best part of the day: dremming

24-09-26 So many days in September were not ideal weather-wise and I hummed-and-ho-ed about kicking an adventure into the long grass on the 24th. Hoping the weather would improve as the forecast suggested I caught the late morning North Berwick train to the penultimate station, Drem. It was still very overcast and there was no hurry to get across the fields to where I hoped to see dragonflies and butterflies. Maybe I'd have to settle for merely some exercise and less in the way of photos.

arrived at Drem around midday

the image shows the persistent woody capsules along
the branches of a bottlebrush plant! (Thanks A.I.)

on a sunny day this hedge (on left) can be full of admirals and yellowhammers
(when I say full I mean maybe a handful of each)
Nothing today.

a tremulous small tort on a haybail
possibly the only one of the day

As I ran and walked round the perimeter of the fields a few butterflies made themselves known. An admiral or two and a few small whites. They would fly too far to follow, or land on the ground making photos useless. In the past I have got lucky with the local small bird population along the field perimeters but none were posing today.

And the field edges of wildflowers - the magic margins - (one of the main reasons I chose this route) were looking a bit old and tired and past their finest. However, slowly the weather brightened, as did my spirits, although I braced myself for an indifferent day out.

small white

carder bee

There were a number of sunflowers which added some cheerfulness to the field edges. In about a quarter of them were flies, hoverflies and bees, although I failed to get terribly excited by this.

syrphus hover

penultimate large white of the year?

a field of zombie sunflowers hang their heads under the overcast sky

reduced to taking pics of silver Y moths
although it was about the only foreground thing not in focus in this photo!

it then sat down and nearly disappeared

this very fresh red admiral was outstanding in its field

Syrphus spec.

I bet these farm dogs enjoy riding in the quad bike. They were taking a

very keen interest in the sheep herding without actually getting out and doing any!

I finally got to the clearing next to the large warehouse type farm building. I have never seen anyone coming or going into it, and only occasionally pass a horse and rider or farmer in tractor. It is a spot I visit because one year around this time I came across a small flock of migrant hawkers flying above the brambles and occasionally landing for a photo.

marmalade hover

Alas none today, although I did see one unidentified flying hawker skimming the treetops but it did not come past twice or stop for a photo. Also a couple of speckled woods and I disturbed a comma which flew up and settled in the leaves high above. It all felt a little frustrating.

speckled wood

Last time visiting this spot when nothing was going on (again!) I went along a hundred yards to take photos and video of the bee hives. It ended with me getting stung when an over-zealous security bee flew up my nostril and I got stung. Bearing this very much in mind I photographed the hives or bits of hives from 200 yards away and didn't bother with close ups this time.

comma hiding high above in the tree-tops

but at least moving to a better spot for photos

Cotton Hyker 25L, carrying a camera cube case in lower half
my new back pack - so far it is very excellent and really comfortable
(but would expect this as v pricey) (thank you Mary!)

looks like eyelevel but was nearer 15 feet high

young buck

I did not hang about much at the farm building. I was disappointed there were no obliging migrant hawkers there or near the farmer's reservoir 100 yards away. (Not really sunny enough.) Nor were there any commas or admirals on the brambles which catch the sunlight and often host obliging butterflies. Somedays my luck doesn't appear to be in and there isn't much use in hanging about. Also I was getting really hungry. I'm sure when I was younger I used to go all day easily without thinking about where the next meal was coming from.

I felt like I was not long off the train and already starving because I was considering the handfuls of conkers in Luffness House grounds. In fairness it was after 2.30pm and I'd eaten a fairly early breakfast before getting a late morning train. I decided to run/walk into Aberlady and pick up a sandwich at Margiottas. This took me past the trails around Luffness House and along to Postman's Walk.

painted lady

Roly

There was a painted lady and an occasional dragonfly at Luffness bonfire pile. While I was wandering about there Roland (Carnethy not PRC) came running through. He recognised me before I recognised him and we had a brief chat before he set off again on what was likely a lunchtime run. It made me feel a bit guilty I wasn't doing more proper running. I picked up the pace running along the dirt paths but then stopped at the meadow full of wildflowers just before Postman's.

wildflower meadow around Bickerton's Walk

last large white of the year?

small white

geese overhead

As you get close to Aberlady Bay skeins of geese fly overhead. They are gathering in the Bay and there are lots currently but that number increases daily as more arrive. There can be up to 30,000 pink footed geese arrive across the North Sea from Iceland and Greenland peaking in mid-to-late October. They will travel further South or stay here until March / April when they leave heading North again.

The Greylag geese (very similar looking to pink-footed) are often locals and are the first to occupy stubble fields, although numbers are bolstered with the influx of Arctic migrants.

Barnacle geese will use Aberlady as a stopping off place on their migration from Svalbard to their wintering grounds on the Solway Firth.

As I walked along Postman's I was keeping an eye on the flowering ivy for commas and red admirals. I think there were maybe three commas and twice that in admirals. I thought (since a cloud arrived just then) that I'd buy some lunch in Aberlady and bring it back here to eat while watching for butterflies on the ivy.

This taunts me in the Tearoom window when I pass.
It is now on a revolving display plate, and suitable for video-ing!
(BTW: Camberwell Beauty spotted just South of St. Andrews, late Sept!)

east lothian lepidoptera

soundtrack: Rosso by ORANCHA

Looking at those video clips reminds me that although it was warm, it was quite blustery and I only just got away with wearing a t-shirt. I put a jumper on to wait at the end-of-day bus stop.

The first large hedge of ivy nearest Aberlady seemed to have the best butterfly activity and that's where I returned to eat my sandwich. A couple of commas kept down low to avoid the breeze and one particularly did not want its photo taken. There was a very brief window when both were in the same vicinity. I got 3 pics and none of them brilliant!

double act, but only momentarily

After a while I thought to step through the gap in the ivy hedge and check out the narrow path that runs between fields along their perimeter. There were 3 or 4 admirals shooting the breeze there - avoiding the stiff wind (and photographer) on the field side, protected by the ivy they were feeding on. Adding both sides together made the largest concentration of butterflies of the day and I was nearly satisfied and ready to go have a look over the bridge into Aberlady reserve.

on the non-sunny side of the street

I walked to the far (East) end of Postman's, then crossed the field to the coastal road and along to the bridge to enchantment. Although there were sporadic groups of geese, numbers were not yet large. Either that or there were larger gangs nearer the beach end of the estuary.

little egret, Aberlady

greylags

pink-footed geese

starlings

fox moth caterpillar

~~coconut~~ crow

When I got to the beach I saw this crow playing with what I thought might be a coconut. It was both ball shaped but also more organic looking. Turned out to be a ball, very much man-made, if slightly oddly shaped. Not a coconut, although they have turned up on Aberlady beach before. It will turn up in a later blog (in 2 blogs time) as it was distinctive enough to be recognised when I saw it in much the same place 4 days later. I know, you can't wait!

wonderful light on the water

I had hoped for views of thousands of geese around the beach and any number of seabirds. There were none. Or just the usual gulls and crows. Must have been all resting round the estuary. And best not disturb them after their 800mile flight. Also they're only geese! Although I do enjoy their honking as they fly by.

sand hoppers!

What was on the beach in their thousands (with no exaggeration) were sand hoppers. You know those wee jumpy bastards you see when you turn over driftwood on the beach and they ping away rapidly. Those! And in huge numbers. You usually see a few dozen around anything rotting on the beach (they feed on rotting seaweed) but I don't recall seeing them in quite such large numbers before.

I decided to try to cature this other arrival of thousands of migrants. Come from as far away as... just over there. And now gorging on manky seaweed like there was no tomorrow. Definitely worth a photo or two. Since their movement is very distinctive I had to shoot some video as well, and in slo-mo since it makes sense of very quickly moving insects. These are not insects of course, but are tiny crustaceans (related to crabs and shrimp) belonging to the order amphipoda. (Although they can give you the shudders, they won't bite or sting or do any harm. And play a vital role in coastal ecosystems, recycling nutrients and as a primary food source for wildlife.)

I was looking to add some lively music to match their erratic movement and looked out an exceptional piece by Luca Sestak who has jazzified Bach's Prelude in C Minor. The result got lots of views on social media and a few enthusiastic comments for what is a creature not many relish coming across. Mainly people were appreciating the soundtrack which has not yet been released as far as I am aware but was a teaser advertised on the socials.

sand hoppers!
soundtrack: Prelude in C Minor by Luca Sestak

I had to be quick and stealthy filming them. They would start pinging off as soon as they felt the vibrations of my footfalls approaching. And I was being followed down the beach by a couple of people out enjoying the amazing scenery of the all-but-empty beach. I didn't want them overtaking me because if we were going the same way into Gullane then they'd chase off any interesting wildlife or birds ahead of me getting there. Every time I stopped to record the sand hoppers they got 30 yards closer.

I managed to stay ahead. I reckoned there was a limited amount of footage of sand hoppers people wanted to see, and that was likely under a minute's worth. I wonder if the romantic couple worked out what I was stopping every hundred yards to photograph. There was pretty much nothing else of interest on the beach.

except this pipit round the corner
no doubt a rock pipit but I couldn't be certain and obsidentify
says meadow pipit despite far more rock than meadow in the background