Launching the Great Park Hunt

Today I had the luxury of attending a Wild Reekie event without leading it. Heili shares my enthusiasm for urban greenspaces and having come to many of my events, suggested the idea of trying to visit every park in Edinburgh. She then discovered there are around 150!

But you do a thing by starting it, and so today Heili led a trip to King George V park in Canonmills. Given its fascinating history and its closeness to the centre of Edinburgh, it is very little known: several of the group had never been before.

Heili had done great research on the history of the park and was able to tell us all about its industrial history; its incarnations as a curling pond, Victorian gymnasium, football ground and award-winning children's playpark in 1989; and its periods of neglect.

We peered into the Scotland Street tunnel and strolled down the route of the old railway line to Canonmills.

Sign up to hear about future Park Hunts as well as other Wild Reekie events on our Meetup Page. We have made a Park Hunt Reward Card, so if you collect five parks with us you'll get a prize!

Mini bioblitz in the Astley Ainslie

We were invited by local resident Jean to do a mini preliminary survey of the biodiversity of the grounds of the Astley Ainslie hospital in Morningside. The aim - apart from having fun - was to begin to raise awareness of its importance as a green corridor through the city for wildlife and people. The site is owned by the NHS but is likely to be redeveloped in future, so understanding its importance as part of Edinburgh Living Landscape is timely.

Five of us spent a leisurely couple of hours exploring and I listed all the species we identified in that time. It was not a scientific survey, but we all had smatterings of wildflower knowledge, were all trying to learn our bumblebees, and John could recognise birds from their song which as far as I'm concerned is a skill bordering on magic.

We easily made a list of 66 species, over 50 of which were native:

1. Wych elm
2. Common lime
3. Ash
4. Silver birch
5. Holly
6. Alder
7. Elder
8. Scots pine
9. Goat willow
10. Yew
11. Pedunculate oak
12. Rowan
13. Ivy 
14. Stinging nettle
15. Goosegrass
16. Bramble
17. Raspberry
18. Creeping buttercup
19. Meadow buttercup
20. Ribwort plantain
21. White clover
22. Red clover
23. Lesser stitchwort
24. Wood avens
25. Willowherb
26. Wood forget-me-not
27. Herb robert
28. Meadow cranesbill
29. Garlic mustard
30. Dandelion
31. Sanicle
32. St Johns Wort
33. Coltsfoot
34. Common ragwort
35. Broom
36. Foxglove
37. Daisy
38. Cocksfoot grass
39. Wood pigeon
40. Jackdaw
41. Magpie
42. Wren
43. Robin
44. Blackcap
45. Goldcrest
46. Swift
47. Song thrush
48. Blackbird
49. Chiff chaff
50. Wood wasp
51. Common carder bee
52. Buff tailed bumblebee
53. Tree bumblebee
54. Rabbit
55. Grey squirrel
56. Sycamore
57. Norway maple
58. Horse chestnut 
59. Sweet chestnut
60. Beech
61. Turkey oak
62. Deodar cedar
63. Blue Atlas cedar
64. Rhododendron ponticum
65. Monkey puzzle
66. Green alkanet
67. Himalayan balsam
68. Japanese knotweed

We didn't know our beetles! Photo by Kay

Some of the non-natives were superb trees from when the grounds were formal parkland. There were large numbers of the recently-arrived Tree bumblebee. We also noted the invasive Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed, and arranged to contact the Council about the latter.

The range of old trees was spectacular, as was the diversity of flowers, including woodland flowers like Sanicle which indicates ancient woodland. There were plenty more flowers, grasses, mosses, ferns and invertebrates which we didn't have time or skill to identify. We felt we'd had a glimpse into a treasury on our doorstep.

You can see future events and sign up on the Wild Reekie Meetup page. You can also follow me on twitter at @eleanormharris or email me at eleanormharris@gmail.com. 

Bunny and rhododendron, by Kay

Discovering Bauk's View

Bauk's View used to be a car park off the Pleasance, but in 1998 the local residents decided to turn it into a wildlife garden. In 2000, work had been completed and Edinburgh had a new public park, near the centre of the city but with a spectacular outlook to Arthur's Seat.

I'd spotted it a few weeks ago on the Edinburgh Outdoors twitter feed, and was struck that as a life-long resident of Edinburgh I'd never heard of it, let alone visited it. So I organised the simplest and perhaps most Meetup-ish of Wild Reekie Meetups: let's meet at Bauk's View and make a species list.

It was also one of the most effective. None of us were ecologists, but in an hour we'd counted 30 species and 5 more approximate identifications, and discovered that between us we had quite a lot of pooled knowledge. Everyone contributed and everyone learned something.

Here's our modest list -- just a hint of the diversity of life if you stop for a moment to look:

Blackthorn

1. Blackthorn, Prunus spinosa
2. Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna
3. Seven spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata
4. Holly, Ilex aquifolium
5. Honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum
6. Primrose, Primula vulgaris
7. Robin, Erithacus rubecula
8. Black slug, Arion ater
9. Woodlouse (there are lots of species of woodlouse and I can't distinguish them)
10. Millipede (also not identified to species level: we need an outing with the British Miriapod and Isopod Group...)
11. Bumblebee (now, these I really ought to learn!)
12. Bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta (no doubt x hispanica)
13. Sticky willie (Cleavers), Galium aparine
14. Stinging nettle, Urtica dioica
15. Common whitlow grass, Erophila verna
16. Lady's mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris
17. Snakeshead fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris
18. House sparrow, Passer domesticus
19. Cowslip, Primula veris
20. Dandelion, Taraxacum
21. Broad-leaved dock, Rumex obtusifolius (it turns out both dandelions and dock are also diverse at species level)
22. Blackbird, Turdus merula
23. Feral pigeon, Columba livia
24. Magpie, Pica pica
25. Wood pigeon, Columba palumbus
26. Bramble, Rubus fruticosus
27. Great tit (by song), Parus major
28. Springy turf-moss, Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus
29. White clover, Trifolium repens
30. Meadow cranesbill, Geranium pratense
31. Herb robert, Geranium robertianum
32. Dunnock (Hedge sparrow), Prunella modularis
33. Jacob's ladder, Polemonium caeruleum
34. Melancholy thistle, Cirsium helenioides
35. Greater black backed gull, Larus marinus

Snakeshead fritillary

You can record sightings using a smartphone on the Atlas of Living Scotland database. This helps provide 'big data' for wildlife organisations and scientists to use in research. You can read about Bauk's View on the Edinburgh Council parks pages. 

I hope to organise more 'discover a park and make a species list' events with Wild Reekie: follow our Meetup page to be notified of future adventures. 

Eleanor M Harris, @eleanormharris