After everything had been potted up So, the pond has been in place for a month now. Given the confidence and self-assuredness of the local wildlife populus I'm actually surprised to say that's it's actually taken this long for beasties to move in or at least acclimatise to it. To be fair, it's taken a while for the water to warm up [as we had a smattering of wintery weather upon completion] and spring takes a while to start in earnest in Scotland at the best of times. To be f

[Disclaimer: You might want to reduce the sound on your media device when listening to the latter of these videos...otherwise you'll definitely get some funny looks!] So, we've been making the fatal mistake [again] of leaving the peanut feeder outside overnight. Despite the fact that the original target audience for this facility was the squirrels, it has been relentlessly used by other occupants. Although some are polite and have been using the lidded system correctly...

It's been a rather crazy, chaotic and hectic couple of weeks both in the garden and in my personal life so this delayed blog is a mere sampling of some of the activities that occurred in April. That one time I had all my pigeons in a row... Whilst pond works have been ongoing, the other occupants of the garden have not been holding back in getting on with their annual activities. From early in the month blackbirds and wood pigeons have been vying for the best landing spots to

So. After approximately 5 years in the waiting with relatively fragmented planning, I set out one Saturday afternoon to dig a garden pond. I've had the area of the garden ear-marked for a while, it's a small space between the perimeter wall and the neighbour's fence; north facing and sheltered from the blasting south-westerly winds by a large overhanging Escallonia, a Pieris 'Forest Flame' and a small native Elder. When we first moved in the area was pretty overgrown, with iv

Well, what a gloomy winter we've emerged from! Not exactly cold nor wet enough to be truly dreich ; but persistently cloudy with mizzle [drizzle for those not familiar with Scots - which proudly claims to have over 100 words for rain]. Generally, a rather unpleasant start to the year - weatherwise. I noted in my nature journal that on February 12th we saw the sun for the first time in about four weeks. Turns out we weren't the only ones as the BBC ran a full story about how

No...not that Big Bird... The RSPB Big Bird Watch was a bit of a wash-out this year. Despite having a massive note about it on the fridge door - I completely forgot about it until the Sunday, and what with other morning commitments meant that it was early afternoon before I got round to counting anything - by which time all the birds who had been about their daily business in the morning [and yes I do mean ALL, there were many, I saw them] had retreated to the safety of their

Getting a bit behind on this again! This comes of working and commuting in the daylight hours - so by the time I've got home it's often too late to see any wildlife! This year's challenge is to keep a wildlife journal - hopefully this will keep me up to date with what's happening when/where - as otherwise I just tend to write my musings and sightings on random pieces of paper which get lost or converted into shopping lists.... Winter cosmos So far, the winter has been relati

For me autumn starts in August: when schools go back, Edinburgh festival goers lurk in the city streets proclaiming about the warm 'summer' weather and yet, towards the end of the month there starts to be a chill in the air in the mornings. I think that by starting autumn early, Scotland does autumn really well. It's a tranistional season, meandering from the warm sunny days into the cooler and longer nights; you can start to appreciate the sunshine, not only for its heat [ye

I'm not sure if the beasts are having their young later in the year, or whether they're already on a second brood because of the warm weather; but in the space of about a week we saw several animals with offspring trailing after them. First up were the foxes, picked up on our ring camera [much easier than faffing about with the trail camera, although placement is a little trickier as larger beast can knock it over]. The first video clip shows a youngster approaching a pile of

Chanonry Point, Moray Firth - Waiting for Dolphins I thought I'd backtrack a little bit this month, by explaining a bit more about why I came to have this page. Believe it or not I originally bought the domain name [ www.theurbanecologist.co.uk ] way back in 2014. At the time I was working/studying as an Ecologist Trainee with the Scottish Wildlife Trust [SWT] along with 9 others on a pretty cool programme called 'Developing Ecological Surveying Skills/ Experts for Nature'.

Sassy's Back!!! This is the best news as I noted the absence of the local squirrel populace way back in June [see "Bird, Bath & Beyond"]. The confident, classy Sassy re-materialised at the end of July, only to vanish again in August...appearing again at the end of the month and this time with a young squirrel in tow... [ Caution - cuteness overload ahead ] D'awwww And then there were two... Sibling snuffles in the sunshine Then three... [although impossible to capture on film

Peanut Lover Larry [Blog posts are like buses...nothing for ages and then two come along at once] So, I mentioned back in early July...

Following on from the special on bees, I thought we'd have a wee focus on the garden minibugs and beasties this month. I seem to end up...

[Credits to M on the catchy title.] [M also notes that he likes having the slightly mysterious 'James Bond' - style code name; thus...

Apparently there are 11 types of bees in the Edinburgh area. Or at least this was according to a poster I was reading in the the doctors...

As I write this, the world's most annoying male sparrow is chirping outside my office. It has been enthusiastically chirping since...

Lots has been happening in the garden in April! Water droplet on a lupin leaf I always try and get some grass weeding done early in the...

It's been a cruel and bitter winter. Not in a meterological sense - in that regard it has been unseasonably, unprecedentedly [post 2020...

Well I'm back to be able to record and report back at any rate...don't think the wildlife actually went away...they were just left to run...

To my lovely blog readers, In case you have been wondering what's been going on [like this squirrel] and are tearing your hair out at the...