Saturday 30 May 2015

River Almond

There's a lovely walk along the River Almond towards Edinburgh airport that we only ever do in summer, as it's a long walk and needs warm weather for a picnic lunch by the river.

Today was wonderfully sunny and sometimes warm, though not as warm as it could be for the time of year.

We enjoyed the light playing through the trees

 and the ferns



Lovely views of the river


and the wonderful array of flowers,

above are wild garlic (ramsons), red campion and pink purslane. Below is leopard's bane

and below is crosswort (the yellow flower) and speedwell (the blue flower) - I'm not sure which species of speedwell it is, i find the group very confusing (perhaps sorting out the speedwells is something I should take on for the 30 Days Wild challenge!

There were lots of birds about - including chiffchaffs and blackcaps in the wooded area and yellowhammers, reed buntings, meadow pipits and whitethroats in the open fields. Sand martins and swifts were flying about above the river. Orange tip birtterflies were fluttering amongst the riverside vegetation, they're particularly beautiful butterflies as the orange in their wings flashes in the sunlight as they fly.




11 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

the greens are gorgeous!!

Ian Doyle said...

Great photos Juliet, it's a lovely place for walking thats for sure.

eileeninmd said...

What a lovely spot for a walk.The ferns, flowers and view of the water are pretty. Lovely images. Happy weekend!

sage said...

Beautiful, it looks like many places in the Appalachian Mountains over here.

Draffin Bears said...

Hi Juliet,

Looks like a tranquil place to go and visit and love the river and all the green trees.
Happy weekend
hugs
Carolyn

Pietro Brosio said...

Very nice photos of the walk along the River Almond, beautiful green!

Maureen @ Josephina Ballerina said...

Hi Juliet!
Your area of Scotland looks very green like these mid atlantic states where I live -unlike, say, the beautiful states of red rock canyons out in the western states or the brown of California.

Standing in a bank line, my friend overheard one woman say to another that she could not wait to get back home and away from all the "violent green" of the east coast.

Well, we do have a lot of it. And it is intense, especially at this time of year. But never once have I felt it might do me harm!

:) m & jb who is romping through some lush greenery even as we type

Crafty Green Poet said...

Hi Maureen, I love intense greens and whenever I've spent much time in drier places I've missed the green, much though i can appreciate the ochre colours too

rainfield61 said...

l like these green and flowing water.

Magyar said...

What a walk, grand! _m

city walkers
dust and smoke sate their eyes
the bus noise

I chose I must be, 'Ferns over Fumes, Green over Grit, Damp over Dust_!'

GeraniumCat said...

Lovely to see you're doing this too, Juliet. I must write a blog post about what I've been doing for 30dayswild so far.