A Hot Day on Corstorphine HIll

It's been unseasonably warm here in Edinburgh for several days now, almost too warm and we really need some rain. However, Corstorphine Hill, which we visited today for our longer weekend walk (now that we're allowed unlimited exercise) looks stunning in this weather.

Look closer too at some of the details, for example zooming in on the first photo above brings a closer look at these ferns (I think they're male ferns, but I recently found out that the male fern isn't the only fern that grows in this shuttlecock format so I may be wrong) 

while the Scots pine in the third photo smells beautiful in the sun and was providing great cover for a coal tit, which however didn't stay still for a photo.

This ash tree

is covered in several species of close growing crustose lichens

Recently I've blogged about a great spotted woodpecker's nest that we've seen on our DailyExercise walks through a local cemetery. Well today we thought we'd found another great spotted woodpecker nest

but when we saw two smaller birds chasing the woodpecker away, we realised it had been trying to steal the chicks from their nest! Woodpeckers will often steal youngsters from other birds nests.

We saw this interesting caterpillar on a sycamore tree on our way home

and this interesting shape that some insect has eaten out of a leaf

(There are more patterns that insects have eaten out of leaves in this post).