Winter by the river

We had a lovely bank holiday walk along the Water of Leith in Colinton Dell today. The weather was mild and felt more like autumn than winter. The bare trees are very wintry though!

We were delighted to see a number of 'new' earth stars emerging from the ground in the Hidden Meadow near Redhall Gardens.  These fungi are relatively unusual (some species of them are actually very rare, but it's tricky to identify them to species level!). I just like finding them at all and it's good to see so many again in this particular place, as for the past few months, there's only been one and I thought the main patch of them had perhaps disappeared. 

We also saw plenty of birds including bullfinches, mistle thrush, dippers and goldcrests.