. I was also delighted to notice on the Musselburgh Boating Pond that there's now a family of little grebes, with five youngsters! The adults are just themselves small bundles of fluff, so you can imagine how cute the youngsters are! Then on the lagoons, along with several other birds, I was very happy to see several ruffs are still around. I'm beginning to think they may be here for the winter season, as they used to be many years ago.

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Meanwhile, I've added a photo of canal boats on the Union Canal to the downloadable photos section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop.

6 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

love that color and pattern!

Optimistic Existentialist said...

Sounds like there was lots of activity on the water's surface yesterday with the scoters, grebes, and other birds!

eileeninmd said...

Pretty lichen image.. I like to watch the scoters and the grebes. I would love to see a Ruff! Sounds like a great outing..

Donna said...

I adore lichens too and this one is particularly beautiful!

Bill said...

Your enthusiasm is infectious.

madhat said...

Haven't read your blog for so long! I love lichen.
Are you looking forward to autumn? It's my favourite time of year. :)