Does Cammo Estate need to be 'Improved'?

I don't think it's coincidence that Edinburgh Council is looking to 'improve' Cammo Estate (recently made into a local nature reserve) just at the time that they are finalising plans to build on some of the surrounding fields. Also I'm slightly unsure whether Cammo is large enough for some of the types of infrastructure they seem to be proposing, though it does have underused buildings and derelict buildings that could be used. The wee canal has already been restored very nicely so perhaps I should stop being cynical.... 

Anyway, the next round of consultatations on improvements to the nature reserve are on 19 - 21 January. See here for more information. (These are entirely separate from any consultation on the housing). 

You can read more about our latest trip to Cammo here.  

a Cammo squirrel

The Water's High in the Dells

The Water of Leith is running high at the moment! This is the weir up at Colinton!

 The goosanders seem to enjoy swimming the rapids

and the oyster mushrooms are thriving in the damp conditions

Drama on the Pond!

We braved the rain today to walk round Figgate Park, which has a lovely pond which is usually full of ducks, geese and swans. Today was no exception, and the mute swans gave a great display

These two males started displaying to each other, which attracted the attention of a youngster

the youngster also joined in the displaying and the calling with his father

which gradually brought more youngsters flocking to their father's help 

 who eventually saw off the rival male

The pair of gadwall seemed unconcerned by the swan dramas 

Meanwhile we discovered a tree that is being entirely taken over by fungi (most of the fungi seemed to be oyster fungi but there may be others there too). The tree's bark cracks as the fungi grows through

Happy New Year!

It's an Edinburgh tradition to visit Arthur's Seat on New Year's Day which is what we did today.

We don't go to the top of the hill, as it is one of those horribly steep peaks that gives me really bad vertigo, plus at this time of year there are too many people up there so we kept to the valley where there were far fewer people.

One of our own New year's day traditions is to make a list of all the birds we see, as a start to the year list we keep. We're not competitive about this and just shrug our shoulders when extremely serious birders laugh at  how relatively few birds we see over the course of the year. We did have a good start, seeing 28 species today including in our own street, during our walk across Edinburgh and round Arthur's Seat. Crafty Green Boyfriend took these lovely photos

 goosander on the Union Canal - female above, male below

treecreeper in the Meadows area

male tufted duck, on one of the lochs on Arthur's Seat 

 

Feed the Birds!

We had a lovely walk this morning at Cammo, walking through the fields by the old water tower

where we saw a roe deer

Sadly Edinburgh City Council is planning on building houses on some of these fields (you can see my previous posts about that here).

We then walked into Cammo Country Park. We had some bird food with us and scattered most of it round some fallen trunks where several birds had already gathered. We then stood and watched for a few minutes while the birds came in to feed, the blue tits

the great tits

the robins (posing beautifully for next year's Christmas card!)

and the nuthatches (can you see how many seeds its got in its beak?)

Here's advice on feeding birds on the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) website.

It's Cold at Cramond

 It's cold out at Cramond today!

But plenty of birds around, including this carrion crow

this grey heron

several turnstones

and a few ringed plovers

Mountain the Movie

Mountain is an exploration of the human relationship with mountains, with beautiful cinematography set to a soundtrack of orchestral music played by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The text is written by well known naturewriter Robert MacFarlane and narrated by Willem Defoe.

I loved the beautiful scenery in the film but felt that it was flawed in a number of ways. The narrative was very simplistic, there were too many scenes of vertigo inducing extreme mountain sports (rock climbing, paragliding, extrme ski-ing) and not enough wildlife.

It looked like a film to extol the beauty of nature so why so few shots of wildlife and so much of an obsession with extreme mountaineering? And, if at it purports to be, it's supposed a film about the human relationship with mountains why, when showing scenes of people queueing to ascend Everest was there not even a mention of the mountains of rubbish left on the mountain every year?

It's a film to watch and enjoy and not analyse too deeply and certainly don't expect anything of great insight.

Mountain is showing at Edinburgh Filmhouse until Sunday 31 December.