"Scottish Snippets"

"Colour Supplement"

8 April 2006

Each week the Scottish Snippets Newsletter includes a number of photographs which illustrate the weather, flora and fauna of the current week around Scotland. There are so many such graphics worth including that a separate "colour supplement" is created so as not to totally overload the Newsletter. Here is this week's crop!

Polyanthus

Despite the chilly weather, the spring flowers are managing somehow to cope. When the sun comes out, they create a welcome splash of colour. These Polyanthus were in bloom in the aptly-named Suntrap Garden on the edge of Edinburgh.

Grey Squirrel


Regular readers of this weekly Colour Supplement will know about the difficulties of keeping the local grey squirrels away from the seed feeders and peanut cake put out specifically for the wild birds that come to my garden. After searching the Web for a solution, I applied Vaseline grease to the branches and supporting wire. That has been effective, but the squirrels must have been tapping into Google for countermeasures and this one seems to have found a successful - if precarious - solution. The Web sites giving advice and solutions on this problem usually finish by saying "No matter how hard we humans try, the ingenious and acrobatic squirrels will usually win." Quite.

Princes Street, Edinburgh

Glaswegians joke that Princes Street in Edinburgh is only half-finished, with shops on one side and the gardens and castle on the other. As can be seen, the leaves are still not on any of the trees lining the gardens. Although the sun was shining when this picture was taken on Thursday, it was a very cold day, with a strong, biting wind.

Grey Wagtail

There are usually plenty of Grey Wagtails hopping along the edge of the water on many lochs and rivers in Scotland. There are fewer of the attractive Grey Wagtails, seen here at Drumpellier Country Park. Once again that cold wind was fluffing up the delicate feathers of this little bird. Grey Wagtail numbers declined rapidly in the 1970s but seem to be recovering, with around 34,000 breeding pairs. They are rarely seen further north than the central lowlands of Scotland.

Euphorbia

There are many different varieties of Euphorbia and they flower at various times of the year. This one was producing a spectacular impact near the entrance to the National Trust for Scotland Suntrap Garden on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Goldeneye

The male Goldeneye is a handsome bird but the camera caught it flapping its wings and rising out of the water. This is an action that it does fairly frequently after diving under water to feed.

Goldeneye

Having include the previous, unflattering portrait of the male Goldeneye, it was only fair to show one which shows off the attractive features of this bird!

If you want to look back at earlier editions of this Colour Supplement, there is an Index Page



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