Goosander in Newhaven and wading birds in Cramond, Scotland

In August, while attending the Edinburgh Festival, I took a second day off to visit a couple of small towns on the edge of the Firth of Forth in East Lothian and just a short bus journey from the centre of Edinburgh.  It was a cloudy dull day, but not raining.

The first place I called at was Newhaven, near Leith, and below is a view of the harbour.  At first, I thought that the birds in the harbour were all gulls.  But I was mistaken!

Much to my delight, there was a Goosander!  One minute it was there and the next it wasn't as it kept diving for food.  Luckily I managed to get this photograph of it and have been told that it is a juvenile.

I was with a couple of friends and we had lunch in a pub in Newhaven.  Afterwards one went back to Edinburgh to see a show and one stayed with me.  We got a bus along the coast to the next small town and then walked along the towpath to Cramond, where there was a huge beach.

There is a long row of anti-submarine pylons across the beach between the mainland and a small island that was used for defence purposes during WWII.  Many gulls and wading birds were wandering around on the wet sand.

 An Oystercatcher was doing a balancing act - standing on one leg and stretching out it's black-and-white wing.

Two Curlews with long curved beaks were searching for food.

A group of Redshanks were paddling in a stream that ran across the beach..

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.

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.

Gannets on Bass Rock, North Berwick, Scotland

Last week I went with a large group of friends to Edinburgh for the Festival.  We spent 6 nights in University student flats near the Pleasance Courtyard and we all had a great time.

I did not want to miss out on bird-watching while I was in Scotland, so made sure to take some time off from the shows and hustle-and-bustle of an extremely busy Edinburgh.  Last year some of us went to North Berwick for the day and I was amazed and very pleased to discover the delights of a boat trip round Bass Rock to see the thousands of gannets covering the island.  We went again last Tuesday and, again, it was a hot and sunny day - just right for a trip to the sea-side.

It is a short train ride from Edinburgh Waverley station to North Berwick and then about 15 minute walk from the station to the harbour.  We boarded Sula II for the first trip round Bass Rock at 12.00 noon.  The present boat has been running since 1972 and is built from Honduras mahogany.   It is unique among the boats sailing from North Berwick.  The name "Sula" comes from the Latin, Sula bassanus, now Morus bassanus, which is a species of gannet, of which many thousands inhabit the Bass Rock.

The photograph below shows the rock as we approach it.  It is covered with white moving objects, which look just like flowers from the distance.

When the boat got near to the rock, we could see that all the surfaces were covered with truly beautiful gannets and their chicks.  The juveniles take several years to reach adult-hood, so some were fluffy and white, some were fluffy and white/grey mix, some were grey and some were white and almost adult.

I think that the adult gannets have beautiful faces and colouring.  I love them!

It was just staggering to see so many birds covering any surface on the rock that would hold them.

Obviously, not all the gannets were sitting on the rock.  There were thousands flying around the rock and floating in the sea.  In the photograph below, I managed to capture a juvenile gannet in flight.

We sailed right round the island and there were gannets everywhere.

It is impossible to describe the feeling of seeing thousands of gannets on the rock, in the sea and flying around in the air above us.  It was absolutely amazing!  Below is a photograph of the old cannon that is on top of Bass Rock, with birds flying around in all directions.  There used to be a prison on the island and I guess the cannon was part of the rock's protection.

We sailed all the way round the Rock and I was fascinated with all the gannets flying above us.  I had made sure that I had a windproof jacket with a hood with me, which I had put on.  As the Captain said when we set sail, anything that comes from the sky is not snow!  

The lighthouse is now unmanned and the ruins on the old prison are below it.  Gannets cover the rocks on this side of the island too and many thousands are circling in the sky.

What an amazing experience and one that I will not forget in a hurry.  I enjoyed changing the crowds of people in Edinburgh for the crowds of gannets in North Berwick.

After fish and chips sitting outside in the sun and a walk along the beach, we headed back to the station for the journey back to Edinburgh and another Festival show.

The next day, I checked the Sula II's sailing on that Tuesday and discovered that the next trip at 2pm only managed to go halfway round the Rock before they had to turn back as the wind was too strong for them to continue - so we were very lucky to have gone on the noon sailing.