Summer!

Well it's high summer today in Edinburgh! The weather has been glorious, still and warm with endless blue skies. We went for a wonderful walk along the River Almond. There were butterflies everywhere, loads of orange tips (managed to catch one in the photo above too!) a few small tortoiseseshells, a peacock, a red admiral and lots of white butterflies.

The birds were singing beautifully. Along the open riverbanks, whitethroats sang their wonderful hurried warble and then launched themselves into the air for a short burst of flightsong. Willow warbler songs cascaded from the trees. Chiffchaffs, chaffinches, blackbirds and others sang in the woods.

The most wonderful bird along this stretch of the river though is the sandmartin. This is the most inland colony for them in Scotland and the sky was full of them! They are wonderfully aerobatic birds and very active, swooping into and out of their nestholes in the sand banks.