The Beauty of Frost

It's very cold today but the Dells alongside the Water of Leith look wonderful all covered in frost

frosty rosehip

frosty ivy

Along the Almond

The River Almond is one of the two main rivers that run through Edinburgh (the other being the Water of Leith, which I help to look after in my voluntary work, then there's also the much smaller Braid Burn / Figgate Burn).

Today we enjoyed a cold walk aong the Almond from Cramond Brig to the mouth of the river.The Shetland ponies at Cramond Brig were too busy eating to pay much attention to us.

We were interested to see that the fish ladder is being improved on the river

It's a mess at the moment, but eventually the old fish ladder will be better than ever and salmon and other migratory fish will be able to get upstream to their spawning grounds more easily.

At the same time a wildflower meadow has been planted downstream from the fish ladder, which will hopefully come into bloom in a few months!

Already in fact the first signs of spring are showing, despite the cold, these are the bulbs of wild garlic, which will soon start scenting the area!

We saw several mallards on our walk, I like the way the female here hs showing the blue speculum in her wing, which is often hidden

On the way home in the bus we were happy to see a skein of geese (probably pink footed geese)

Grey Heron and Redwings

A handsome grey heron happy to be photographed today in Braidburn Valley Park

Plus there were over 60 redwings flying around and wandering over the grass (how many can you count in this photo?)! Lovely to see so many of this colourful thrush that migrates from Scandanavia to spend the winter here eating berries.

Does Cammo Estate need to be 'Improved'?

I don't think it's coincidence that Edinburgh Council is looking to 'improve' Cammo Estate (recently made into a local nature reserve) just at the time that they are finalising plans to build on some of the surrounding fields. Also I'm slightly unsure whether Cammo is large enough for some of the types of infrastructure they seem to be proposing, though it does have underused buildings and derelict buildings that could be used. The wee canal has already been restored very nicely so perhaps I should stop being cynical.... 

Anyway, the next round of consultatations on improvements to the nature reserve are on 19 - 21 January. See here for more information. (These are entirely separate from any consultation on the housing). 

You can read more about our latest trip to Cammo here.  

a Cammo squirrel

The Water's High in the Dells

The Water of Leith is running high at the moment! This is the weir up at Colinton!

 The goosanders seem to enjoy swimming the rapids

and the oyster mushrooms are thriving in the damp conditions

Drama on the Pond!

We braved the rain today to walk round Figgate Park, which has a lovely pond which is usually full of ducks, geese and swans. Today was no exception, and the mute swans gave a great display

These two males started displaying to each other, which attracted the attention of a youngster

the youngster also joined in the displaying and the calling with his father

which gradually brought more youngsters flocking to their father's help 

 who eventually saw off the rival male

The pair of gadwall seemed unconcerned by the swan dramas 

Meanwhile we discovered a tree that is being entirely taken over by fungi (most of the fungi seemed to be oyster fungi but there may be others there too). The tree's bark cracks as the fungi grows through

Happy New Year!

It's an Edinburgh tradition to visit Arthur's Seat on New Year's Day which is what we did today.

We don't go to the top of the hill, as it is one of those horribly steep peaks that gives me really bad vertigo, plus at this time of year there are too many people up there so we kept to the valley where there were far fewer people.

One of our own New year's day traditions is to make a list of all the birds we see, as a start to the year list we keep. We're not competitive about this and just shrug our shoulders when extremely serious birders laugh at  how relatively few birds we see over the course of the year. We did have a good start, seeing 28 species today including in our own street, during our walk across Edinburgh and round Arthur's Seat. Crafty Green Boyfriend took these lovely photos

 goosander on the Union Canal - female above, male below

treecreeper in the Meadows area

male tufted duck, on one of the lochs on Arthur's Seat