Local Greenspaces - Part 1 North Merchiston Cemetery

 Some people seem to think that our area of Edinburgh (Dalry-Gorgie) lacks green-spaces, but in fact they're wrong! We've got a few days off and spent today, exploring some of our local green-spaces, including Dalry-Gorgie Community Park, North Merchiston Cemetery and Gorgie City Farm. 

We looked for Waxwings in the park (in late autumn and winter, they often gather in the Poplar trees there) but no luck, though we'll keep looking as they have been seen in this country already this season. There were some pretty spiders' webs in the shrubbery

The Autumn light was lovely in North Merchiston Cemetery too

and the dewdrops in the grass were shining beautifully in the low sunlight 

We were very happy to find several ladybirds hibernating on some of the gravestones - here is a Harlequin with a group of Pine Ladybirds

here is a group that includes Harlequin, Pine and Two Spot Ladybirds

and here is a larva (probably of a Harlequin Ladybird) and an adult Cream Spot ladybird

We continued our walk by wandering through Gorgie City Farm, but I'll post the photos from that part of our walk tomorrow.