holyrood interlude

 

18th July

I got an unexpected message from Colin and Joan to say they were popping down to Edinburgh, specifically Holyrood Pk for a day hopefully to take pics of the butterflies there. I had nothing much on so ran up to see if I could bump into them. I phoned them when I got there and we had fun because they do not know the park well enough to describe where they were. Which was on top of Salisbury Crags, which Colin only knew as part of the Hunters Bog Trot route, a local hill race. 

We met near Hutton's Section and I think this was before the full-on concentration camp fences went in. It is always a pleasure to chat to C&J as we have running in common as well as butterflies. We came across this pair of blues (m&f) posing perfectly for photos. We also had a chat with a friendly and agreeable ranger who was reminding us to return to the other side of the barriers, while at the same time commiserating with the need for barriers in the first place. 

female common blue

Next we went to the new NBA corner (just below Hutton's Section) where there were a couple of NBAs, one or 2 fairly old, but also this nearly brand new one. I think it was the last decent NBA for me for the year. 

We were also on the look out for new brood small coppers. I was aware of a mini-colony, not much more than 2 or 3 of them, on the park boundary near the Parkside flats. Mairi had drawn my attention to them as she lives not far from there. I felt I had won my official tour guide badge when we looked and found this just-out-the-box copper nectaring in the exact spot I had predicted. 

C&J felt it was a successful day trip and we walked back via the stonetrap ditch although there wasn't much going on there. I pointed them back towards to the bus station after much talk about their planned trip to Tenerife around November-time. I will be grilling them for all the butterfly info they accumulate as we will probably target Tenerife for a mid-Winter getaway either December or Jan. It is a great way to break up a gloomy Scottish Winter with lots of superb trail runs/walks in t-shirt weather and a chance to photograph a dozen species of butterfly (some familiar, some exotic) during the 6 months they are absent from Scotland.