Water of Leith - Roseburn to Stockbridge

 We enjoyed walking this stretch of Edinburgh's Water of Leith yesterday. There are several sculptures by Anthony Gormley in the river, the one below is near to the stairs that lead up to the Gallery of Modern Art. 

 

We were delighted to get good views of two Dippers, this one was in a very busy section of the river, quite close to Dean Village, which yesterday was more crowded with tourists and others than I've ever seen it. The Dipper didn't seem to mind the crowds

We also had a decent view of a Kingfisher, but it didn't stop for long enough for us to get a photo! 
 

 

Arthur's Seat

Yesterday morning was mild and sunny, perfect autumn weather for a walk round Edinburgh's Arthur's Seat, one of our favourite places for a weekend stroll. 

We caught sight of a Kestrel being mobbed by two Carrion Crows, click on the photo below for a closer look

We got a much closer look at one of the Carrion Crows  

Everything looked particularly sharply focussed in the bright light

Later in the day it started raining and in fact is still raining as I type. We need the rain, but it was certainly lovely to be able to enjoy the sunshine yesterday morning. 

Shared for Nature Notes. 
 

 

Caerlaverock

 

It's rare that we stay in Dumfries and don't visit the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust reserve at Caerlaverock. It's a wonderful place with a great range of habitats supporting loads of wildlife. It's famous for both wintering wildfowl and dragonflies. 

It has a lovely wildlife garden that's full of butterflies, in the photo below you can see a Painted Lady (at the top) and a Red Admiral with a Small White in the background

We were delighted to also see a Humming Bird Hawkmoth, though it didn't want to be photographed.

As we came out of the wildlife garden, we found a young hare, hiding in the grass

The birds we saw included Shovelers, recognisable by their weird shaped bills, the males weren't in breeding plumage, so not as easy to recognise from a distance as they otherwise would be. 

The aptly named Teal Pond was full of Teal

There were lots of Mallards  

and a few Mute Swans

 As well as the butterflies mentioned above, the insects we saw included Silver Y moth 

 

Common Hawker Dragonfly 

Common Darter Dragonfly (male in the photo below)

 

 

Long Hoverfly (Sphaerophoria sp)

 

Platycheirus sp hoverfly (the one in the photo below seems oddly interested in the Small White butterfly!) 

and a Noon Fly  

Grazing some of the fields were a number of Balwen sheep, a very distinctive breed of Welsh Mountain sheep 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moorhen family at Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Gardens

 We had a lovely walk yesterday at Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Gardens, always a great place to visit. The wildlife highlight yesterday was watching the Moorhens. Three generations were present. Adults, including the individual in the photo below 

 Juveniles (probably chicks from earlier this year, though possibly last year's chicks), who have duller colours, like the individual below (though some have entirely brown beaks)

and very young chicks like the one below  

Even at this age, the chicks can swim around quite happily, but they can't yet find food for themselves, so the adults and juveniles are busy with feeding duties. We really enjoyed watching this juvenile feeding the chicks

 

Figgate Park and Portobello Beach

Yesterday we had a lovely walk, as we almost always do on a Saturday. We started off in Figgate Park, where the pond was covered in waterweed and there were few ducks in sight.  

The crab apple trees were a delight though, full of red fruit that look good enough to eat, but crab apples are generally too sour to eat fresh and need to be made into jelly or wine.   

 

We were amazed by the number of Speckled Wood butterflies in the park, they seemed to be everywhere, 

The wildflower meadows (which have been planted rather than being native meadows) are still vivid  

and supporting a reasonable number of insects, including this Common Carder bee

and this Red Admiral butterfly 

 

Our favourite sighting though was this incredibly well camouflaged Treecreeper

We were also happy to sight a Sparrowhawk soaring above us 

Just as we left the park, a bus turned up that was heading to Portobello so we jumped on for the short ride, had lunch in Portobello and then walked along the promenade to enjoy a sunny afternoon at the seaside. (Portobello was actually much busier than it looks in the photo below!)

 Shared with Nature Notes. 

A Small Copper Butterfly on Corstorphine Hill

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk around Corstorphine Hill. One of the highlights was seeing this beautiful Small Copper butterfly, one of my favourites. These are really tiny butterflies with gorgeous colours and markings. They're not uncommon but they can be very elusive, partly because they're so small. This individual was very happy to be photographed, first posing on Ragwort, which is an important plant for many insects

then the butterfly moved to the thistles

We also saw a Speckled Wood 

Buzzards nest in this area, and two were flying above us (not that you can tell they're Buzzards in the photo below!) 

A Raven also flew over, but too quickly to be captured on camera! 

Shared with Nature Notes.  

Arthur's Seat

We always love walking around Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh and it's sad and terrifying how often it's being hit by wildfires these days. The latest fire, which was on Salisbury Crags, adjacent to Arthur's Seat started on 19 July and took days to be put out. it's now out, but the site has been extensively damaged as you can see from the photo below, with the blackened areas on the Crags being a very sobering sight. 

 Luckily we've had a fair amount of rain since the fire was put out, but wildfires are becoming more and more common as climate chaos takes hold (wildfires are still raging in the Cairngorms in northern Scotland and across large areas of France and Spain, to mention just a few.)

We walked our usual route round to Dunsapie Loch, where there were a lot of Canada Geese, a couple of Mute Swans and a few Mallards. 

We were delighted to see this female pheasant with her two chicks 

watched this Kestrel for a while

There were some insects to watch too, including this Common Wasp busily eating a slug  

and several bees, including this Buff Tailed Bumblebee 

The thistles are already shedding their thistledown, which makes for some nice photo opportunities

Hopefully there won't be more wildfires, but rising temperatures and lack of rain make them more likely. If you're out and about in hot, dry weather, don't light fires or use barbecues and dispose of cigarettes carefully. Many wildfires are started by human carelessness and human induced climate change will often make them spread.

Posted for Nature Notes.  

Butterflies and Birds at Musselburgh

We had a lovely day at Musselburgh yesterday. It's always a great place to see birds and at this time of year, a great place to see butterflies. So we went along, hoping to get some good counts for the Big Butterfly Count, which started on Friday. The Big Butterfly Count asks you to spend 15 minutes in one place noting the butterflies and day flying moths you see (the project only focuses on a selected range of species). We spent 15 minutes in each of three different places and saw a total of 65 butterflies and three Six Spot Burnet Moths. Here are some photos:

We saw a lot of Meadow Browns, the photo below shows a female (unusually, in this species, the female is brighter than the male)

lots of Small Skippers (a species not included in the Big Butterfly list of species) 

a couple of Common Blues

and a few Small and Large Whites, which we didn't catch on camera. We got several photos of the Six Spot Burnet Moths 

We saw a good selection of birds, including around fifty Curlew, which was particularly pleasing as these birds are becoming very rare.

We also had a wonderful view of a Stoat, though we didn't get a photo of it, as it dashed away so quickly. 
 

Shared for Nature Notes.