Arthur's Seat

 

We had a lovely walk round Arthur's Seat yesterday. We were lucky with the weather too, while we were walking we only had a little bit of light drizzle, and then when we were safely inside for lunch it started raining quite heavily. You can see the rain-clouds moving in, in the photo below 

Arthur's Seat is always a good place to see wildlife, and yesterday we were very lucky with our bird sightings. We watched two Buzzards gliding around, though we couldn't get them both in the same photo!

This young Carrion Crow seemed to be waiting patiently for its parents to come and feed it

Dunsapie Loch was full of birds, including this family of Mute Swans

this Black Headed Gull, already in winter plumage 

On the loch there were also a family of Little Grebes, a family of Mallards, a young Grey Heron and a female Tufted Duck. 

We also saw a pair of Ravens, but they were impossible to photograph as they kept disappearing behind the hill. 

We were delighted to see two Roe Deer in the field down below (though we could only get one of them in a photo)

Despite the wet weather there were a good few insects around, including quite a few Cinnabar Moth caterpillars,

which feed exclusively in ragwort  

too often ragwort is removed from public places, but, contrary to popular opinion, it is not a dangerous plant except for grazing mammals, and even then it isn't (apparently) harmful if it is alive, but only if it is harvested as silage and then fed to the animals).

It's always nice to find ladybirds, such as this Seven Spot Ladybird

The damp conditions also brought out this large black slug 

and this Garden Snail 

And it was nice to see the Herb Robert, which is showing off its seed pods, showing why this group of plants is also known as Cranesbills

Thanks to Crafty Green Boyfriend for taking all the photos in this post!