Visit a Local Nature Reserve

Today is the first day of 30 Days Wild, the campaign from the Wildlife Trusts that aims to get people out into nature more.

I'll be blogging something for this campaign every day this month. Often these blog posts will be about things I do anyway in my life, other times I'll try to focus on very specific things. I'll be particularly trying to find nature in unexpected places and to look at the beauty of the very common.

Today, I decided to 'Visit a Local Nature Reserve'. Colinton Dell, the part of the Water of Leith that I patrol as a volunteer with Water of Leith Conservation Trust is a Local Nature Reserve. So this is in fact something I do every week, but it's always worth blogging about, there's always something lovely to see.

Colinton Dell is a mass of buttercups at the moment

There's also a lot of water avens around at the moment and for the first time ever I got decent photos of this beautiful flower, even with added bumble bee!

I didn't get photos of any of the birds. I had a wonderful close encounter with a mistle thrush, which landed on a mossy wall and walked towards me before flying onto the ground to gather food for its young. Elsewhere I watched four long tailed tits chasing each other round and round and round and round!

I was struck by the beauty of these dandelions just losing their seeds

while this one is still in bud!

Have you signed up for 30 Days Wild? 

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.