JULY 2025
July has flown by, helped by having several interesting smaller wildlife projects to get my teeth into, plus a very busy month on the Water of Leith.
One project that I’ve had on was watching a couple of green woodpeckers that I first noticed 3 years ago, around Loch Leven area. Here’s the blogpost that I wrote back then – Green Woodpeckers 2022. I was hoping to spot the young green woodpeckers, as they fledged and photograph them, as I did 3 years ago. However, by mid-July, I had to accept that the adults were unsuccessful, or at least no chicks fledged from their nesting area. I know there are pine martens in the area, I just hope they weren’t predated. I will keep fingers crossed for a more successful year next year.
Another 2-3 projects took me across central Scotland over several days during July. It’s always lovely to be driving along and able to spot red kites, ospreys & other wildlife that you don’t normally see in the city. On one ocassion, I ended up at Loch Turret (NW of Crieff). This is where I noticed a stonechat family with several chicks that seemed happy to have a photographer nearby! We get the ocassional stonechat on the Water of Leith but they’re not common.
A trip to the Isle of May was also on the cards for July and we got very lucky with the weather. If you want to see the photos and read the post, here’s the blogpost for that trip – Isle of May – July 2025.
Paul Fisher Cockburn of the C&B News kindly got in touch with me to see if I would be up for an interview for the C&B News. The C&B News magazine covers Currie, Balerno, Juniper Green, Baberton Mains & Colinton. Needless to say, I am in these areas every month with my camera. We ended up doing the interview in a Q&A format, as I was out of the country at the time. The result was a centre spread in their bumper July/August issue which you can see & read here – C&B News Article Many thanks to Paul for including me in this issue.
Back on the Water of Leith, I had 13 active trail cameras monitoring the wildlife along the river this month. I’m happy to report the 3 otter mums and their 4 cubs all appear to be thriving. Kingfisher numbers are way down but I am glad to say that after 5 fledglings at one nest site in May, the same adults have mated at least 6 times during July. So hopefully we will see a second brood in the coming weeks.
These 13 cameras have also helped me produce another 2 minute video clip for my YouTube ‘Water of Leith’ collection of videos – here’s this months video – Wildlife on the Water of Leith July 2025.
I’ve walked the length of the Water of Leith several times this month and have included some pictures below. If you’re lucky you may spot the otters in the early morning or just before sunset. I would also add that Territory 2 (Dean Village to Colinton) & Territory 3 (Colinton to Balerno) are your best bets for seeing them at the moment. BUT… please bear in mind that there is so much vegetation about, it really is very hard to spot any wildlife on the river during July & August.
CLICK ON ANY OF THE PHOTOS BELOW TO ENLARGE THE IMAGES
