birdfeed

Monday 27th January and the forecast was good enough for a visit to Cammo. Ages since I'd fed the birds there and I hoped all my little pals were still at the usual spot near where the river artificially enters and exists the park. Pumped the tyres, lubed the chain and filled the pannier with a few nuts and seeds to feed to the birds. I hoped the previous feeding tree was still being visited by both birds and birders who established it long before I ever went there. I stopped for a photo of the tiny ponies in the field next to Dowies Mill Lane.

From there I cycled the dirt trail up to where Queensferry Rd becomes the A90 at the Cramond Brig. Hopped across the road then continued into Cammo Estate. There has been a more formal path put in beside the "river" and at first I thought the feeding tree had been removed but happily it was still there. As soon as I put some nuts, bread and seeds out, lots of small birds began to appear in nearby branches. In a lovely welcome one swooped inches past my head and landed before I had finished arranging the feed.

When I got there around 1.30pm, I thought I had missed the light. The sun was coming through the trees but wasn't falling on the place I laid the food out. It was only after a while of being there that I realised it was working its way round to lighting up the scene and had I come any earlier I would have missed the best light of the day - just before 2pm.

Earlier shots in the dark.

slowly the sun moved into a better position

meanwhile I was putting out nuts for the squirrels;
much more cautious than their cousins in the botanics

Not only did the sun move round to strike the feeding station, but the nuthatches from across the river in the fir tree zoomed over every couple of minutes and showed a near fearlessness about posing for photos close to where I was standing. I had to be quick though; there would be a second or 2 while they chose the best items, they would pounce, then fly off. Least available were the Coal Tits who seemed to spend less than a second in the patch of light before bouncing off.

Coal Tit: in and out in a flash
many photos were taken of an empty tree, a fraction of a second too late

The robin was not the one I met last year who would take mealworms out your hand. This one was pretty good about posing for a photo but he would chase off any other robins who strayed into his territory. He would see them off his patch and chase after them long after they got the message. He let me approach quite near but wasn't contemplating the food held at arms length. I suspect he had maybe seen off the other more friendly robin.

Great Tit

king of the castle

After taking a few hundred photos the light left the feeding area and I decided to move on too. I had hung around eating snacks and jumping about to keep warm for the best part of 2 hrs. I wanted to catch the last of the sun lighting the black-headed gulls at Cramond. So left a half-coconut filled with lard in the trees as a thank you and headed back down the Almond.

Along the way I saw what looked like a rather scrappy goosander on my side of the river, swimming upstream. I clambered down to the riverside as quietly as possible and got a couple of poor quality photos, but enough to identify it as a Red-breasted Merganser, a Winter visitor similar to a goosander. While slipping around in the mud and rocks I also saw a dipper out in the middle of the stream too far away for a decent photo.

Down at the estuary I put my bike down and got some bread out my back pack. I noticed the gulls watching keenly, and the first bit I threw was the only piece that hit the water. A squawk went up and 40 gulls flew over from where they were mooching about. In the cold weather at this time of the year they are very appreciative of a snack and there was quite a bit of barging and shouting to get to the front of the queue and rest a cold muddy flipper on my hand while stabbing as large a chunk of bread as possible from my fingers. 

I never tire of their charm and cheek. They bash into my arm and hand in a friendly way, at least I like to think of it as that. Probably just a feeding frenzy. Some are definitely coming round several times while others sit on the wall nearby happy to have any scraps or leftovers. I favour the dudes with missing feet although I suspect they are the more adventurous and the devil-may-cares. Who needs 2 feet, right? Sharp little stabby beaks. I pretty much fire off the camera randomly into the fray. The best images rarely come about from considered angles, the action is far too quick to anticipate, and so I may see a bird approaching but the rest is down to luck. In ten minutes all the bread is gone and the gulls return to standing around in a large group nearby. I say thanks and cheerio and cycle back along the parkrun route then through Granton and home.

16.7miles cycling over 4hrs25