Arthur's Seat

It's an Edinburgh tradition to walk round Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags on New Year's Day. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I have joined in the tradition for several years now. Today the weather was beautifully mild, though very windy. We had a great start to our birdwatching year seeing a total of 21 species (almost twice the number we saw last New Year's Day and not bad for a wee walk round Edinburgh). One of the stars of the show was definitely the kestrel that was hovering nearby almost the whole time we were walking (though it could have been more than one in fact).


The other stars were the redpolls, a bird that I hadn't seen for years until they turned up in my parents' garden in our recent visit there and then here they were on Arthur's Seat, making a real mess as they fed on the alder catkins. You cansee the little red head patch quite nicely in this photo.

We also saw a very acrobatic crow, swooping and diving in the air, at one point flying almost upside down. It's behaviour and in fact its shape made us think it was a raven (and we know there are ravens on Arthur's Seat) but it just didn't seem big enough compared to the other crows that were around. We finally decided it must be an adolescent rook, which (I think) is more likely to indulge in aerobatic displays than is a carrion crow and is more like a raven in shape (certainly as regards the tail) than is a carrion crow. So a slight mystery there, but it was fascinating to watch.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other web-pages where you can find out more. All photos by Crafty Green Boyfriend and if you click on them you can see them in a larger size.