Bird count from Duddingston loch in the last week, with ongoing updates. So glad I got my binoculars before the lockdown...

The magnet attraction is of course the heronry. Today I made out 16 or so nests. Two or three younger herons are about, either loitering or embarking on their first nest. At least one nest has maybe three wee fluffy chicks, other nests seem unhatched so far.

Lots of swans, adult and yearlings, not much territorialism yet?

Lots of Canada geese whose obnoxious and relentless honking tests my claimed love of birds and puts me on the verge of xenophobia

Lots of tufted ducks? Probably more than mallards I'd say. Yes, them too.

Dabchicks! Eeee I love them. The binocs are a real reward here, they have such fine heads

A fair few coots roaming open water, again not noticeably being bastards to each other yet. Some moorhen swimming about.

Lesser BB and herring gulls having a communal bathe in the middle on afternoons. I really enjoy watching them roll around and head dunk. (No black headed yet. Wondering when the soundscape will go through the great goose-gull shift)

Your wee anatids: teal (5 or so pairs, love the drake's custard bums) Goldeneye (a duck on 22nd) wigeon (a pair about a week or so ago) gadwall (2 drakes on 24th, purple bums not bad)

Cormorant. Two, one I think entering adulthood. Could watch them all day, they fish like machines. Like to hang out with swans on land -

(Always hard to tell how swans feel about this - today a young heron plonked in their midst and caused some perturbation. They seem to look down their beaks at fishgobblers)

I'm not aquatically prejudiced. Today first sight of house martins zooming (no not that kind) over the loch. Those g forces, man.

(Amazing what you can fit into one bout of exercise!)

Today: two more hatched nests confirmed. In fact I think probably most of them are, it's just a question of what can poke its head over the parapet. This picture off the internet illustrates what I think I'm seeing, and my new desire for a telescope

One nest I think might be an only chick. It snapped crabbily when the parent got up to rearrange. Otherwise they seem quite well behaved from this distance. The parents take a while to visibly acknowledge them before finally offering their bills for food

Mostly it's scraps that are not violently regurgitated. The other day I did spot a parent, once chicks were finished, reswallow the whole fish. That nest is a little further along.

Herons share parenting duties equally. I often wonder if they have preferences between nest or out, or varying levels of loneliness. Sometimes they'll hang around for ages, other times the partner comes back and they can't wait to get out.

Goldeneye update: two ducks and a drake.

OK so I think there are basically heron nests now at one of three stages. Some still not hatched. A pair of younger herons fit this category. At hatched nests, the partners have little to say to each other and the one can't wait to clock off nest duty. Hmm.

At least one nest has 2-3 chicks at the tiny helpless fluffball aaaaw ip ip ip category. They woke up when the sun hit them and I was like aaaaw ip ip ip so that's how I know

But 3-4 nests have fucked up hen-sized bastard punk chicks putting the 'pelican' into 'pelecaniformes'. Pompom quiffs & wings that unfold like a DeLorean. Just about able to tackle a whole fish or frog. One tried to climb out the nest and cuddle its parent so still aaaaw ip ip.

The pleasure of seeing a heron yawn.

(Pub name? The Yawning Heron?)

Goldeneye are classy birds. Smoother dives than a tufted duck with just the gentlest shrug. Drake plumage very art nouveau

Little on the water today. Possibly the strong westerly wind.

The juvenile heron is back, definitely loitering, not nesting. Restless, inelegant percher. Kept bothering other herons who would see it off by angrily jabbing their necks forward like a pugilant Englishman going: "You starting, mate?" If it held to its own they soon tolerated it

One of the nests of pelican bastards were big enough to look after themselves while both parents were away (I hope). The juvenile hovered over them indecisively as they gobbled at it, and I wondered about its motivations. Neediness? Nostalgia? Or something more sinister?

The last couple of weeks I've occasionally wandered around Holyrood park hoping for a kestrel and I was finally rewarded! Over where the low road drops into Duddingston, a female being mobbed by the jackdaws that nest all along the road. The flying was robust, no great theatrics.

I seemed to arrive at an hour when everyone was washing. Gulls as ever, jackdaws, teal, goldeneye - the shabbier duck wasn't hanging out with the other two this time.

The parentless nest at the heronry was... still parentless. I hope it hasn't been abandoned. Is it normal for both parents to be away? The juvenile was in its favourite sulking spot.

The older chicks are moving from their mechanical croakings to some quite dreadful, scraping rasps. Increasingly demanding of returning parents.

Spied gadwall pair again, quietly dabbling their way along the edge of the loch. Classy. These are the really cool birds at the party whom you really wanna be friends with but they refuse to muster any unwarranted interest in you

Their appearance coincided with a heron chick feed. A true test of my quantity-twitcher / quality-ornithologist impulses

On my way home spied goldcrest in the pines! A challenge to follow with binoculars, they're not steady and methodical in movement like, say, long-tailed tits. You never quite know in what direction or distance they'll fly next. Sometimes they're almost flowing over branches

Wondering whether I can weedle an RT from @BBCSpringwatch or even @ChrisGPackham

There are now two goldeneye drakes to make up two pairs.

Today was the first properly warm day. It's nice to watch heron chicks in the sun. A nest on the far west of the loch now has some hefty pterodactyls, with necks of white flecked with black, proper plumage eh. They no longer fit under the parent but glower alongside.

Got to enjoy a big feed session. The chicks lunge at the parent's beak and drag it down, submerging it in a boiling grey puddle of flapping wings and distending white throats, the gurgling of their 5 croaks in syncopated 6/8 rhythm: Gk gk | gk gk gk - Gk gk | gk gk gk -

Speaking of youth violence, also saw a juvenile Canada goose fly at and attack an adult. Biting! I was reminded of those episodes of Supernanny with the proper horrible punching kicking kids

After food, the understandably ruffled parent leaves the kids to it and preens. This may be my favourite heron activity. It seems to be the time they have for themselves, not hunting or feeding. I got to thinking about Marxist social reproduction and so on, but anyway, here they

are at their best: wings semi outstretched in a loveheart, white mane flapping, the whole body an arrangement of grey, white, black streaks visited by the amber flash that combs through it all. Truly still. They're not actually still when hunting; their minds are too restless.

Two days later, and the same nest as before still has no parents. I'm beginning to think it may be abandoned, and that the rest of the story gets grisly herein. Three medium-sized punk chicks amble about the nest, occasionally peering over or flapping their wings.

(Overnight I realise I've totally overthought the heron chick call rhythm. It's just 3/4 Gk gk gk gk gk - | Gk gk gk gk gk - :||)