Two walks today - one around Craigend and Gallows ponds at Mugdock, the other along the Cart and around Rosshall Park. Highlights of the first were singing Chiffchaff and a couple of pairs of Greylag Geese. Notable records along the Cart included a pair of Mistle Thrushes seeing off a couple of Magpies and a Grey Wagtail hiding in the shelter of a waterside Willow.
The Loch of the Lowes Osprey pair have produced their first egg (being claimed by the SWT as the first of the year for Scotland although I notice that the Tweed Valley pair have also started to lay). Neither Loch Garten or the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park appear to have settled pairs yet. The Morayshire female is making slow progress through France.
On an unrelated topic, an article in today's Hexham Courant reports that a staggering fifteen and a half thousand Grey Squirrels have been killed in the Tynedale area of Northern England in the last 15 months in an attempt to save the Red Squirrel in the area.