green hairstreaks

17th April

So here we are just getting used to having butterflies back again after a long absence and already it is time for one of the best of the year, the Green Hairstreak. Last year 3 of these appeared in Holyrood Pk but that might have been a special present from butterfly jesus because I'm pretty sure they were weren't there this year. Or the rangers who brought down tons of rock from the slopes right above where they were found last year have killed the eggs, the caterpillars, the green hairstreak gorse bush and any chance of wee greenies ever setting a foot in Edinburgh ever again. Who knows? Anyway I wasn't relying on any local ones surviving the onslaught from the misguided H&S executives in Holyrood Pk who also saw fit to barrier off the roads. They won't be happy until they have removed the public from every part of the park. 

Actually last year I was undeterred by the travel ban and slightly illegally may (or may not) have travelled to the Pentlands to photograph them. So sue me. I'm pretty sure I didn't pass or receive covid although there were all these gateposts I licked absent-mindedly. This year Richard flagged up that the twitteratti had announced GHs spotted in the Pentlands mid April. Quite early. I looked to the forecast for the first warm sunny day and cycled there, from Leith out past Hillend and up the A702 to the even steeper road up to Castlelaw Car Park. I rarely use the granny ring of my chainring. This was that road. I arrived only just outside the hour which might reflect my enthusiasm for these wee green beauties.

Oh dear the red flags are flying and I could hear the guns firing at the firing range. Best just go home then. In a pig's ear! But I did padlock my bike and jog, walk and crawl to the spot on the other side of the bluff from the firing range. After ducking under the wire and heading up the hill. Within seconds I saw a small brown shadow flit from gorse bush to gorse bush. (Uppers brown, underwing iridescent green.) They were here. I spent less than an hour filling my boots, hardly a moment without one in the viewfinder. They are super-tiny. Only a fraction larger than small blues, our smallest. The new camera made my life easier than last year and I hoped the photos were as sharp as they looked through the viewfinder. Deep joy! Thank you Richard (who had failed to find them near Torduff the day before.) 

magical place

passing peacock

GH with photobombing gnat

After a while I came out of the green hairtrance I was in and had a bit of a look around. The foodplant is almost always blaeberry but they seem to be happy sitting up on the gorse when the sun shines. I checked the blaeberry in the demarked field next door. Next to none. So either the whole field had decamped onto the gorse nearby or they weren't that bothered about food or sticking to the blaeberries. Which suited me as they are almost indistinguishable on the green leaves of blaeberry and merge right in. Better photos on gorse. I also kept my eyes open for emperor moths. Mary found one 2 years ago when we came here for the same reason and it was the beast of the day if not the year. Blog here. Nothing to be found. It would have been a better use of the day to have a nice slow walk over the hills looking for them but I had a stupid notion that came from facebook group pages which can bring out the idiot competitiveness in me. I reckoned if I got myself to just beyond Aberlady I knew where I might find an early small copper. I found one there last year on the 15th and it had probably been out a few days. So I packed away the camera and unpadlocked my bike and set my Suunto to the sat-nav type function that I had programmed with the straightest line from Castlelaw to Aberlady. I mean it must be just about all downhill from the hills to the coast, right? Wrong. Very wrong.

yup none of that
I think that is the field fence line behind the sign.

Well the first bit back down to the A702 WAS downhill. Then there was a little up hill then some flat through Bush estate and science park then, well I just looked at my wrist and it would say take the next left and so on. Bilston, Loanhead, Lasswade, big hill to climb, Eskbank, Dalkeith, massive hill to climb Elphinstone then down a no-through-road. Oh oh. Well I have no idea where I am so may as well follow it and a mile or 2 later the single track dirt trail popped across the road at New Winton and disappeared into the woods on the other side. I was pleased the trail at no point involved turning back or climbing fences with the bike on my shoulder but often it was slower than the tarmacked road would have been. I didn't notice when I was plotting the route and transferring it to my Suunto the night before it was taking all manner of small pedestrian routes. It was scenic and on several occasions I had to avoid jumping off the bike to photograph butterflies. I was on a mission. It took well over 2hrs to go 24 miles although I was battling a headwind. The ride home to Edinburgh was a joy by comparison and the average speed climbed to nearer 20mph on that section, nearly twice what I'd been doing heading East.

56miles cycled
If I had returned directly from the Pentlands it would have been under 20.

Was it worth it? Maybe.
An early and perfect Small Copper