best part of the day: grade A, grey day

The last day of Jan, the 31st was much better than anticipated. The weather was forecast shiiiiite again so I hadn't planned going out. But a slight brightness in the sky lured me out, and the plan was to get some steps and burn some calories, even if there was heehaw to photo. The venue was Lochend Park; after seeing a post on Lothian Birdwatch (and hearing gossip elsewhere) suggesting the locals had been out feeding the herons with mince and tinned fish and that a large group of birds would arrive daily at feeding time.

stock doves as I arrived

I definitely neglect Lochend Park; even though it is less than a mile away. The surrounding housing can be a bit low income in places and I associate the place with junkies and neds although on this occasion there was nothing like that. It was just dogwalkers, some local families and mums pushing buggies with kids and feeding the ducks. Quite a few locals were feeding the residents; turfing out large amounts of random birdfood onto the pondside. It seemed to include last night's uneaten Chinese carry-outs as well as sliced supermarket loaves and dried corn kernals.

I took the usual assorted seeds, nuts and bread although was very discreet about distribution. There is a pigeon tree with about 60~100 pigeons with eagle-eyed sentries to watch for handouts, and if you throw a crumb of bread anywhere in the park they will be on top of you within seconds. Literally. I had them landing on my arms uninvited, even though I had stopped throwing food 5 mins earlier. One landed on and rode my backpack as I walked the pond perimeter. They are not shy!

heronry

The last time I visited was 50 weeks ago (14-02-25) when Warriston was closed and I popped along to Lochend to photo the local rat population. I had very similar photo-results to today: lots of tufted ducks, herons, geese and waterfowl, some garden birds and loads of rats. Despite my snooty dismissal of it as a desolate urban sink-hole, there was a surprising amount of wildlife there.

desolate urban sinkhole

To prove that point one of the first things I noticed was this little grebe just a couple of metres away at the pond edge. It seemed uncharacteristically calm about my proximity and I hurried to get photos before it remembered to dive and swim quickly away and behave more to form. Never saw it again despite regular sweeps of the pond.

dabchick or little grebe
dull brown in Winter - more colourful in Summer

there were a few pairs of greylags
not many and they were quite possessive about any food being handed out

what a schnoz!

quite a few coots about

the pigeon tree

quick lads food spotted at 2 o'clock

fancy footwork

mobs of pigeons will land on the railings

greylag

There are a load of trees in the centre of the pond. It looks like it was previously a low-lying area with lots of trees which became flooded and has become a pond with trees emerging like a mangrove swamp. The herons have formed a heronry here, building and occupying nests from around now until the have chicks arrive in early Spring. There is a Jurassic Park feel to it with these large dinosaur-like birds sitting among the trees and flying over when someone dumps a carrier bag of food on the pondside.

Herons aren't a favourite bird of mine. I can't quite forgive them for dining on duckling chicks and riverside rats and mice. However they have a visual spectacle and so I end up taking their photos more often than the size of my love for them. And also just to record how many there were. Possibly about 30 spread up and down the pond, mostly in the submerged trees on nests and perched on branches, inactive, snoozing and preening.

quite a few squirrels

As well as a pond there is a bit of muddy grass and trees in the park. Which encourages garden and woodland birds. I was very pleased to see maybe a dozen redwings hopping around the grass looking for worms and bugs to eat. I hoped they would fly into a low tree and pose nicely but when they did fly off it was too high and into the centre of dense tree cover. They let me get quite close while they hopped around the grass but there's only so many photos you can post of them on grass and I think I have reached that limit here...

another favourite, a stock dove

I did 2.5 laps of the pond. First time round I noticed there were 2 pairs of teal ducks at the Southern end of the pond. They were rooting about in the water and grass and not particularly easy to photo. They are about half the size of a mallard and not dissimilar in looks esp the females. They are excellent wee ducks if you can get photos. They weren't really shy but favoured areas with poor lighting. It was a mostly overcast day so light was at a premium. And they were keeping to the murkier places round the edge of the pond. I had to reset the ISO to take up the slack. I started at ISO3200 and upped that to 5000 for the faster tufties and then second lap past the teal cranked it to 8000. Not ideal but only way to avoid movement blur. The teal are quite nervy active wee ducks constantly on the move.

Last year here I remembered being able to capture photos of rats easily. There were several points you could see them travelling back and forth along the pond-side, enjoying the excess food left for birds. I photo-ed a family of four out on a picnic! On this occasion they were nearly invisible. I saw just this one female and got photos before she made a run for cover. I waited for her to reappear but to no avail.

On the second time round I saw another similar rat at the same place or perhaps this one again. I reckon the higher heron population has either been eating them, or eating so many of them that they will have adapted to the predator presence and be keeping more well hidden in daylight hours. Perhaps becoming mostly nocturnal to avoid the herons' beaks. This is pure speculation based on significantly fewer sightings over just a couple of hours. Maybe there was just something good on Rat TV and they were all indoors watching.

not hanging about!

Mrs Rat goes for a run
soundtrack: Sonoran by M J Cole

a pondside dunnock

robin

great tit

herons on nests

wide shots taken with DJI Pocket

female tufted duck

At the North end there is something of a jetty. A young mum with a push-chair, two babies and three dogs (and a gold medal for keeping them all under control!) was throwing corn kernals (I think - uncooked popcorn maybe?) for the ducks which brought a load of tufties and a few geese over for me to photograph. I like how cheerful and daft the tufties look, as well as the males having iridescent greens and purples in their head plumage. I turned the ISO up to 5000 to accommodate their swifter ducking and diving.

male tufted duck

the pigeons looked on from the jetty barriers

grumpy greylag came over for a closer inspection

Canada goose

looking South to Arthur's Seat

coot

mix of pigeons and black-headed gulls
and possibly other gulls

On the second time round I had to increase the ISO to 8000 as the light was beginning to fade. I haven't de-noised the photos in post but the camera is very good at not having it show up unduly at these ISOs. I quite like the slightly faded and old film (when we used film in cameras!) look this gives the pics.

second rat of the day
or the one I saw earlier

a snoozing cormorant woke up briefly

more coots

moorhen

male redpoll

Nearly finished lap 2 and I saw a trio of sparrow-sized birds on the grass up the North side of the pond. I moved in slowly and they let me get close enough to see they were redpolls. I can't remember if I've ever photo-ed redpolls although pals have taken their pics in Warriston. Very pleased to see them here, especially as I'd missed them first time round. There was a group of about a dozen finches making noise up a tree earlier but too distant to photo and identify well. I had thought greenfinches but might have been redpolls. These three flew up into a tree at a noise elsewhere but then returned to feeding and hopping around on the grass and not that bothered as long as there were 3 or 4 metres between us. Again almost impossible to get a worthwhile photo of anything sat on the grass.

female doesn't have the red cap

a squirrel fancier was feeding the squirrels

A family were feeding the herons - or at least throwing handfuls of whatever to a part of the pond where three or four herons had arrived and were tentatively coming forward for treats. I noticed one lean forward and retrieve something slithery from underwater. Initially I thought it might have been a condom but in fact it turned out to be a fillet of fish - like a bit of haddock you might get from the fishmonger. I had heard a woman was feeding the herons mince and that they'd come out at the same time every day and queue up in anticipation. I didn't realise filleted fish was also on the menu!

fillet of fish!

I think this might have provoked some jealousy from the younger heron next door (on the left) who stood on the end of the same log the other heron was on. In no time it all kicked off and the two had an arm-waving beak-snapping contest that was more about drama and noise than doing any damage. I quickly got into position (initially I'd been too close and had to step back 5 yards to get it all in) while they warmed up and then recorded it in slo-mo, getting the best footage of the day with them both flapping furiously while making very sure that they didn't get close enough to actually make contact and risk doing any damage. They are quite large birds and have a sizeable wingspan. I thought a couple of passers-by were going to walk in front of the camera but happily they stopped to watch the performance as well. It was very much a case of being in the right palce at the right time.

a lot of movement but no actual contact

slo-mo video of herons jousting

That made a suitable finale to the day and although I started a third lap of the pond the light was fading and I thought I should get home before the vampires and zombies appear. I was very pleased to have had contact with redwings, redpolls and a dabchick when all I went out looking for was a rat or two and precious little else. A good spot for wildlife and no junkies or knife-wielding psychos on this occasion.

I had a bit of a diversion onto the cyclepath on the way home where I could hear lots of chirruping birds but there was no way to access the deep jaggy bushes in which they sang. However, a good day overall which showed me that contrary to my instincts it is possible to have fun and decent results on a day when the sun was mostly hidden behind a layer of low grey cloud. Hurray!