Easter Monday in the Dells

Snow had been forecast for yesterday but it was sunny here in Edinburgh (though very cold). We had a lovely walk in the Dells along the Water of Leith. 

The daffodils and few flowered leeks look lovely together alongside this little path in the wild orchard area 

Few flowered leek though very pretty, is an invasive species, and tends to crowd out the natuve ramsons (wild garlic) which, superficially it looks similar too. However few flowered leek can also be eaten, so the advice is, if you're a forager, to pick wild leek and leave the ramsons to grow! It's too early for the ramsons to be fully in bloom as yet but they will no doubt feature on this blog again in the near future! 

The oarch flowers still look beautiful as they progress along the way to becoming cones

and some of the cherry trees are already in bloom 

Lots of birds were singing and hopping about, most excitingly a pair of siskins. These tiny little finches tend to be quite elusive in my experience and before this year I'd only once seen them along the Water of Leith walkway but this was the second time in only a couple of weeks! Maybe they'll next here this year!

 

For Nature Notes. 

Easter Sunshine

 It's a lovely warm sunny day out there today. We had a walk round Arthur's seat, enjoying the quiet paths amongst the gorse bushes

We were delighted to see this dark edged bee fly near St Margaret's Loch 

The Loch itself was full of birds, mostly mallards, mute swans, tufted ducks and black headed and herring gulls. 

Meanwhile, the grey herons are starting to nest in the trees around Duddingston Loch, you can see several of their large, messy nests in the photo below

Yesterday, Crafty Green Boyfriend captured our local friendly robin on camera, feeding from my hand 

This robin is often waiting for us when we visit the cemetery. We leaves some seeds out the top of one of the graves and several birds come down to feed. This robin started feeding from my hand a couple of weeks ago and now regularly does so.

Today's Lunchtime Walk

 We had our usual lunchtime walk round the local cemeteries today. It's a dull day so there weren't many insects about though in Dalry Park we did see this solitary bee (probably Andrena scotica aka the delightfully named chocolate mining bee, which nested in the park last year.)

Yesterday in North Merchiston Cemetery, we saw several of this little bee, which at first I thought might also be a chocolate mining bee but on consultation with members of the Edinburgh Natural History Society Facebook Group, is probably be a Clerk's mining bee (Andrena clerkelli) 

One of the elm trees in North Merchiston Cemetery is well on the way to fruiting already, some trees develop so quickly!
 

Also in this cemetery, the few flowered leek is starting to bloom 

This lovely looking plant is often mistaken for wild garlic (ramsons) before it flowers, but the leek has much narrower leaves. the leeks flower earlier than the ramsons and the flowers are very different. The leeks are taking over from the ramsons in many places, sadly. These leeks though aren't considered to be a seriously invasive plant, unlike Japanese Knotweed, which we noticed today is growing in the cemetery. 

Japanese Knotweed is one of the most invasive plants in the world and needs to be removed. However it can only be removed by properly trained people, the current best advice is to inject it with herbicide. It's illegal to move this plant from a site unless it's treated as hazardous waste, it can also be burned on site once it's been treated with herbicide and allowed to die. So, do not try to remove this plant if you see it, report it to the relevant authorities (I've reported this patch to the Cemeteries Department of City of Edinburgh Council).

On a brighter note, there's a beautiful patch of daffodils on the middle of the cemetery. 

The Dells are Blooming!

Today Crafty Green Boyfriend joined me for my volunteer patrol of Colinton and Craiglockart Dells along the Water of Leith. The Spring flowers were beautifully in bloom!

There seem to be more lesser celandine than ever along this whole stretch of the walkway

the one patch of wood anemones beside the main path seems to be expanding, this is just a few of the flowers

and although one patch of coltsfoot along the walkway has disappeared (having been replaced with daffodils and primroses!) a new patch has sprung up near where Scottish Water are doing some work to the sewage system - so this is probably only a temporary patch of this lovely flower, but wonderful to see anyway (and it's a big patch, I couldn't get a good photo of the whole extent due to safety barriers getting in the way)

and my favourite larch tree continues to bloom beautifully, the tips of the petals now just turning a lovely purple 

 There's a lovely array of daffodils in Spylaw Park 

and the ramsons (wild garlic) are starting to bloom 

Lots of birds were singing today, and we had a great view of a kingfisher, though the photos didn't come out.

for Nature Notes.

Corstorphine Hill and a view into Edinburgh Zoo

 We had a lovely walk round Corstorphine Hill today. The weather was quite changeable, as it has been for a few days. The sky was quite moody at times

There are some lovely lichens and mosses on the hill, including this array on a fallen log

One of the things I love about Corstorphine HIll is that there is a whole range of paths around different parts of the hill, which are quite different in character. There are some interesting rock formations at the top of the hill 

Also at the top of the Hill is Edinburgh Zoo and you can get some great views of the zebras from outside the zoo fence. Crafty Green Boyfriend got some great photos of one of them today

The zoo's zebras are Grevy's zebras, which can be recognised by their large ears and narrower stripes. You can read more about the zoo's zebras here. Grevy's zebra is the most threatened of the zebra species and the People's trust for Endangered Species are fundraising to help restore grassland for Grevy's zebras in central Kenya. You can find out about this work and donate to the appeal here.

Scenes from Arthur's Seat

 At the weekend we had a lovely walk around Arthurs Seat. As the main paths were pretty busy, we spent a lot of time on the quieter paths (though making sure to stay on the very short grass of the paths themselves rather than walking through the longer grass where ground nesting birds might be starting to nest). Here are some of the photos:

We ended up at St Margaret's Loch where the mute swans were all gathering 

The first chiffchaff of the year and the larch in bloom

 It's a lovely sunny day today! I walked through Colinton and Craiglockart dells along the Water of Leith earlier today. I heard the first chiffchaff of the year, which is always a great sign that Spring is really on its way! Also the larch trees are beautifully in bloom. At this time of year, if you pass a larch tree, make sure to take a close look to see these flowers

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While I was taking photos of the larch flowers, a pair of goldcrests (Britain's smallest bird) were hopping around in the tree. I stood still as soon as I saw them and they approached quite close. i didn't take their photo, as I didn't want to disturb them and I didn't think that any photo i took would be particularly good anyway!