Saturday 9 July 2016

The other side of the hill....

Crafty Green Boyfriend works very near Corstorphine Hill and walks round the hill almost every lunchtime. I join him sometimes on Fridays and we always take the same route round the hill (see yesterday's blogpost). There are however a lot of other paths that are further from his workplace so today we set out to explore some of those. We started at the most beautiful bus stop in Edinburgh

If you look carefully, you can see the verge is full of common spotted orchids (as well as buttercups).

This is one of the areas where Edinburgh City Council has started to see the value of letting verges grow rather than mowing them too aggressively. This is a great benefit to wildlife and to people who enjoy wildlife!

Inside the Corstorphine Hill Nature Reserve, the council has mowed paths across the grass, leaving the buttercup meadows mostly to thrive

This looks lovely and offers a great benefit to the bees and other pollinators that feed on the buttercups, clovers and other flowers in the longer grass. There are also some more orchids in some parts of this area.

One of the things that is so wonderful about Corstorphine HIll is the variety of habitats on the hill, including this wonderful rock formation

There were lots of insects around, including this Syrphus hoverfly

and this wood wasp, which according to the Edinburgh Natural History Society Facebook group may be a Ichneumon xanthorius, but is certainly impressive whatever species it is! 











9 comments:

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

It's beautiful, and as you point out, there are so many relatively cheap, or even cheaper, things authorities can do to promote nature.

Can't see the word "Corstorphine" without thinking of "Trainspotting"!!!

Caroline Gill said...

What a wonderful place - and so green! Is that a limestone pavement, I wonder? And, yes, I'm sure those meadows are a great place for wildlife - evidently flora and doubtless for many insects and other species, too.

Lowcarb team member said...

This looks a lovely walk and I enjoyed enlarging your photo's to have a close up look.
Great walk
Great post

Hope you have an enjoyable Sunday.

All the best Jan

Draffin Bears said...

Hi Juliet,

Looks like a wonderful place to walk and enjoy all the beauty that nature has to offer.
Happy weekend
hugs
Carolyn

RG said...

Green it is!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks for your comments everyone, it is indeed a lovely place!

Caroline - it looks like a limestone pavement but I don't think it is. I need to find out more about the geology!

Anonymous said...

very interesting rock formation

Janneke said...

A beautiful surrounding to walk during lunchtime: quiet, green and peaceful. I'm fond of all your nature reserves and love to explore your country along the thousands of public footpaths. We don't have that in Holland.
Regards, Janneke

Optimistic Existentialist said...

This place looks like a perfect place to take a book and spend the afternoon :)