mother goosand'er chicks

 

22-06-26. This was a pretty awful day out. The light was crappy and my mood was worse. Kinda cold and nothing was flying - birds or butterflies. (Lots of mayflies, but that's hardly compensation.) To try and cheer ourselves up we had chosen a favourite walk: catch the tram to Balgreen then walk to Saughton Park, photograph the flocks of butterflies there, then walk up the Water of Leith where otters gambol with kingfishers. Then back past the gallery kingfisher and dippers, through Stockbridge and maybe the Botanics. Of course none of the wildlife showed up and my mood blackened, as every corner turned was another disappointment. I probably spent half the time complaining about the shit weather we get in this country. It has not been a very uplifting May (or early June.)

Saughton Gardens

I had to set the SD card output from today to one side as my computer doesn't have much hard drive left on which to store photos. I have a week or 2's worth, waiting to be blogged and as today was so inauspicious, it had been consigned it to the external hard drive. I nearly left it there in relegation because the day was so depressing, however a second look turned up some goosander video worthy of the archive. Most years I try to get photos of the goosander mothers and their super-cute babies. When the chicks are really young fluffballs they will ride on the mother's back. These ones today were too old for that but good fun to watch fishing.

We were a mile from home and came across the goosander mother and her 5 remaining chicks. (There would likely have been around 10 to start with, presumably half lost to hungry predators.) They were merrily fishing the river and catching minnow after stickleback after bullhead. The youngsters were almost playing with the fish, letting them go and catching them again, amused rather than hungry. After fishing they all got out the water did some preening, and settled down in a sleepy huddle with the mum to one side. It was the nearest I've got to decent footage of them this year and made up for a rather wasted day.

So I went through the day's photos and chose the least bad. Here they are. I was going to apologise for moaning about Scotland and its second-rate Summer but actually I am in the right and Scotland is in the wrong having such a piss poor climate. I have no idea why people come here from warm countries to see a damp castle in the drizzle.

always pretty plants and flowers at Saughton

young LTT

GVW lays an egg (while mayfly or similar watches)

freshly laid GVW egg

whitethroat posed reluctantly for 0.65 of a second and then disappeared

The fields around Murrayfield were freshly mown and full of starlings. These birds have gone through massive declines in numbers since I was a boy so it was good to see maybe 50~60 picking up worms and feeding offspring. We'd get fairly close to them and then a dog would run in their direction and they'd all fly up into trees before descending to another bit of the park. They shine better in sunlight. (Me too!)

adult collecting worms

juvenile - same shape but without dark iridescent plumage

or yellow beak

I watched every inch of the WoL for dippers. I hoped to see the adults feeding young. The closest was this juvenile who was old enough to feed itself. Nearly adult plumage but just slightly different. It wasn't bothered by our presence, but again the light was terrible.

real art

This robin looked like it was also feeding young and didn't have the time to wonder 
why humans collected together all their rubbish and put it in a gallery

female orange tip

female mallard at the Dean Village (upstream) weir

Undeniably the best part of the day was the goosander family. Alan C had spotted them swimming upstream while out with his camera and we saw him (and them) around the St Marks Bridge which gave us a decent overhead view of the birds fishing. We watched them for 10 minutes or more. Well I did. Mary went and sat in the park talking to the crows. I made the most of this one bright spot. Right that's done, I can clear them back off the hard drive! No maps, no more complaining. Till next time!

goosander video

soundtrack: warm wing by Patrick Avalon