best part of the day: love / hate

10th November
I think it was the 9th Nov that the secret garden robin first took food from my hand. I had been prepping him quite some time - standing close with outstretched baited hand every visit, before putting down seeds and bread on "his" feeding tables. He had got to know my presence meant food, but also we would chat away and I felt the bond was becoming established outwith food bribes. He seemed to enjoy company. He also seemed to dislike most other birds, especially if they had the cheek to land on his tables. He would fly at them and most would fly off, or judge their food sorties to coincide with his absence. I hate his bullying ways, the way he flies at the smaller birds and goes into a massive rage at any other robins or dunnocks in the area, and I wonder if the feeders would be a more relaxed and convivial place in his total absence. Well of course they would.

But perhaps his reluctance to mingle with other birds is the same instinct that gives him the courage to fly towards me rather than the 99% of other birds who fly in the opposite direction. I saw another robin in a completely different area of Warriston behave in a similar manner so I think they are mostly built like this, rather than this one being a rogue bad 'un.

And his being less timid makes for great photos. The coal tits mark my arrival near the feeding tables with lots of cheeping and peeping and fluttering about, hardly leaving a moment after I retreat from the food dump to swoop in and remove seeds. They have powers of recognition but I suspect a reluctance to hand feed. Same with the squirrel who has learned that food gets placed on the diagonal steps down the broken wall. He will sit within a metre of a human, but does not have the fearless greed of the Botanic's jobs.

A quick note about them while we are here: a friend said that a very knowledgeable mutual friend who practically lives in the Botanics, watching the birds, wildlife and kingfishers, confirmed there were (annual?) culls of the grey squirrels there. Which lines up with the rumour I was foisting on anyone who would listen about there being fewer very tame squirrels about, since lockdown. Further to that, it is illegal to release grey squirrels in Scotland, so they would not be taken to somewhere nice and set free. In defense of what seems like a brutal regime, too many squirrels would destroy much of the good work that goes on in the botanics. It is a celebration primarily of horticulture, not little furry rodents. So I understand the management policy even though I don't like the idea of a cull.

North side robin with big wound below eye
sparrowhawk encounter or fighting with the lads?

As I wandered, just North of the catacombs, something flew up from the leaf litter, circled me once then flew up into a tree using the sun as cover. I had not seen a butterfly in ages and wasn't expecting to today, but I was almost certain it was a red admiral. And yet couldn't be sure as I didn't move quickly enough, and it stayed somewhere on my peripheral vision. I was questioning myself while I walked about looking for other stuff to photograph, but on returning past the same area, it again flew up. I was more ready this time and fired off some in-flight shots in case that was the only record of this very late season flier. Sometimes a photo like this shows whether it was a peacock or RA. The pic above does neither but at least I got a photo of what was most likely the last butterfly of the year.

bullfinches (m & f)

I continued the rounds and was pleased to spot and photo a pair of bullfinches high in the tops of trees. I hadn't seen any in ages. A fair number of birds seem to disappear during the Summer only to reappear in late Autumn and Winter. Some are migratory while others (like bullfinches) are here all year round. Not sure why they disappear - perhaps keeping a low profile while raising young or just spending time high, unseen in well foliaged trees. Same goes for goldfinches and maybe greenfinches and siskins. I am always busy chasing butterflies during the warm weather so take less notice of the birds. And when the butterflies disappear (usually around the middle to end of October) it becomes easier to spot our feathered friends as the trees lose their cover.

I can't overstate how much this keeps me going. Since buying a "walking camera" at the beginning of 2021 my life has improved hugely during the 5 cold months. Instead of going into a mental hibernation November to March, and cursing this cold northern outpost of sleet and hats'n'gloves, I have been out taking photos of flying things with a very similar enthusiasm to that of the butterfly months. 5 months I used to hate and curse, I am now enjoying. Although the weather windows are generally smaller and less continuous. You could have the best camera in the world but still struggle to get anything decent when the low brown winter clouds block out all available light.

The "walking camera," a Lumix FZ2000, has been a total delight since day 1. (Although there is little between the model Mary got (an FZ330) and mine. It is 2 steps up from the previous compacts and has a huge zoom which is really helpful for bird photography. Technically it is a x20 zoom although also has additional reach. The zoom length read out on the EVF goes from 24 to 1350; which is a decent wide angle to x56. From about 650mm it is digital rather than optical zoom. (I believe these numbers are 35mm equivalent.) I think this is more than advertised because I have set the picture quality to medium rather than high (and never use raw), so it has extra sensor size for greater zoom. However I am not a camera geek and the only priority I focus on is to put the subject in the frame in a pleasing manner. To get a similar zoom in a DSLR I'd have to carry one of those giant lenses two thirds of a metre long that several friends are seen out with. Not the sort of thing I could carry easily in a back pack while running 30 milers. And the expense of a long lens is terrifying.

My only worry about the FZ2000 is that it is so compelling that I find myself spending more time doing nature photos than running. If the weather even thinks about brightening up I am filling wee zip-lock bags with bread and seeds and heading to Warriston. Not doing a circuit of Holyrood or some hill reps. My running fitness is probably at an all time low, although I get a mile to Warriston and a mile back about 5 times a week. Lockdown distanced us all from competition and that objectivity made many question their dedication to the arbitrary nature of trying to run fast round a course, and, was it important? When you stop doing it, it does seem to lose any sense of urgency. Well it does for me. Although there is a pang when seeing others doing it and wishing I had the fitness and enthusiasm to go bite that bullet. Because it is a Type 2 activity. More fun having done, than doing. Trips to Warriston or Saltoun Big Wood for a wander taking photos of beautiful things. That's very much Type 1 fun.

If there is a lack of birds about I will look on headstones for ladybirds and small insects. I really should take reading glasses as I can't see anything from a metre away. Only when you look closely do you see tiny worlds full of interesting bugs and creepy crawlies! Ladybirds seem to collect in groups to hibernate; often choosing grooves or underhangs where snow won't gather on the more ornate stones. My pal and fellow Warriston wanderer, Alan, has pointed out a few, and once you get your eye in it passes the time checking out likely stones. The ladybirds prefer the vertical jobs - never the ones which have fallen flat, (I suppose because they will get a covering of snow) - although how and why they gather together is total speculation. Do certain stones attract the group? Does one make a stance and wait for others to notice and join? As an experiment I very gently lifted a wandering orange ladybird and placed it near the (now famous) 17 orange ladybirds huddle. It bumped into the group cluster then moved on. Not yet compelled to settle down for the season.

Also there are a couple of herds of single species crams with one solo non-species ladybird. Is concession granted? Does word go out there is a double agent? The more you look the more you realise there are too many unanswered questions! Then a flash on my peripheral vision and I realise there is a woodpecker in the tree next door. I chase it halfway across the cemetery without another thought of the ladybirds.

17 become 20

I have snuck several weeks into the future to post the second photo of 20 orange ladybirds. You can see how they have been shuffling about rather than staying put. On the opposite side of the gravestone are 14 Orange and a red interloper.

Another ploy when there are no finches, tits or treecreepers, I interact with the crows and magpies. There are ALWAYS crows and magpies (and squirrels) and if you place bread on the tops of stones or fences you can get them to pose. They will then follow you round the cemetery from a discrete distance.

probably a harlequin

some colour variants

Harlequin ladybirds: a non native insect also known as the Asian Ladybeetle which sounds like a festival regular. "This is one of the most variable species in the world, with an exceptionally wide range of colour forms" (Wikipedia). I believe they will mate with the locals and interbreed. Like many festival regulars. I'm not sure if that is why there are so many different looking varieties. Anyway they are everything but small. Under 5mm? Not a harlequin. Here is a decent webpage to help id them.

I returned several times to the area I'd seen the butterfly. On one such occasion it took off from the leaf litter again and flew South towards the crypts. I made a proper effort to follow it as I REALLY wanted a photo for the boasting rights on East Scottish Butterflies group page. Where the strap line is No photo, it didn't happen. I crossed the area back and forth but if it had landed I couldn't find it. Maybe half an hour later and I saw this, (below) near the ivy covered top. Delighted! I wondered if it was so flighty due to whatever incident occurred when it lost most of its rear right wing. I got a couple of solid record shots and then moved in. 10 yards away and it closed its wings disappearing almost entirely. I'd have walked past it had it been sat like this. Five yards and it took off, flying strongly and super fast, off to god knows where. I had the evidence and was thrilled!

By way of celebration I strode down to the secret garden to give the birds some seeds. The robin and I conversed and rehearsed our new trick which up until now I hadn't photographed. The best way to record such a fleeting moment is on video, and I managed to get reasonable footage. A couple of extracted stills below. A nice end to a pretty decent trip. In fact I enjoyed it so much that when the sun threatened to shine the next day as well, I returned.

How could I call such a cutie Hitler?

fossilised leaves on the way home

11-11-21
Back next day for more of the same.

The sunshine seemed to encourage various insects to congregate on this stone
very near my entrance point at the East Gate

not sure what is going on here

As I walked the main path just above the crypts a red admiral took off from the leaf litter about halfway along. I stopped motionless in my tracks and watched it settle. I got a couple of shots before it took off and headed further away. It wasn't the same one as yesterday unless it had regrown its rear wing. I was very excited, having thought of yesterday's as a freak or outlier. November butterflies in Scotland are like hens teeth. I suppose the benefit of global warming is we are likely to get the sort of thing happening here that previously would have been limited to England. I noted with disdain a Butterfly Conservation info poster saying butterflies (and moths) to look out for in December. Not in Scotland you bunch of London centric w*nkers, was my first thought.

Once you get your eye in and know where to look you start seeing loads of ladybirds. These black ones are particularly small and are, I think, Pine ladybirds.

This is the stone most favoured by Orange Ladybirds. 17+ (now 20) on the RHS and 14+1 on the left. With a few in the middle. Just above the crypts, directly South of the main gate. Peter Smellie. Memorable name!

I had noticed this stone when a squirrel sat on it and it gently rocked on its fulcrum, the cross having been knocked off and replaced horizontally. I like the spacing of the typography and the light falling on it. It was only a bit later I noticed the first date not having a year, and the implication the owner did not live as long as one. And the euphemism "taken home". On the base there is mention of a Reverend Goldie. Which maybe goes some way to explain the words Taken Home rather than taken away.

There is no shortage of tragedy and heartache spelled out clearly all around you when you spend time in a cemetery. After a while it washes over and through you like a meditation more than a news bulletin. It is an aspect of human life and although sobering, not as fascinating to me as the nature here that is still alive.

That red admiral took off from the leaf litter again and once again I made like a statue until it settled on a suitably sunlounger-like leaf. I crept round to get it full on holding my breath unless it sensed my thumping heart. I took dozens of photos and video. Far more than I would if it had been a month or 2 earlier. You always know instantly when you've seen the first butterfly of the year but can never know absolutely you've seen the last one until some point later and the snow starts falling.

But I knew 11th November 2021 was almost certainly the last of the year. A month on and I'm still of that opinion! Below is a video still of it taking off. Both taking to the air and metaphorically removing itself from the butterfly calendar of 2021, becoming ghost-like and disappearing. It will have found a dry, dark place to hole up. Perhaps through the windows of the catacombs, to wait in stasis till the warm sun of Spring raises the temperatures to double figures, sometime about March or April and it rubs its eyes and feels peckish. (Probably only peacock butterflies that rub their eyes.) I will be waiting. Hopefully to see the RA, missing a section of right rear wing or this one with just the front tip of the left, notched. Now that would be quite something.

goodbye or au revoir?

Looks like I took a route past the secret garden and rehearsed our trick again. After I leave the brick feeding platforms, the wood pigeons, magpies and squirrels clear the decks. No matter how much bread and seeds are out, when I return from 20minutes elsewhere, there is not a sign of a crumb or seed. Like someone has hoovered. Mostly the pigeons keep their distance when I am there. I will shoo them off if they flop down, as they either hog all available foodstuffs to the exclusion of the garden birds, or flap the rest with their downdraft onto the floor. In my absence they tidy up.

Which means the robin is keen to land on my sandwich fingers. The finches prefer seeds, the robins, bread. There were some less than positive things written about feeding bread to ducks and swans a while back. The RSPB have responded and you can read about what they recommend to feed to different birds on their website. They suggest bread isn't ideal but don't outlaw it, especially wholemeal and in small quantities. I do hate it when I see people throw half a loaf of sliced white bread onto the bit at St Margaret's Loch. Some gets eaten but lots goes soggy and attracts rats or just rots, and it isn't ideal as a food source for those birds.

I recently tried live mealworms again and the robin was less than thrilled. He played with one before reluctantly eating it but it was much less welcome than the bread I take along. I make my own bread. With usually a combination of seeded flours, wholemeal and white, with a scoop of pumpkin seeds and a handful of muesli thrown in. I'll cut off one slice and chop it horizontally and vertically into tiny cubes, then carry it in a ziplock baggy to the secret garden. I also take sunflower seeds which the coal tits and bullfinches prefer. The crows and squirrels enjoy both. The corvids will eat anything. Alan reckoned I'd spoiled the robin with fancy bread as it now turns up its beak at pet shop birdseed. Andrew took along nuts and the secret garden squirrel (which seems to recognise me and now visits on the diagonal brick steps) was very enthusiastic. After chomping through a couple of hazelnuts (unshelled) it started taking nuts (shelled and unshelled, loving both) to bury 60 yards away.

how do you groom that bit at the back of...
oh! I see!

This is one brave dunnock. (Not sure what caused the swollen toes but they seem to be on the mend.) The robin HATES dunnocks. Possibly because they are similar to robins in looks and habits, so are competing for the same things. If a dunnock appears the robin will chase it and follow it until it leaves the area. This one bravely appears and then hides behind things and tries to outsmart the mental robin, which rages until the dunnock is goney gone. Only other robins get more stick. Any robin appearing and taking food gets seen off the premises or invited to a full-on fight, tooth and claw. I hear robins will fight to the death, so it is not just bluster. There are a couple of other robins that live on the territory boundaries and as long as they remain on the other side of the ivy wall or over at the wire fence, no problemo. Even though little Hilter robin can see them. (I know he has top eyesight as he can pick off an insect crawling up a wall at 20 paces). But any incursions and he launches a vigorous attack. He has shot past my ear at 60mph giving me a start, on the way to see off an intruder.

dunnock lift off

I was very charmed to see this wren. I'm pretty sure he (or she) is a new arrival and hasn't fully absorbed all the official wren etiquette. Wretiquette? I have had it hop around my feet while standing in the secret garden. I think it lives nearby and occasionally comes past to check for bugs and wriggling things under leaves and on walls and the like. I'll have been standing, chilling, literally, in much the same spot for ages and it maybe thinks I am a tree or partly mobile shrub. I have slowly followed it taking pics and video and it has largely ignored my almost immediate presence. More usual wren behaviour is to shout or peep, at max volume, not unlike a car alarm, if you get within 20m and then at 3m dive into the undergrowth after a last shriek in your face.

This one had a good check round for insects and then a splash in the birdbath. It did keep an eye out, between plunges, not for sparrowhawks, but possibly robins. Such clear close up photos of wrens are fairly rare and high tarrif so I drop everything and try to shoot or video it until the inevitable and the robin ends the fun. I hate it when he does that.

Over the last few weeks he occasionally just sits moping on his perch letting all comers onto "his" foodtable. And I think he has given up his worst trait. But only until a dunnock of other robin tries its luck then its a noisy rebuke and battle commences. I do hope he'll get better as he matures. Maybe nesting season will start and he'll have other things to think about? Maybe he'll get worse still?

On the upside, the tameness of the robin means he will sit absolutely still for a photo and just 20" away from me while I crouch or kneel next to him and chat away. I can arrange the background by moving, knowing he probably won't scare off, and I can get really close close-ups. And he is almost always there. If not, I can whistle a 2 note call and he will appear within a minute. There is a lot of love (as well as some hate for his treatment of fellow birds!)

Although I have interpretations of his actions I really don't know what he is thinking, other than maybe "oh here is the bread guy again!" however sometimes it does seem to go well beyond that basic response. Especially when he quietly sings; beak closed and only a tiny emanation from his throat - just like a conversational chat. And if there are no other birds around it has to be to me, right?