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This goosander and her six chicks were enjoying the sun at lunchtime today on a stump in midstream just below Warriston Cemetery.

She can, with difficulty, be distinguished from a female red-breasted merganser by the absence of white rings around her eyes. Unlike human parents of young offspring, she also lacks dark bags under her eyes.

Goosanders only established themselves in Scotland in 1871, and spread to the north of England in 1941 and thence southwest. They are partial to fish, and use their hooked and sawtoothed bills to catch them.

What a difference a week makes.

Last Saturday, in brilliant early morning sunshine, Edinburgh Trams began running its commercial service between the Airport and York Place for the first time. Almost everybody loved them.

Artisan Roast even waxed lyrical on its Broughton Street A-board (right).

Seven days later, the sun has gone and the rain is lashing down on the capital with worse forecast over the coming hours.

The Union Gallery this month features the first ever joint showing in Edinburgh of work by husband and wife Jim McCutcheon and Linda Downie.

Really is an exhibition of strong contrasts and subtle similarities, of memorable images which often raise as many questions as they answer. If there is one thing of which one can be certain here, it is that reality, in Really, defies definition, and can certainly not be relied upon.

A major new development is proposed for the gap-site next to McDonald Road Library at 34B Haddington Place (Ref. 14/02115/PAN). 

Kimberley Reed’s season got off to an extremely early start in cold, wet conditions in late March (Breaking news, 2.4.14), writes her father Scott Reed.
 
She also had to juggle training with studying for exams which didn’t end until 12 May. But things now are really hotting up in advance of the Commonwealth Games selection deadline early this month. Here’s how the season has progressed so far.

Issue 230 – beloved of cyclists and taxi drivers across Edinburgh – is published today, on schedule and below budget.

Each copy contains thousands of words, conveying in a convenient (legible) and affordable (free) fashion (English) everything you could wish to know about current affairs between Pilrig Street in the east and Howe Street in the west, Canonmills in the north and York Place in the south. Further extensions to our news coverage are being considered on an ad hoc basis.

At the end of a route spanning 8.5 miles, with 15 stops and at a total cost of £776m, Broughton’s first in-service tram of the 21st century whispered into York Place this morning just before 5.30am.

The ungodly hour had not deterred a respectable smattering of interested observers, some of whom cheered as Tram No. 275 pulled to a halt.

Among them was 'Greener Leith’s official dog', who was, her companion told us, keen to be the first canine to travel on the new system.

Flossie said nothing in response, but fixed him with a pitying look which spoke volumes.

Feast your eyes on Reay: a handsome Bengal.

From this photograph, you'd be forgiven for thinking he's all muscles and right hook. But while his owners admit he may not be 'too bright', they insist he's friendly, and has a softer side and finer feelings.

Reay went missing from Dublin Street last weekend when his brother Cato was taken away to the vet with a serious virus. The theory is that Reay wandered  off looking for him. 

Happily, Cato is now back home and fully restored, but Reay's still out on the prowl and is seriously missed by all concerned.

Louise Rhodes and Carol Hopkins examine themes of literal and psychological distance, real and imagined travel, in a joint exhibition this summer at Edinburgh Printmakers.

New prints produced at EP over the last 2 years will appear beside related work in other media from 7 June–19 July.

Pictured is Hopkins’ drawing ‘Instrument’.

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When was the last time you looked properly at this place – the long, rather leisurely York Buildings facing the Scottish National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street?

The frenetic, sandstone fiddliness of the Gallery opposite tends to absorb one's attention like a hyperactive grandmother with too many anecdotes, but we think its neighbour over the road has calm charms worth relishing. It now covers an older building of 1801 which fronted Dublin Street. This 1878 addition introduced an arcade of ground-floor shops, with offices above.