Autumn in the Dells

 The weather at the moment varies from torrential rain to beautiful blue skies. Today was beautiful, so I did my regular patrol along the Water of Leith. 

The Autumn colours are beautiful at the moment! This Beech tree right next to the river is more lovely in real life than is possible to show in photos (I often find this with autumn colours!)

This smaller beech tree looks particularly beautiful in the direct sunshine 

and the group of Hornbeams look lovely too

It's not just the trees, though, the leaves and rose hips on this Rosa rugosa bush are beautiful

The bridge over the river in Colinton Dell had been shut for repairs for a long time, and it's nice to see it open again at last

 While I was walking through the Dells, I heard geese calling and looked up to see over 100 Pink Footed Geese flying in formation high above my head!

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Yesterday I gave a well received presentation on behalf of the North Merchiston Cemetery Friends Group to St Michael's Church Friendship Group. When I was coming out of the church, I took this photo of the cemetery, which from this angle looks like a woodland!

Autumn Colour

 It's been pouring down all day! Yesterday however was sunny and mild and I enjoyed a trip to Musselburgh with a friend. 

We started our walk at this part of the River Esk and walked down to the River Forth and onwards down the coast

I was amazed to see how many Cormorants there were at this part of the coast! You might be able to see them in the photo above, but here's a close up, showing just a few of them

There are plans to build a very large flood defence system along the River Esk at Musselburgh. The poster below claims that there will be 16 varieties of flood defence built and 1.6kn of sustainable blue-green infrastructure. You can read more about the scheme here.

 

I'm not alone in thinking that the plans are for something more large scale and over-engineered than the area needs, with, so I've heard, plans to destroy a number of mature trees and to build large walls that will hide the river from view for much of its length. However, the project details haven't been finalised yet and hopefully the final result will be more sensitive to nature and to the people who visit Musselburgh to enjoy the wildlife. You can read about the campaign calling for nature based solutions on the Pause the Flood Scheme website. 

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On Friday, Crafty Green Boyfriend and I managed to have some time off together and enjoyed the autumn colour around Easter Craiglockart Hill 

We were impressed by the fungi on this tree stump

Sulphur Tuft

Artist's Palette (the white and black bracket fungus in amongst the Sulphur Tuft in the photo below) 

and Candle Snuff

We also enjoyed the misty view from the hill across to Edinburgh Castle 

The Book of Prague edited by Ivana Myšková and Jan Zikmund