Peacocks at Edinburgh's Prestonfield House

Last month, on my last day in Edinburgh, I walked from the student flat where I was staying to Prestonfield House - and the two places could not be any more different as Prestonfield House is Edinburgh's most luxurious 5-star hotel and even has its own helipad!  It was built in 1687 as the grand baroque home of the Lord Provost and in the decade since it had a lavish reworking by it's owner, James Thomson, it has gathered a mass of celebrity fans and virtually every award going - from Hotel of the Year to a listing among Tatler's Top 20 Hotels.

I went there in order to check it out as there is an excellent restaurant, Rhubarb, in the hotel.  My friends and I have already eaten in the Garden Room at the Witchery, another of James Thomson's great restaurants, and which is located right by Edinburgh Castle.  But I also went because a friend's daughter was married there a few years ago (it is a wonderful wedding location) and he told me that there were peacocks living there - and I am a sucker for seeing those wonderful birds.

Prestonfield is supposed to be situated only five minutes from the Royal Mile, but that is if you are driving, and I doubt if you could make it there that fast in a car.  It took me nearly an hour to walk there from an area very near to the Royal Mile.  The hotel is surrounded by twenty acres of gardens and parkland, sits right on the edge of Holyrood Park and there is a great view of Arthur's Seat from the grounds.  I doubt that many, if any, people enter the drive on foot.

The photograph below shows one side of the building.

This photograph shows the garden at the other side of the building where, appropriately enough, there is a patch of rhubarb, after which the restaurant is named.  Since it was built, the house has changed hands many times and, during the 1700's, the then owner, who took a particular interest in horticultural propagation, was accorded a gold medal for his successful introduction of rhubarb to Scotland.  No doubt, this must be the reason for the restaurant's name.

At the end of this part of the garden, for weddings on a grand scale, there are Prestonfield's historic circular Georgian stables - the capital's ultimate venue.

Below is the view from the circular stables, across the garden, to the house - very impressive!

Information given to me by a very kind member of staff at the hotel states that, half a century ago, the house remembered its past reputation for hospitality and opened as a hotel.  Stars of the sixties, seventies and eighties delighted in its tranquil setting, its unique architecture, its handsome antiques and precious artworks.  Sandie Shaw walked barefoot across the marble floor of the front hall.  Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher each dined at Prestonfield under the watchful eyes of early family portraits.  Sean Connery, Elton John and Catherine Zeta Jones all partied the night away.  And Oliver Reed raised the hell for which he was so very well known.  

Now, new life has been breathed into the stately old pile following its acquisition by James Thomson, owner of Edinburgh's celebrated Witchery and Tower restaurants.  The patina of age has been gently lifted from the house and its treasures; its fading splendours have been sympathetically restored; its atmosphere transferred from one of faded grandeur to a new exuberance.  It is ready to be rediscovered, once more as Edinburgh's most handsome house in the city's most wonderful setting.

Now to the other reason for my visit - the peacocks.  As I said earlier, my friend's daughter was married at Prestonfield House a few years ago and he told me to go and see the house and peacocks, if I had a chance.  I was told by the staff that there were 3 peacocks roaming wild in the grounds - but it was a dull drizzly day and so they were in hiding!  All that way, just for them to hide from me.  However, the hotel had just bought 10 peacock chicks and they were in a small aviary in the grounds.  I had a hard time finding them and had to be escorted to the aviary by one of the handsome black-kilted doormen - hardly a hardship!  I was expecting small peachicks - but these were almost as large as fully grown peacocks.  

In the couple of photographs below, a squirrel had shimmied down the tree trunk in the middle of the aviary and was cheekily eating the peacock's food.

No doubt, when they are the right age, they will be let loose to join the other 3 peacocks that roam round the gardens and grounds of the hotels.  I was rather surprised to find that there are only peacocks - no peahens - especially as the hotel is used as a wedding venue!

Next year, when my friends and I are once more at the Edinburgh Festival, I hope we will manage to go to Rhubarb restaurant for a lovely meal in great surroundings - and find out if the peacocks are having a good time in their new home.

Usual suspects on the loch and fish in an Edinburgh pond

On one of the sunny days while I was at the Edinburgh Festival in August, I went for a walk in Holyrood Park.  I ignored all the tourists queuing to go into Holyrood House and, instead, headed for St. Margaret's loch - a small lake that was a short walk from the house and hidden by surrounding trees and hills.  In fact, as I did not have any idea where the lake was, I had to ask a man in a kiosk in the car park and he very kindly pointed me in the right direction and also gave me a map of the park.

I was interested in finding out what type of birds I would find on the loch and was hoping to find something different, but there were only the usual suspects - swans, ducks and gulls.  In the photograph below the re is a young Herring gull, but I really am not sure what type of duck is in the foreground.  Is it a female black duck or just a mallard?   Can anyone identify it for me?

Also on the loch were lots of black-headed gulls.  This one is in its winter plumage and therefore does not have a black head.  I love the shape of its feathers as it sails along on the surface of the water.

Below is a view of St. Margaret's loch from one end.  As you can see, there was not really much in the way of wildlife on it during my visit.  Also, the birds kept disappearing from sight when someone at the other end of the lake was feeding them with unsuitable food.

It did not take long for me to walk round the loch as it is not very large.  I sat on a bench by the water for a while and had some lunch before deciding to walk through the park along the path in the valley below Arthur's Seat, which is a very high hill that can be seen from almost everywhere in Edinburgh and is much too tall for me to attempt to climb.  Even the thought of it makes me feel bad!

This is the view from the park at the start of my walk, over the rooftops of Edinburgh, past the Firth of Forth and all the way to Berwick Law - another tall hill - in North Berwick, which is on the coast and several miles from Edinburgh.

Below is a view of Arthur's Seat that I took at the start of my walk through the valley.  I think that there are several ways of walking to the top and some of them seem to involve thousands of steps!

At the end of my walk there was a view from the park of Edinburgh Castle, which is perched high on a rock in the centre of the city.

I left the park and then had to face a long walk along the pavement back to the student flats in the centre of the old town.  The walk was livened up by a view of pretty pink water lilies and golden fish, which I presumed were koi carp, in a pond belonging to the offices of Lloyds bank.  They even had a garden with benches for their staff to sit in, but where the public were not allowed to go.

Needless to say, after the walk to the loch, through the valley in the park and back along the road to the student flat, I was exhausted and needed a cup of tea and a long lie down.

Redshanks and Mallards enjoying Musselburgh lagoons in Scotland

I went to Edinburgh in August in order to attend the Edinburgh Festival during it's second week, but took some time off from city life in order to do some bird-watching.  My Bass Rock (North Berwick) gannets and Musselburgh oystercatchers have had their photographs posted in two previous blogs and I am now trying to catch up with the other birds I saw while I was in Scotland.

I spent a pleasant afternoon in Musselburgh, at Levenhall Links nature reserve, after having trouble finding it - spending about half-an-hour longer than necessary during the walk from the centre of the town to the race-course and the reserve that was hidden behind it.  However, it was very rewarding, even though the birds were mainly in the distance at the other end of the lagoons.

The nearest birds were a few Redshanks, that were busy paddling and looking for food in the rather picturesque lagoons.  They, too, really were too far away for good photographs, but were a lot nearer than the hundreds of oystercatchers that were covering the lagoons

Two Redshanks are shown below, knee deep in the water, and one has it's back to me (as usual).

The Redshank below looks as though it is admiring the lovely grasses that are growing round the edge of the lagoon.

Here there are three Redshanks, all looking for food.  I love the pattern of grasses, algae and reflections in the water of the lagoon.

Two of the three Redshanks in the photograph below are exercising their wings.  Actually one of these Redshanks was limping and I hope it will be OK.

After the wing exercises, it's back to searching for food.

There were also a couple of Mallards who were enjoying scooping up algae, or whatever, from the surface of the water.

In this picture, I have my normal view of a duck's bum.

Later, it was back to the wading birds.  Here is a rather fat Redshank that is standing on one leg.

On leaving the Levenhall Links nature reserve, I had to walk near the edge of a lake - or loch, as it is called in Scotland - where I found a pretty Grey Wagtail hopping along the rocks at the edge of the water.  It kept trying to hide from me, but I managed to get a photograph of it anyway.

In order to get back to the centre of Musselburgh, I walked along the footpath by the River Esk where I encountered a very common sea-bird, a Herring Gull, that was standing on one leg on a wall near the river.  I have added it's photograph because I love it's yellow beak and beady eye.