Author: Robert MillPage 6 of 7
I saw a Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) on the Camellia in front of the glasshouse range on 6 March. Heather McHaffie saw a bumblebee on the rhododendron beside…
The warm spring sunshine at lunchtime today brought out not just one but three different species of hoverfly, the first ones seen in the Garden this year. The…
Birds Thirty-seven species of birds were recorded in the ‘Botanics’ in February 2014. Highlights were one or two Goosanders on the Pond on three days (9th, 10th,…
A pair of Goosanders (Mergus merganser) were on the main Pond today; the drake was also present in the early morning of 10 February. Today they spent a…
Just over 350 species of invertebrate were recorded at the Edinburgh Botanics in 2013. Of these, just under 200, or 55%, had not been recorded in the Garden…
On Thursday 6 February three horticultural staff and I had the very special privilege of watching an adult female Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus having a long bath in the…
BIRDS Thirty-nine bird species were recorded in the Edinburgh ‘Botanics’ in January 2014. They included a possibly wintering Chiffchaff, heard calling (and trying to sing briefly) once (20th),…
I thought I’d recorded no insects in the Botanics this week, but when downloading the week’s images from my camera this evening I found this shot of an…
Yesterday morning almost the first thing I heard when coming through the North Gate was the call of a Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita)! It then gave a very brief,…
The figures are at last all in and 62 bird species were recorded in the Botanics in Edinburgh during 2013. This is one fewer than 2012 when 63…
Today I saw my first insect of 2014 in the Botanics. No ordinary fly or early bee; it was a STONEFLY of the genus Leuctra (needle flies), almost…
At our staff conference today Mandy Haggith, poet in residence at the Botanics for the month of July, commented about the lack of butterflies she had seen in…
…. or you may tread on a solitary bee emerging from its nest hole! If you look down at the cracks between the paving stones in the Alpines…
This hoverfly is Epistrophe eligans. I photographed it on a leaf in the Rock Garden at lunch-time today. It is apparently a scarce species in Scotland, but I…
This year’s annual emergence of St Mark’s Flies (Bibio marci) has begun today. A lot were seen flying above the path between the Rock Garden and Woodland Garden…
The Edinburgh Garden’s BioBlitz is now less than a month away, and large banners advertising the event are now up at the East and West Gates. The BioBlitz…
A brood of Mallard ducklings hatched on the main Pond at the end of last week. On Friday I counted about seven but I only saw about half…
On Friday I saw three Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) on the lawn west of the Pond. This rather grainy out of focus image taken from quite a distance away…
This Greater Bee-fly Bombylius major was seen hovering above the Scottish Heather information panel in the Scottish Heath Garden at lunchtime today. It finally settled on the panel…
It might not feel like it today, but we had a wonderful warm sunny day in the Garden on Tuesday 7th May. During an early morning bird walk…