purplerabbits

Meadows Yard Local Nature Reserve is a small site off Fillyside Road near Seafield. The Number 12 bus goes there, so I went up today. It is quite tiny but very cute with a wee pond and some bird boxes which tits were prospecting but not using yet I think. It was full of singing gold- and green- and chaffinches today, plus blackbirds, bluetits, dunnock. PLUS a few bunnies right out in the open and a FOX. Which I turned a corner and almost walked into. Twice. He seemed right at home there and very red in the sunlight.

Then I went across to the shore and walked right along the sea front to Portobello - seeing Oystercatchers, Redshank, bar-tailed godwit, Eider duck and four flavours of gull, plus a lot of starlings. I know starlings aren't doing so well some places, but Portobello has plenty in case anyone else runs out.

Plus there was an easily identified stone. Just the one. Which was cool in a very odd way.

I caught the train to Linlothgow yesterday and walked round the loch. It was loverly sun and a hell of a lot of birds including two new ducks - scaup and pochard plus a few great crested grebes, not doing a lot yet, and goldeneye displaying.

Full list

blue tit, great tit
chaffinch, green finch
robins (numerous - singing their lungs out), blackbird
crow, jackdaw, rook and magpie
feral pigeon and wood pigeon
kestrel (seen hovering from the train) and buzzards circling
pied wagtail
wren
dunnock
many noisy house sparrows
common, herring, black-headed and lesser-black-backed gull (just one of that last)
mute swan
greylag and white geese
mallard, including some crosses
tufted duck, pochard, goldeneye, scaup
coot, moorhen
great crested grebe
cormorants, many, on Cormorant island and on the other crannog island that is not called cormorant island
probably a distant heron

I also saw bunnies at the loch and a fox from the train, which was a bonus.

Well it's not the best time of year for birdwatching in woods, but since work sent me to Aviemore, a weekend in Aviemore and Boat of Garten seemed like a thing to do. The ospreys had fucked off to Africa, the crossbills were nowhere to be seen and I heard but didn't see crested tits (well I may have seen a *glimpse* but not so's it counts.)

But anyway,( the weekend list )
Also chickens, turkeys and white ducks!

Which makes my life list 85 - or 83 if you don't count free range fowl :-)

Plus I had a pleasant weekend walking in woods and mostly being on my own, which I would love to be able to do more often, especially when the woods include red squirrels - not to mention the chance to catch a steam train as the actual practical and sensible way to get to a place I was going.

I am in work today and feeling OK, mostly, if slightly - I dunno - odd? Detached? I dunno what to expect at this point, so I'm not too worried by not feeling what I expect, and I've never been too bothered by what other people expect, which is a win.

On balance then, it was a good thing I didn't get my act together to go to Lughnassadh, though it looks as if people had an ace time. Not going meant that I was there for my mum when she called, and also when ducklofty called to invite me on a birdwatching trip on Sunday. ( birds and walking under here )

Yesterday I walked eight and three quarter miles according to Gmap pedometer, which thanks to lilitufire is the new thing I didn't know I needed (there ought to be a word for that - is there?) I got up at 5.30 (AM), packed a bag with waterproofs and a nice flask of Early Grey tea [that was a typo, but I'm leaving it in as appropriate] and walked down the canal, along which I saw many things including a heron flying over, to Meggatland (which is, actually, full of magpies), as well as my first sighting of a blackcap. Then I crossed the bridge and visited Craiglockhart pond (home to tufted ducks, baaaby moorhens and another, or possibly the same, heron) which had been my original destination.

Had a nice cup of tea and then went up and over Easter Craiglockhart Hill to Glenlockhart Road, stopping at the top for tea and bunnies. After a diverting time trying to cut through a waterlogged golf course (which however yielded a very clear view of a kestrel hunting) I ended up reaching Greenbank Drive and heading down to Comiston Road (where I briefly stopped for breakfast foods, it now being nearly nine) before getting into The Hermitage of Braid which fortunately had both a public convenience (phew) and an open Visitors Centre with a map and a reference library with a bird book (and a grey wagtail cavorting in front of the centre - very pretty, almost hovering with its tail down and fanned out).

I ate my breakfast on a bench in the wood and hiked on up the hill to the 'blue' route (fortunately I found a decent stick to lean on and had a pocketknife to trim the end) which took me round Blackford hill clockwise to Blackford Pond. At this point it proceeded to chuck it down and I nearly caught a bus for home, but by the time I got to the stop I'd just missed one and the rain was easing off, so I headed back to the blue route to go up the hill to the Observatory. It was dampish, but I had the last of the tea on the hill and heard many Meadow Pipits and saw one, which I'm counting as a first, since they're shy buggers.

Then I came down the hill to KB, and was going to catch the bus home. It felt like I'd walked ten miles (it was actually 6.4 according to this route here.

But I saw a bus. And it said Crammond. So I got it. Good thing I had my map and my other map, eh? (I carry the A-Z and also the OS Explorer since the A-Z doesn't show paths and the Explorer doesn't show road names).

The bus doesn't go right into Crammond Village, but the helpful bus driver helped me when I overshot and pointed the right way. I explored a very pretty church, with very pretty goldcrests (another first) and a less-interesting-than-I'd-expected Roman Fort (just some foundations on the ground and a sign or two), saw a pied wagtail and a garden warbler that I could almost certainly identify and pottered through a wood past a ruin to the Forth. It was grey, and I was too early for low tide (and too tired to walk to the island, but I did see shelducks in the mouth of the river Almond (another first). I had a great lunch (mussels and chips and a very acceptable John Smith's wheat beer) at the Crammond Inn then walked up the Almond, having concluded that I wasn't going to see a whole lot of estuary birds *pout* (the only things feeding in the low tide mud were jackdaws and lots of mallards). Further up, though, I did see a dipper in the raging torrent that the river is at the moment, only my second sighting.

I left the river at Peggy's Mill Road 'cos I was suddenly very tired and had to be home in the evening for Beltane stuffs. Still I was out all day walked a fair lot, more if you count hills, and my knee isn't agony today, so yay! And the complete species count for the day was 36 - which is my highest so far, though not as much as almost any more experienced birder would have got in the same circumstances, I'm betting. Species: ( cut for your sanity )

ETA I forgot to count the last half mile from the bus stop, so actually a total of 9.25. Go me!

I want a measuring wheel so I can measure how far I've walked (on the map, I don't want a big fuck off one I have to carry everywhere). The thing is that I can only find digital map wheels for over £20 which seems a bit excessive for the occasional egoboo, plus I can actually do the sums by myself, cos I am so clever. So where can I get a small wheel of known diameter, on a stick? Go on, you've a creative lot - think of something...

And yes, my first thought *was* a pin wheel or pastry cutter, but I don't want to make holes in my map...