Hawthorns and more along the Water of Leith

We went for a walk along my patch of the Water of Leith today. I hadn't managed to cover the whole length of my patch on Monday, nor had I then had a bag and gloves with me for litter picking! Today, we covered the whole length and filled a whole bag with litter (the Water of Leith Conservation Trust carries out regular big clean ups but there's a lot of litter dropped in between...), including a shoe that we found in a tree. More happy findings included two herons in different locations along the river and a family of grey wagtails dancing along the river, adolescent chicks shyly following their parents, who were chasing insects. The Italian name for wagtail (ballerina) certainly seemed appropriate today....

The hawthorn is magnificent at the moment and today I managed to get a couple of photos. (Weaver of Grass posted about hawthorn recently too, you can read her post and see her photo here.)

Also magnificent this year is the wild garlic, which fills the wooded riverside with the smell of, well, garlic.

The air was full of birdsong too, song thrushes, chaffinches, robins, wrens and blackcaps being the main singers.