Neighbouring Lochend Loch offers a great contrast to Calton Hill — this is a place where you can see many different kinds of water birds at close quarters

Lochend Loch is only a mile and a half from Calton Hill, and as a lake park it offers a nature experience quite different from the hill. From the bird-viewing platform over the lake, you can look over to Arthur’s Seat. There are swans, mallards, seagulls, coots, moorhen, herons and a lot of pigeons around the 16th-century doocot.