Taexalia

wild.life

City Life

Arthur's Seat

It never ceases to tickle me that I can look at this standing in the middle of a city

and this week @ and I have been taking advantage of the unseasonal weather and wandering about in the wilds of Edinburgh....

Our wee loch in the park looks great in the low slung sunshine (as long as you can ignore the joyful things that most local residents seem comfortable dumping... shopping trolleys, dog poo, empty plastic carrier bags that contained the nutrition free white bread they insist on feeding to the birds... you can tell that I am not a big fan of the human population...)

The loch is showing some wonderful signs of Spring - the bird life is hotting up and noise, altercations and artistic wing and feather displays abound and the sexy season starts. The young female swans seem to be having none of it as the young male swans stalk them and try to corner them and there doesn't seem to be much romance between any of them.

Hot lipped male drooling at the birds

This week has seen the arrival of two "new" species. We aren't sure if they are going to stay but they've been there every day so far and we are hoping they will both find a friend and bring new life to an already diverse population...

Juvenile Cormorant

Common Teal

Neither are particularly rare or unusual species, but it's lovely to see them visiting our wee loch and joining the geese, swans, herons, mallards, tufted ducks, coots and moorhens... alongside rooks, crows, magpies, gulls, robins, starlings, blackbirds, wood pigeons and feral pigeons...

Still no signs of foxes in my garden, though they have been spotted in the street... hopefully spring will bring more photo ops.