Day 1

Inspired by a brief Twitter exchange with the owner of What Birds I've Seen Today who lives quite close to me, I've created this as a place to record the assorted wildlife that finds its way into or overflies our garden.My "main" blog - Riding the Waves to Eternity - will remain as my online diary.

At some point over the next few days I'll also sort out the formatting of this blog - I've adopted a standard template for now to get things going.

We've been in this house on the side of Corstorphine Hill in Edinburgh for sixteen years now I think. We get a lot of foxes and the inevitable cats coming through the garden (and a couple of badgers in the street) and the occasional frog. Squirrels are less common since the arrival of the buzzards on Corstorphine Hill and we also see mice from time to time at one of the birdfeeders. The main visitors are birds and over the years I have kept a running list of them. The full list to date is:

House Sparrow Tree Sparrow Dunnock Wren Robin Wheatear Nightingale Blue Tit Great Tit Coal Tit Long Tailed Tit Chaffinch Greenfinch Bullfinch

Starling Blackbird Song Thrush Mistle Thrush Fieldfare Magpie Jackdaw Crow Raven Wood Pigeon Collared Dove Great Spotted Woodpecker Herring Gull Sparrowhawk

and overflying:

Swallow
Swift
Kestrel
Common Buzzard
Grey Heron.

We've had Waxwings nearby though not in our garden and a neighbour reports Goldfinch and Tawny Owl.

So that's the first post done! More as we get it and as I remember. It will probably not be a daily update but I hope it will be regular and also include photographs. I'm particularly interested in the Corstorphine Hill Buzzards which have been resident and breeding for three years now I think. At one point last year there were seven of them in the skies, a couple of them so high that I couldn't see them except through binoculars. I'm hoping to spend more time watching them this year.