Corstorphine Hill

We had a lovely walk round Corstorphine Hill yesterday, in warm sunny weather. 

Speckled Wood Butterflies were flying around everywhere, though this is the only one that stayed still enough for a photo (click on the photo to enlarge the image)

We walked to the top of the hill, where the Corstorphine Tower was built as a memorial to Sir Walter Scott (you can read more about the tower here). 

Near the tower is this magnificent Scots Pine tree 

Signs of autumn are starting to show, including the presence of galls on some of the oak trees, including these Knopper Galls, which are caused by the knopper gall wasp (Andricus quercuscalicis). The gall starts off quite small on the top of the acorn,

but then grows

and grows until it takes over the entire acorn. There can be a lot of Knopper Galls on the same tree. 

You can read more about Knopper Gall wasps on the Woodland Trust website.