Himalayan Balsam control, Water of Leith, Edinburgh

I spent a pleasant couple of hours this morning uprooting stems of this invasive alien plant, just downstream from Gorgie road. A small team of volunteers form the river conservation trust tackled the plant and pulled up several hundred stems, none of which had started flowering.

The riverbank is thick with vegetation at present - Butterbur, Garlic Mustard, Leopards Bane and great colourful swathes of Dame's Violet.

I found the tiny two spot ladybird (photo) clinging to a stem of garlic mustard in the undergrowth.

Woodmouse

Was out in the garden late this evening with dusk well on and saw what I thought was a robin flying onto a bird feeder hanging from an apple tree. Closer inspection showed it to be a Wood Mouse trying to extract a few of the remaining peanuts.

I was amazed at its agility as a climber - it did literally seem bird-like as it scampered from branch to branch and scaled the trunk like a tree creeper.

Quite a few large lemon yellow moths coming into the garden at dusk now - suspect these are Brimstones though not certain.

A few notes

Been quite busy lately so not been out much. Weather over past few days very summery - temps in high teens. Strange this year how early spring flowers are out alongside those of mid summer.

Green Woodpecker reported in Corstorphine hill - must be the only city location for this bird now.

Of the 3 pairs of swans on the union canal (Tollcross, Craiglockhart, Westerhailes areas), none now appear to have cygnets - no explanation of where they might have gone, though the Craiglockhart pair, as far as I know, didn't produce any.

Oddly enough the swans at Craiglockhart pond seem to be leaving the coot chicks undisturbed - was over there this morning and took a short video of the chicks being fed by a parent on the water.