Birds and Butterflies

I've blogged about the fields near my office before here, here, here and here. I walk round the fields and up the hill every workday lunchtime. The area is really a lovely haven for wildlife. At this time of year there are skylarks singing (I've counted at least four singing males and today I was able to watch two of them as they sang, quite unusual, because usually a singing skylark is somewhere seemingly up in the clouds). There are also plenty of swallows and house martins flying round the offices and over the fields, swifts too, flying higher up in the skies. I've heard and occasionally seen grasshopper warblers singing their song that sounds very like a grasshopper. Over the past couple of days a yellowhammer has started to perch on a barn roof, to glow yellow in the sun as he sings 'little bit o' bread and no cheeeeese'. Skylarks, yellowhammers and grasshopper warblers in particular are birds that are struggling these days and so its wonderful to see them seemingly thriving just outside Edinburgh.

There are butterflies too, today I was surrounded by ringlet butterflies, I've also seen several small heath butterflies and a few small tortoiseshells. Plus there are the horses, the sheep, the goats and the geese that live on the small farms. It really is a lovely place for a lunchtime walk!