drem time

One of my most favourite things to do is a longish run on a sunny day taking photos of butterflies. Ideally it kicks off with a train journey which adds to the anticipation, before exiting the train (coffeed up and buzzing with caffeinne) to a hot dusty summers day and endless miles ahead filled with fantastic insects and landscapes to capture with my trusty camera. Backpack full of cold juice and food for the day. You don't know what you'll see or who you'll bump into but it will be 6 or 7 hrs of FANTASTIC!

I think this trainride to Drem (nearest station to Gullane) was my first since lockdown 4 full months ago. It was suitably empty with loads of room between masked passengers. And saved me between 2 and 3hrs cycling. More time to spend running!

the weird thing is this isn't the first (detached) deer leg I've found

not one of his

Now the farmer round here has planted Lacy Phacelia, purple tansy (both porn names for sure?) round the edge of the fields. I'm not sure exactly why but probably because they get a grant for it and it attracts pollinators and keeps the bad bugs off the crops. It works very well for the butterflies - peacocks, all three whites and tortoiseshells were flitting from flower to flower. And visually it is spectacular. I didn't spend too long on this occasion but had a lot of fun with it on a later trip.

gvw

I had various places I wanted to visit. I was going to check out the Holly Blue hotspots, but first I went past Luffness. There was a splendidly fresh small copper and some of the first walls of the season of the Lothians. As well as small heaths, loads of meadow browns, common blues, and a pair of mating small skippers. I had forgotten much of the joys of the place as last time or 2 (back in Spring) it was extremely dry to the point of drought with nothing much in flower and a limited amount of butterflies there as a result.

wall

small heath

I think I did nearly an hour there before heading to the public toilet in Gullane. Which has been closed since lockdown. The sun was out as were the Holly Blues, on the Ivy behind the loos. I met Richard there too and we chatted while trying to get long range photos of the HBs which inevitably didn't come close enough to allow me to get useful photos. The backlit ones look almost brown. Richard with a long lens got better results than mine though from the condition of the butterflies you could tell they weren't quite as freshly emerged as we thought they should be. Either that or they had been waging war and were battle scarred; with notches out wings and ratty looking fringes round the edges of their wings. More Holly Blue mystery.

I ran along to the Archerfield site and Richard also turned up there as there wasn't much going on elsewhere. There was very little to get excited about and I think the sum total might have been a wasp and a lacewing. I decided to run down to the beach West of Fidra and maybe check out the path above the beach (just before the footballers houses behind the fence.) There are some buddleias there that have been very popular with peacocks, RAs, Painted Ladies and Speckled Woods in the past.

All of the places I ran past were empty of insect life. Some days it's just a little cold or too windy or for whatever reason there is nothing. All these places that drew a blank today would be brim full of lepidoptera when I visited in a week or 2 but it is very frustrating at the time and you begin to question your judgement when you see that place after place doesn't come up with the goods. At least I was getting a few miles running out of it. I took the trails and beaches back to Gullane, coming up the hill towards Gullane Point before heading towards the snowberries at the top of Whim Road.

nearly invisible lacewing

common darter(?) on the trail

Just after the driftwood bench/patio there is an area you could run past without noticing. It is one of those corners where there is far more wildlife concentrated into a small area than most of the surrounding square miles. It might be the wind break afforded by the rising ground all round, it might be the wild thyme in several flowery patches, or the combination of short grass on the path with long grass immediately next door. Or all of those elements. I know the place well enough to not be dissuaded by the lack of butterflies. I clambered into the long grass and in seconds, ringlets and more than one common blue leapt from the cover and began flying about. I think at one point 3 common blues were chasing each other and a ringlet, dashing about like a kite tail in the breeze. Not so easy to catch them for a photo. But nice to see at least some subject matter. I deliberately followed a ringlet to rest as I was fairly sure I hadn't got a record shot for today yet. And after a good haul at Luffness it could a species count well into double figures.

common blue and ringlet

often many treats here despite the initially barren visuals

I then ran through the woods and got a couple of speckleds, though again not a super day for them and I had to work to get even 2. Just out the other side of the car park (I kept well away from the beach though it wasn't too much a crowded plague/zombie scene) and a young male deer eyed me curiously from 20 yards. Having fumbled a late season DGF in decent nick that I nearly stepped on (it flew while I was still zooming in, curses!) I took the deer pic without zooming in, before it thought twice and bounded away through the long grass. I got the photo, below, but could have got its eyelashes from that distance had it stayed still while I zoomed in to max.

Up the hill there was a lot of butterfly action. Skippers and meadow browns were abundant on cushions of wild thyme but alas not much sign of the pastel blue wings I was hoping for. Conditions seemed about right although the snowberries were not as lush or well watered as last year. There were plenty of the usual suspects including a courting couple of skippers to keep me busy while I waited on HBs appearing but it was fast feeling like a lost cause.

I was distracted by a couple of common blues. It was tempting to hope they were holly not common but you could tell by behaviours without even seeing them up close. The commons would keep low to the grass and alight on the thyme or on a stalk of grass. The Hollies would fly in recces over the snowberries and as one male eventually did, chasing round the likeliest spots to find females. Which meant scanning trees and flying higher than the CBs. One appeared for all too brief a moment then disappeared before I could snatch anything more than a blurred record shot. 

However on the upside I saw what looked like a spectacular female C Blue and followed it till it swam into the long grass and (hurray!) settled on a high stem. I waded into the chest high grass with maximum caution and tried to clear away the many stems and stalks in front of it. (Known in the business as gardening!) While using my body as a wind break. Everything was still swaying and swishing (which reminds me that it was probably the wind that was discouraging the Holly Bs from showing up) and so I held the base of the grass on which the blue still sat, with my left hand, and operated the camera with my right hand. All the time trying to move slowly and with max stealth. I took a few zoom shots then having checked at least one was in sharp focus I zoomed back out and tentatively put the lens to within millimetres of the butterfly. I took dozens of shots within a few seconds and eventually allowed myself to breath again. It was a perfect specimen (an aberration; more blue than usual and with additional discoidal spots) and I felt I had got one of my best shots of the year, the macro picking up the tiniest details in fur and scales and pattern. The lack of Holly Blues was far away now and a delight more than happy to trade. Success in failure!

another similarly marked perfect female

makes up for the uncooperative holly blues

While I was stood in the snowberries trying not to sideswipe the charming pair of copulating Skippers and spoil their afternoon, this meadow B came for a chat and sat on my shoe. Even opening its wings for a bit of a sunbathe!

too many skippers?

Feeling high as a kite I ran back into Gullane, towards the toilets. The plan was to join the JMW and follow that to near Aberlady where I'd head back across the fields to Drem. However as I crossed Goose Green I saw Richard in his car. He saw me and knowing I would be calling past the toilets jumped out for a quick word. He was very pleased just how many species had been leaping out the grass at Luffness. It swayed my plans and I swapped out the JMW for a second visit to the bowl near the golf course. I felt I hadn't quite nailed the Wall there. A feeling that has persisted for a few weeks now. I have had them in my sights - they are great beauties, if on the modest side of things, like a jacket lining or 3 tone Paisley pattern - and I felt I hadn't done their loveliness full justice. Largely because they are tricky as herding cats and if they see you coming they will scarper before you even raise your camera.

fresh copper!

Back in luffness and there were still fresh coppers and funny odd moths flying out the long grass and looking at me with sci-fi eyes and antler antennae. One grandad DG Fritillary flew from spot to spot, its best days behind it and somewhere else was the quick flit of wall wings, orange as a DGF but with bird-like shyness. It was a challenge I neither lost nor won, we'll call it a draw. But left with pictures taken at some height with shaky knee and held breath wondering later why I'd jeopardise my neck and footing over an orange and brown rorschach postage stamp of loveliness. Well you would, wouldn't you?

fading dgf

smoking jacket lining underside

then 3 miles to the station through blond fields under blue skies

Even though my cup runneth over I was thinking I hadn't stolen any photos of Admirals. Had I seen one coming out the station into the fields? Possibly. Or was that last time I was here? It was so long ago. A year and seven hours. I covered the three miles eyes peeled for black wings and an orange sash to complete the list of usual suspects. A tortoiseshell offered itself up and was so blue of chevron I took its photo anyway. Out the fields and between a few cottages was all that was left and an Admiral flies up from nowhere, sat in sunshine and nearly parted my hair as it flapped past, rising in my hopes but off to roost in a tree. 

Given the day I'd had I wasn't giving up hope and climbed a gate the other side of the station platform in the 15 minutes before the train arrived, to examine a buddleia, a fence away. Nothing frontside and round the back open wings spreadeagled on a plume. Another tortoiseshell! What a day!

stand and deliver!

18 miles in 7hrs then some