Easter Monday in The Figgate Park

 The weather has been lovely today, certainly nice enough to enjoy an easter Monday walk round Edinburgh's Figgate Park. The willow trees are looking lovely 

 

and the Norway Maple's beautiful flowers are out at the moment, I was lucky to find these ones hanging at a suitable level to take easy photos

There were plenty of birds around, which I have recorded for the Birds in Greenspaces project, but only these Mallards were willing to pose for the camera - the male was being very protective of the female, keeping an eye out while she ate 

Spring Flowers in the Hermitage

Easter weekend weather has been very changeable indeed, we've had rain, high winds and snow! On Friday we did have a lovely walk by Blackford Pond and through the Hermitage of Braid. It's lovely to see so many flowers in bloom, including Marsh Marigolds at Blackford Pond 

 and Wood Anemones alongside the Braid Burn 

We were busily making lists of all the birds we saw, to take part in the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology)'s Birds in Greenspaces project. This project is running through the summer, asking people to share their observations of birds in urban greenspaces, such as parks, cemeteries and local nature reserves. We saw plenty of birds on Blackford Pond including Mallards, Tufted Ducks and Little Grebes (also known as Dabchicks). In the Hermitage alongside the Braid Burn we saw and heard several species including Great Spotted Woodpecker, Goldcrest, Long Tailed Tits and Chiffchaffs. I've now added all our sightings to the Birds in Greenspaces website and look forward to cintinuing with the project throughout the summer. Anyone in the UK can join in! 

 

How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley

 This is an excellent book from Tristan Gooley, the self styled Natural Navigator. The idea isn't to learn to recognise different species of trees, but to look at how trees grow the environment affects individual trees from the roots to the leaves. We learn how to look at trees in a whole new way and how to recognise, for example, signs that the trees are growing in poor soil or that they've been affected by high winds. 

It's a fascinating book and more elegantly written than earlier books I've read by the same author. I can definitely recommend it if you're interested in finding out more about how trees interact with the world around them. 

How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley, published by Hodder (2023).  

Read my tiny reviews of other books by Tristan Gooley:

How to Read Water. 

The Natural Navigator.  

 

By the River

 It was a lovely cold and sunny day today for a walk along the Water of Leith. 

I checked up on the larch cones that are developing nicely, they're at their most beautiful at the moment 

Regular readers may notice that a recent post about non-native daffodils having been planted in amongst Ramsons along the riverside has been removed. Although I did not accuse the trust that looks after the river of planting the bulbs, I had suggested that they might have done, given their enthusiasm for planting bulbs along other sections of the river. The trust has asked me to remove the post, after assuring me that they didn't plant the bulbs. 

Loads of Toads! (And Hairy Footed Flower Bees!)

 

Yesterday we decided to go for a walk round Arthur's Seat, hoping to see both Hairy Footed Flower Bees and Common Toads. We were not disappointed! As soon as we got to the top of the steps up to the circular path round Arthur's Seat we saw several male Hairy Footed Flower Bees, busily buzzing around, mostly moving too quickly for our camera. Luckily one did land for long enough for me to get this photo 

 We then carried on to Dunsapie Loch, a small loch, which is generally a good place to see toads. 

 

And there were indeed toads. Loads of toads! We stood watching the Common Toads for a while, many were mating - some on the rocks 

some in the water
 

Some Common Toads were just swimming around, probably looking for a mate

There was a lot of toadspawn in the loch - you can see the strings of toadspawn behind the mating pair in the photo below  

in one area of the loch, we saw a few large clumps of frogspawn, with strings of toadspawn wrapped around it! You can see this in the photo below (the grey clumps are the frogspawn, the black ribbons are the toadspawn). 

There must have been hundreds of Common Toads in the loch! You can get an idea of how crowded the water was in the photo below - click on the photo to get a better view.  

In the area shown in the photo above, we noticed some females were actually laying spawn as we watched. We also saw a couple of toad balls, in which several males pile on top of one female, hoping to get the chance to fertilise her eggs. Despite all the frogspawn, we only saw a couple of Common Frogs. 

You have to be pretty lucky to see the toads gathered together like this. I've never seen so many before. After mating, the toads will disperse to live in damp areas all around Arthur's seat and the surrounding areas. It's nice to see that the countryside rangers have put out some toad ramps so the toads can more easily get onto the pavements on their way to the loch

 Read this article on The Guardian website on how to help toads at this time of year. 

Rhododendrons, Cute Cats and a Kingfisher

 We had a trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens on Saturday, hoping to see the first lot of rhododendrons on display and we weren't disappointed! Here's a selection of the various rhododendrons currently in bloom - I love the variety of colours! 

 

We were also delighted to meet this beautiful cat with bright blue eyes

you can really see the eye colour in the photo below
 

we also met another cat hanging out at one of the Botanics' ponds 

At this point, I have to admit that I was more interested in the Kingfisher that  was flying around the pond, occasionally diving into the water. You can just see the splash of kingisher orange and turquoise in the far tree in the photo below - click on the photo to enlarge it 

The Botanics pond is a surprisingly reliable place to see Kingfishers in Edinburgh! 

Edited to add: I should also have mentioned the lovely area covered in Common Liverwort  (Marchantia polymorpha) and mosses! I think the most obvious moss is Bonfire Moss (Funaria hygrometrica) but please correct me if you know I'm wrong!

 

In the Dells

The weather has been very changeable today. Once the early morning rain stopped I went out to do a litter-picking, wildlife recording patrol of the Water of Leith. About three quarters of the way through, it started raining / hailing / sleeting! I didn't take many photos as it was also very windy and the wind kept threatening to blow my litter bag away, so I had to keep hold of it all the time, which made photography a bit tricky. I did however, make sure to get this photo of the developing new cones on the larch tree. 

 

I don't think I've ever caught them so early in their development! I blogged about the stages of their later development back in 2014, you can see those photos in this post. 

The Water of Leith features in this week's Crafty Green Poet Substack post, which marks International Day of Action for Rivers (which happens on 14 March).