first OT of the year

 

11th April, Warriston Cemetery

Running out of blog titles to go with my walks round Warriston Cemetery. But not running out of enthusiasm for the place. If I'm lucky I tend to come home with the usual selection of birds and insects in my camera, and I'm never bored with them. And now the butterflies are making an appearance there is that. All new to me as I didn't discover the place last summer, so I am enjoying this season for the first time there. So far, so good  - all the ones I hoped for so far, incl. orange tips and speckled woods. Nothing exotic. And pal Alan told me he saw no blues (common or holly) last year, and he knows his insects. So despite acres of ivy and plenty holly, none, as yet, recorded there. But lots of other excellent things. 

saw this sparrowhawk circling overhead
my first ever photo of (a live) one 😁

Looks like I spent a few moments with the robins and wrens of the rambling brambly section near the East Gate. Before going to the feeding tables in the secret garden. 

Oops. This photo of a blue tit reminds me of a printed t-shirt I saw advertised for photographers with a picture of a camera and the message "I shoot people, and sometimes cut off their heads."

This wren was giving it laldy above the crypts and I sneaked closer and closer until just a few yards away. The wrens have all been getting less flighty as the season moves on. I suppose there is a lot of through traffic and they will get used to humans.

Bumped into Alan and we nattered away for a quite a while.

the squirrels are not as tame as in the botanics
but will often pose for a photo at a distance.

Great to see all the flowers and blossom on trees exploding into life. Makes food for the pollinators and great backdrops for the butterflies etc. I descended through the tunnel to have a look at the riverside section and turned sharp left to check out an ivy clad suntrap that is out the wind. To my delight I saw this orange tip sat basking in the sun. I approached with extreme caution as it was the first one I had seen this year and wanted some decent photos. Often the newly emerged males fly nearly continually (in search of females) and can be a nightmare to chase for a photograph. This one might have been freshly emerged as it seemed a bit sleepy. And when it flew off it didn't go far and then settled on some nearby bluebells: HALLELUJAH! no time to think, I zoomed in, shot twice and it flew off. I felt I might have got a decent shot (top of this page!) but followed it again to where it landed on some grass and ivy for further photos, before it flew up and away over the unclimb-able wall. I didn't know if I'd nailed the blubell shot but I knew I had more than could be expected and was very pleased with my first OT of the year. They are my favourite white butterfly and a real harbinger of Spring. And just so cheerful. Even the females, who don't have the glorious flashes of orange, have the cryptic underwing "green" cammo patterns that render them nearly invisible on the ends of branches and in flower heads. "Green" because the scales are really only yellow and black and it is the combination that cunningly looks to our eyes like green.

nailed it!

showing "green" cammo underwing markings

I was totally stoked. How do you follow that? Well by handfeeding the robin! Next biggest treat of the day was interacting with a couple of robins that sometimes hang out near the grave of Archibald Buchanan Stirling and is about dead centre (pun intended) of the riverside area. Sometimes the robins are there, sometimes not. They are, I suspect, a male adult and offspring, as the bolder one will take food and pass it on to the other. They were both about today and super friendly. Almost too friendly, with the one hopping about under my feet and actually coming so close I couldn't zoom out enough to get a photo. I think he flew to my hand for a morsel and then we just chatted for a bit. He wasn't that bothered about more food and I would wait till he flitted onto a good branch for a photo. When he hopped onto the ground right under my feet I had to stop and make sure I wasn't going to stand on him. When zoomed in with the camera he looks big, filling a photo, but right beside me he is tiny and fragile and you wonder how all the bits fit together so well and work, when it is not much more than a ball of fluff with a beak and stick legs. We had a good photo session and I said thanks and threw some extra wages in the vicinity where they will find it. Nothing much can compete with the first OT of the year but this does. Butterflies rarely look you in the eye and talk quietly in conversational tones while your heart melts. 

too close for a photo

There were other insects about, lots of bees and hoverflies, but not that much in the way of butterflies. When a rather handsome green veined white (with one wonky aerial) turned up I photographed that to bits. Other wise it was an occasional ladybird and bee. Plenty of wren-noise but they are not always super happy to sit for a photo. 

eyed ladybird

I'm outta here!

As I've said before I'm more interested in wildlife and nature than manmade artifacts but occasionally the light will catch a monument or headstone in a way that makes me notice it for the first time. As I said at the top of the page I have not grown bored with all the stuff here and there is always something worth taking photos of. Having found the P (for Peter) stone recently, someone had uncovered the M (for Mary) stone also which seemed to make a matching pair. I suspect it denotes the area. The place known as the "O section", I am beginning to feel, might not be describing the shape of the headstone layout in plan, but a random alphabetical denomination. Haven't seen the O stone yet. I know, fascinating! and I'll keep you posted.

Just checked the photo data and first photo was before 10am, last photo well after 1pm. I popped past the bend in the WoL where the ducks gather and photo-ed a female goosander and another pair of robins in St Marks. And managed to get a rubbish pic of a chiffchaff who provide the continual soundtrack of the day, the week and the month at this time of the year. Another marvelous adventure. Back home to scrutinse and tweak the photos. Never a moment of boredom this whole covid year.