Saturday 7 January 2023

Blackford Pond and Midmar Paddock

 We had a lovely walk today starting at Blackford Pond, which is currently badly flooded. The pond doesn't have a natural inlet or outlet and is entirely artificial, it has long had occasional problems with its drains, which is what must be happening now, made worse by the high rains we've had recently. 



The resident Mute Swan family seem happy enough



From Blackford Pond we walked through Midmar Paddock. We had a wonderful encounter with a female Sparrowhawk, who landed on a branch right in front of us, then dashed away to hunt birds in the paddock. No photos, but it was amazing to see. Here are some photos of the paddock, which is sadly currently threatened with development. 




You can find out more about the Friends of Midmar Paddock's campaign to save the area from development on their new website or by following them on Twitter or on Facebook

The paddock is at the foot of Blackford Hill which is beautiful to look at in the winter sunshine.


Yesterday we got a lovely view of this Fieldfare, which, unusually for this species, was eating a worm! 



5 comments:

eileeninmd said...

Love the swans and Fieldfare. Wow, the flooding looks bad.
Happy Sunday, have a happy new week!

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

The fieldfares have probably ransacked the berries already, they are utter hooligans!

Blogoratti said...

Such lovely photos, thanks for sharing.

Lowcarb team member said...

Very nice photographs from your walk.
We have had a lot of rain in the UK, and many areas are under flood or flood warning.

All the best Jan

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks Eileen, yes the flooding is bad,

You're right Simon, fieldfares are hooligans, and they have certainly eaten most of the berries in Edinburgh.

Thanks Blogoratti

Lowcarb - yes lots of places are flooded, hopefully things will dry up soon