Environment

St Stephen’s Theatre Company seeks listed building consent to install photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of its Stockbridge headquarters (

Sunshine and haze over Calton Hill this morning, where Friends met under the expert guidance of the Scottish Ornithology Club's Stephen Welch to record breeding pairs of bird.

Patient listening and hard stares helped in identifying 18 different species over 2 hours.

Namely: jackdaw, magpie, carrion crow, common gull, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull …

11.30pm, Saturday 11 May.

A breathtaking natural spectacle: the aurora borealis.

Or not.

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This morning, to celebrate International Dawn Chorus Day, Spurtle despatched its Avian Affairs correspondent to the tranquil slopes of Upper Greenside.

Here, at 5.19 am, somewhere above the omnipresent hum and hiss of the OMNi Centre plant, is what they heard …

Blackbird, blue tit, chiffchaff, coal tit, herring gull, nuthatch, robin, song thrush, woodpigeon, wren, Eurasian drug dealer and common taxi.

Welcome to Edinburgh. @edinhelp

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Canonmills Haugh or Loch may have been drained in 1847, but old habits die hard.

The hollow in which King George V Park and The Yard now nestle was formed in the last Ice Age, and, whether caused by natural or human influences, has been apt to fill up with water ever since.

Today, after what seems like weeks of continuous rain, the path connecting the Rodney Street Tunnel to Logan Street has flooded yet again.

After yesterday's article, we thought we should mention that a notable feature of the new Picardy Place is that sitters are encouraged to face outwards, in quiet contemplation of the traffic.

Perhaps this says all we need to know about the interests and priorities of Fantasy Island's designers.

The state of Edinburgh’s public realm in general and Picardy Place in particular have come in for a lot of criticism lately.

As an experiment, we wondered whether a mix of sunshine, poetic perspective and positive thinking might change the way we feel about Broughton's newly created Fantasy Island.

See what you think.

In August this year, locals petitioned councillors about what they say is disruptive over-use of East London Street by HGVs and Lothian Buses. In response, officials have now compiled a report to go before the Transport & Environment Committee on 12 October.

GEORGE STREET MAY GET GREENER

Built-heritage hard nuts and bark-hugging philarborists have compromised over proposals to improve and beautify George Street.

Until recently, architectural purists had argued for retaining the First New Town’s strict punctuation of hard design sentences with leafy full stops. Environmentally minded urbanists wanted softer sentences instead, with semi-colons to improve air quality, provide shade, and boost physical/mental wellbeing.