Take a look at my wings!

T and I visited Riccarton Loch this afternoon on the campus of Heriot Watt University on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Neither of us had been there before and we were checking out if there were cygnets. Sadly there were none from this year: it seems there had been three at one stage, but we didn't find out what happened to them. However, there was a cygnet from last year, now bigger than both its parents, and still accepted as part of the family - they preened and swam about together.

There were also a lot of mallards and we reckoned that this was one of this year's young ones, having a good splash about and still growing in its flight feathers.

There were also one moorhen and quite a number of black headed gulls on the pond and some oyster catchers were flying about and being generally raucous in their usual fashion.

I expect most people would have been bored stiff, but we thoroughly enjoyed our low-key birdwatching on a very pleasant afternoon!