Arthur’s Seat park ranger’s advice on feeding the swans may surprise you – Hayley Matthews

Hayley Matthews gets in trouble over bad parking, but feeds the right stuff to the swans at Arthur’s Seat.

Feeding the swans in Holyrood Park is great fun (Picture: Scott Taylor)

I drive past the swans at Holyrood Park a lot and always feel really sorry for them – when they’re sitting on the loch looking cold and hungry as we pass by shovelling coffee and biscuits into our gubs, I can’t help but feel a little guilty.

I’m always full of good intentions and want to cook brown rice, gather some bags of grain and seeds and go feed them all, but in reality things always get busy and I end up missing out on my bird-feeding session. Well not this week I haven’t – and the birds were in luck as I raided the cupboards for old crackers and seeds.

I’ve got one of those cupboards that has lots of bags of crackers, crisps, rice cakes, cereals and many half-eaten packets of biscuits and it’s been doing my head in.

So, in a huge bag it all went and I’ve been carrying it about for the past few days on a mission to feed the hungry swans. On driving past the park during the week when it was absolutely Baltic, I saw those wee faces, abandoned the car near the bottom of the drive up Arthur Seat and ran out to feed them all.

In a flash the park ranger was coming to give me a telling-off for blocking the path. However, with a swift throw of the cracker bag into the water and me shouting apologies at him, I was let off.

I got talking to him and asked what else I could bring to feed the birds, as I said I always feel bad for them.

“Peas,” he said. “They love peas and any kind of seeds or cereals. Just never white bread – never white bread!”

So dig out your crackers and seeds from the back of the cupboards and go feed the birds.

Just make sure that you don’t block the road up to the top of Arthur’s Seat or you’ll find yourself on the naughty step.

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