A Day of Changeable Weather in Musselburgh

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk along the John Muir Walkway from Musselburgh in East Lothian, along to the old ash lagoons, which are now a nature reserve. 

The weather started off, beautifully sunny, like this:

 but later a haar (sea mist) came in and everything looked wonderfully atmospheric like this: 

In between, we enjoyed lots of birdwatching (which was obviously easier when the weather was sunny). The highlights included Long Tailed Ducks, one of which you can see distantly in the photo below 

 

Goldeneye, a male of which is below:

and Lapwings, once a common farmland bird, but now sadly very much decreased in number, so it was lovely to see quite a large group of them at the lagoons 

and Wigeon, of which a fairly large group were hiding in the mist, you might be able to see them in the photo below

It was amazing how different everything looked in the haar 

Easter Craiglockart Hill

 

 Yesterday we enjoyed the autumn colours on Edinburgh's Easter Craiglockart Hill. The hill also offers lovely views across the golf course

There weren't as many fungi as we would hope to see at this time of year, but there was a reasonably good selection, including Candlesnuff

these Inkcaps (which I think are Glistening Inkcaps)  

and these very young Scarlet Elfcaps 

We then continued our walk to Craiglockart Pond  

and then home via the Union Canal, which inexplicably, we didn't take any photos of! 

 

Linlithgow Loch

 Yesterday we had a lovely trip to Linlithgow in West Lothian, a short train away from Edinburgh. Of course, when we visit the town our main focus is to walk round the loch (though we also had a morning coffee in a nice cafe and later lunch in a pub). The weather was beautiful, a light mist lifting to sunshine later, but it was worryingly warm, it's certainly not supposed to be that warm in November in Scotland! 

The autumn colours were beautiful 

 

and we were delighted to see plenty of wildlife, including this very friendly Robin 

this Cormorant drying our its wings 

and this Great Crested Grebe in winter plumage

 We were also happy to find this lovely arrangement of lichens 

Linlithgow Palace (the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots) sits by the shores of the loch and you get lots of great views as you walk around the lochside path  

 

Autumn Colours in the Meadows

 After tutoring my Friday morning creative writing class, I usually walk through the Meadows, and today the cherry trees were as beautiful as they are, more famously, in Spring. 

 

The Sycamores are surrounded by their beautiful fallen leaves too

 

Autumn Colours over the weekend

 On Saturday we walked round Saughton Park and in between the showers I captured some of the lovely autumn colours on camera

 The cherry trees look particularly beautiful at this time of year, especially when viewed in full sunshine against a clear blue sky  

Yesterday, I met a friend to go to the Resistance exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland Modern 2 Gallery. Described as  "How protest shaped Britain and photography shaped protest", it covers all types of British protests including environmental protests from early protests against birds being killed so their feathers could be used in hats (a protest which lead to the formation of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)); the 1932 mass trespass on Kinder Scout, highlighting the lack of public access to open spaces; and the 1971 Friends of the Earth Bottle Dump which protested the withdrawal of returnable bottles by a major drinks brand (you can read an excellent article here, about the legacy of that campaign). So it's well worth catching if you're in Edinburgh (it runs until early January.)

While I was waiting for my friend, I took some photos of the autumn colours in Dean Cemetery, which can be seen over the wall from the grounds of the art gallery

 

Autumn Colours on Corstorphine Hill

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk, enjoying the autumnal colours of Edinburgh's Corstorphine Hill. 

I find autumnal colours tricky to capture effectively on camera, it really does depend on there being enough sunshine and for large parts of yesterday's walk thre was ample sunshine so some of the photos turned out quite well. 

At the top of Corstorphine HIll is the Corstorphine Tower, which was built by William MacFie of Clermiston as a memorial to Sir Walter Scott, in 1817, the hundredth anniversary of the author’s birth. The tower is open on Edinburgh's Doors Open Days and on Sunday afternoons during the summer, but for the rest of the year, you can only view the outside

Corstorphine Hill is well known for being a good place to find a variety of fungi, both edible and inedible. We found several Porcelain fungi on one tree and managed to get some photos, the best of which is below 

Other than the Porcelain fungi, we didn't see as many fungi as we might have hoped. We did however have a thoroughly enjoyable walk! 

Autumn around Arthur's Seat

 We walked around Arthur's Seat yesterday and the autumn colours were beautiful. Here are some photos. 

 Dunsapie Loch was lovely too, and full of birds, despite being the water being very low. (We saw several Mallards, a few Mute Swans and five Little Grebes on the water, plus a male Pheasant and a Grey Wagtail both at the edge of the loch). 

 From Dunsapie Loch we walked down to Duddingston Loch, which was also looking beautiful

 

Here we saw Mallards, Mute Swans, Tufted Ducks and Moorhens. 

We also saw several of these fungi, which I thin are Shaggy Parasols. 

 

Autumn in the Hermitage of Braid

 We had a lovely autumnal weekend walk round Blackford Pond and the Hermitage of Braid. The autumn colours were pretty

 

We were very happy to see lots of fungi in the woods, though we didn't try to name most of them, here's just a selection. The first photo shows a species of puffball, but we haven't identified the rest. 

 

 

I was fascinated by this Harlequin Ladybird, travelling around the fungus