mechanical botanical

 

3rd March: A rather uninspired walk to the Botanics, hoping to see the first butterfly of the year and having to settle for some birds and bees. I have been missing Warriston which is often a good backup if there's little of interest in the Botanics. I shouldn't be so hard on the Botanics as it is a great resource and several butterflies have been seen there already and we're not halfway through March. Only none of them were seen by myself and when I did bother to get out for a constitutional the sun kept dashing behind clouds and it felt like Winter.

After plodding round the rock garden I checked out the Chinese Pond where I bumped into Dan. Ages since we crossed paths and there was much to be chewed over: mainly about getting older and how unrewarding that can be. That's Dan's hand - I had the long lens on making it virtually impossible to photo my own hand. I couldn't be bothered to swap lens for the 12~60. There were a few of the usual suspects hopping down to the water to have a splash. I was telling Dan about my failed quests to find Slime Moulds. He suggested the wet pond area in the South-East corner behind the rock garden. For a moment I couldn't think of where he meant until I remembered the almost neglected-looking corner of the gardens near the East Gate. Good thinking! We chatted for a bit more before I eventually revved my engine and trundled over there.

chaffinch (m)

f & m bullfinches

When I eventually got these pics up on the computer monitor 

I realised the small orange dots might be slime moulds. (Or just fungus.) 

great tit

robin

blackbird

the only butterfly today

something of a turd

Nearly all of the garden exhibits (other than the plants) are absolutely delightful and entirely suitable. Which makes anything dubious (large inflatables, a below-par Hepworth or unwisely chosen audio art for example) stand out like a sore thumb. There are a couple of these unimpressive pot-boiler sculptures in the pond area of the S-E corner and I assume that someone important's offspring did them as they are not good enough to have got there on their own merit. They are not total shite but they do not have the understated subtlety of the occasional carved stone. I feel they would be vastly improved with the addition of a strongly swung golf club, aimed low.

I could see plenty slime but no mould near the S-E pond so found myself in the rock garden again at the R. Dauricum rosa where Ken had spied first an RA and then a peacock butterfly. Needless to say there were no butterflies although I changed the lens for the macro 90mm and snuck in close enough to take photos of the insects in attendance. Now while I was not treading on plants it did require I leave the path to get close enough to use the macro. I reckoned if caught it would be a yellow card, not a red one, although I resented having to do my insect shopping under such stressful conditions and didn't stay long.

"the" bush

where do they come up with the names?

a brief interview with this hoverfly
before it flew off never to be seen again

buff-tailed bumble?

Still on the hunt for slime moulds I scoured the stones and damp bits
of the rock garden for tiny flourishes. Mostly just lichens and fungii and tiny mosses

once more past 'the' bush then home. sigh.