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...

So now I'm super far behind on this! This'll just be a quick [ish] catch up from things that happened in June, mostly because its more...

Apologies for the lateness of this - the summer has really been getting away with me! Between starting a new job, sorting out the...

It's been a really busy month, with lots going on in the garden so this is only part one! First up was re-doing the front path. We...

I was initially going to write about some amusing excerpts about the current hedgehog dating regime; until something else occured over...

I can't say for sure, but I counted 60 individual flowering heads...and there were many I missed... I think the neighbours are getting...

I really don't know where the time goes at the moment! It [personally] has been another rather stressful month, with uni deadlines,...

January feels like a long time ago now. Although equally it feels like February went by super fast...how the heck is it March already???...