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A range of photos taken over the last two months. The weather has been mixed so far this winter. Brief spells of snow that did not last long followed by very mild conditions up to 12c degrees, followed by a cold week of minus 8c to 10c below freezing. Large person sized snowball here reminiscent of the ones designed to melt indoors in an art gallery. Youngsters do it for free outdoors every winter.
Boxing Day. A walk in the snow up to Drumchapel. If the shops thought they would have good Boxing Day sales in Glasgow they might have been disappointed as most folk that day, including me, left their cars at home, the road conditions being too treacherous to drive for many in the morning with ice an added factor under the new snow. The Range car park here with only a few cars, many of them store worker vehicles probably.
As I like walking in the snow compared to rain or dull/grey conditions I was out and about. Forth and Clyde canal here on the way up to Drumchapel.
Golf course. As a non golfer the only time pedestrians get on a golf course for free is after a dump of snow so I always make for any in the vicinity.
Getting dark by 3 pm in the urban wilds of Glasgow.
Light fading. Winter afternoon.
A few days later it was mild again, the ice on the Forth and Clyde canal melted and the wildlife was eager for a meal. Five tufted ducks here. This was a walk with Alan linking up several parks: Knightswood, Dawsholm and Maryhill parks via the Forth and Clyde canal seeing places very familiar to me but mostly new for him.
Forth and Clyde Canal mural near Anniesland Cross. Life in 2025 presumably? Amazing what they can do with ancient DNA locked inside amber and the latest genetic/ cloning technology. A selfie with the past and present.
I,m presuming this is a pair of Red Breasted Mergansers, Very hard sometimes to tell them apart at distance from Goosanders but as the female here has a spiky back to her head, which only Mergansers have apparently, I,m going for that. (Mind you when I get up each morning my hair is all over the place as well- smoothed down with a comb minutes later. )
So far very familiar birds to both of us. In the deep woods of Dawsholm however I knew other birds might be around but as I wanted the surprise element I never told Alan about them. No point promising something in advance if it doesn't show up. I was always listening out for the musical sounds they make though. ( Like a squeaky dog toy being stepped on several times.)
But we were lucky and they did show up. Rose Ringed Parakeets. About half a dozen of them. Many UK cities have small wild colonies of these birds now, native to the foothills of the Himalayas and the Indian Sub-continent ( Pakistan, India, etc) so able to tolerate snow and ice to some extent. London has a large population but Glasgow's much smaller group has been spotted in Victoria Park, Knightswood Park, Dawsholm Park and The Garscube Estate Lands. Might be different small groups or the same ones as they are excellent fliers and very intelligent so they will go where the best food is.
Anyway I was delighted for Alan they appeared as they are a real splash of the exotic in grey winter Glasgow.
You can see here how they get the name Rose Ringed Parakeets as the ring is black at the front and rose coloured round the back. As I had several budgies, a wandering tortoise, a hamster, terrapins, and mice as a child, not all at the same time though, this was pure nostalgia for me remembering various pets over the years. At the moment, outside London, it's only small groups but if they start breeding on a large scale it might impact native wildlife. They do have predators though. Peregrines and Goshawks catch and eat them.
Even terrapins can be found living wild in the UK although they do not like freezing winters. This one, the size of an adult face was spotted by me several years ago in Kelvingrove Park pond. Although cute they will eat almost anything, even young bird chicks swimming on the surface can get pulled under, so they can soon decimate any pond they are in.
To make a roughly circular walk we returned via Maryhill Park, seen here with the Campsie Fells in the distance then Acre Road then the Garscube Estate Lands then Cairnhill Woods coming out at Westerton Train Station to cross over the bridge there back onto the canal and our eventual parking spot near the BMX Centre and Knightswood Park. Although Alan knows Glasgow pretty well this particular North West circuit was mostly new to him and he was impressed by how much wild land can be found within the heart of a major city by sticking to a green carpet of parks and canal pathways all the way round.
It's terrible how all those ex-pets get abandoned in the wild in countries which aren't suitable for them - that's how all those exotics will have got there. Good to see they're managing but the terrapins aren't doing much for the native wildlife and they must all be pretty miserable in our worst weather.
ReplyDeleteIf I was a female duck, I'd grow spikes on the back of my head too when you see how the drakes behave towards them!
I like snow, especially for walking - I just hate ice - just sooo dangerous! I honestly think all the shops should go back to closing on Boxing Day - it's ridiculous how some people can't manage a whole two days without shopping. I find any kind of shopping really boring personally and hate to have to do it!
I’ve heard of those parakeets many times but never managed to spot them!
ReplyDeleteHi Carol,
ReplyDeleteThe parakeets seem fairly happy anytime I've spotted them and they might be clever enough to find a tree hole or overhang to escape the worst of the rain. Much better than stuck in a cage. Who I felt really sorry for was the feral cats left behind in old rusting whaling sheds when they shut down. Stranded in the Arctic with 8 months of winter, snow, rain, and dampness everywhere. No humans. Leading a very miserable existence, surviving on rats, mice and worms/other grubs yet still existing somehow. Even limited breeding but in a place beyond the Arctic Circle outdoors where cats should never be, unless taken there by humans. Seen that on TV years ago.
Evening Anabel,
ReplyDeleteI've been very lucky with wildlife recently with some sightings of never before seen birds. A dry sunny day in Winter in D P is your best chance to see them and listen out for their calls as well. Once the leaves appear green birds tend to disappear into a green forest.
P.S. they like nuts and fruit.
ReplyDeleteDreadful about the Arctic cats - a bit like the poor horses dragged off abroad to help in our wars :-(
ReplyDeleteI know the parakeets are better in the wild than a cage but I'm sure they'd prefer another country's 'wild'
Abandoned pets are a terrible plague. Those parakeets seem to do fine during the winter, considering they live in the tropics. Thanks for sharing those pictures
ReplyDeleteHi Yolanda. Yes, the parakeets seem to be happy enough though I've not seen how they cope with heavy rain and strong winds which we get a lot of here and can be more taxing than a run of cold clear days below freezing. If they start to breed successfully that's usually a sign that they can cope OK, year to year, with our unpredictable climate. They can certainly do that in London which has hundreds flying free now in the parks down there from a small group of released birds in the 1960s and 1970s.
ReplyDelete