best part of the day: nuthatch: city limits

I had made a mental note to return to Cammo Estate next sunny day to have a more formal interview and modelling session with all comers at the curling pond. The earlier 2 runs with Mary and Nick had been most promising and it did seem to be an oasis of birdlife, albeit on the wrong side of the city for Leith. When the sun somewhat unexpectedly returned after a weekend's absence I took time off from decorating my hallway. (This project is not moving with the sort of vigour I usually try to stamp on my worklife. Too many distractions and the man in charge is a terrible slacker. Tradesmen huh!)

I visited the Dofos on Leith Walk a hundred yards or less round the corner. They were unfazed by me asking for live mealworms. They come in a one-third-full tray the size of a Chinese carry-out. Yummy! I asked how long they last and they said they're ok for more than a week until they change!! Into darkling beetles. The guy said you can still feed them to birds. Even more yummy! The robin had nearly choked on the dried mealworms (square tupperware above) so I lightly sprayed them with water. But live has to be better? Unless you are a mealworm. Dofos had loads of seeds and things including pigeon feed (really I know they are living creatures and I recently did a blog aspiring to appreciate them, but really, do they need any encouragement?) Also they sell hundreds of different sized/sorts of dog-poop collecting bags. Dog-walkers of Leith and elsewhere you have no excuse. The African Grey tried to pick a fight as I left the shop shouting "mealworms! prick! mealworms!"

curling pond

I considered various options, deciding after a flex of my trashed legs (from 22 tarmac miles on Sunday) to cycle. I went via the cyclepaths to Crewe Toll, Blackhall then Drylaw, Barnton and the Shetland ponies, onto muddy riverside paths along the Almond to Cammo Estate. I had to be strong to avoid stopping along the cyclepath many times for the cheeping peeping birds. The ground at Cammo was a bit soft for cycling but I wasn't going very far, just beyond the ruins to the tree that leans over on the right hand side at the West end of the Curling Pond.

I had thought the curling pond (as marked on maps) was just a stagnant water feature but it flows in from the west side and out on the east via that square hydrant. Shortest river ever. And rumour has it, is visited by kingfishers and heron. And is becoming known as something of a hotspot for nature lovers and dudes with huge long lenses. It was surprising how much of this (including the handfeedable robin and the natural feeding table of the leaning-over tree) we had intuited, during 2 short run-bys. During today's extended visit and photo-shoot I was to learn a bit from some of the regulars.

the feeding tree

The estate is well used by dog walkers. As I arrived I could swear I saw a deer bounding across the path but given the open ground and the number of off leash dogs, many quite large and bounding, I think it must have been a large grey brown dog. While I can understand the joys of dog owning if they all disappeared tomorrow (and took their warm bags of turd out the trees etc) I wouldn't be heartbroken. And they tend to scare the wildlife.

First person I met was a dog walker near the feeding tree who wasn't feeding the birds but was mooching round looking at the squirrels and birds. We chatted and he told me there was a guy, George, who fed the birds and put a newspaper down and sat on the tree stump next to where my bike rested. I had realised somebody had encouraged the robin to handfeed and wondered if folk got proprietorial about the place. The first guy said they were planning installing a cafe nearby and there was a good chance they would kill the magic of the place by overselling it. It was becoming obvious I was quite late to this particular party.

I had tried to anticipate all the stuff that would be handy. I took plates and tupperware dishes to put food out (not used, not necessary) and several different types of birdfood as recommended on the RSPB site. I didn't use the lard coconut half and lard-with-insects (delicious!) and I had so many live mealworms I didn't try the moistened dead ones. The robin had choked and swallowed hard when he ate them last trip. The live ones went down very well with the nuthatches and robins but the tits preferred seeds. Peanut kernels also disappeared fast.

I also took a couple of cameras. I had a brainwave to take out the G3, a Panasonic csc that shoots great quality video, but the standard kit lens is only x3 zoom so not much use for wildlife. EXCEPT when you can set it up on a tripod 3 feet away from the feeding area and leave it recording video while the wee birdies come and go and the trees in the blurry background sway in the breeze; as the critters arrive and depart at lightening speed. I will edit out the gaps between visits and put an ambient soundtrack on to drown out the 2 old guys blethering blethering always the blethering about cameras and dippers on the Almond and butterflies and where to find kingfishers; man what are they like!

George

Shortly after the dogwalker headed off and I was still unpacking gear and giving mealworms a brief taste of freedom, life outside the plastic tray, George arrived. I got the feeling he was responsible for this being the epicentre of bird life in the estate. (And naming the "feeding tree".) A mutual love of wildlife saw us exchanging stories and tips about where we had seen birds, butterflies and wildlife. George travels on 2 buses to get to Cammo and visits every Monday and Friday. He piles seeds and pellets on the feeding tree and sits nearby, appreciating the birds but rarely bothering with photos. He seems to see kingfishers as often as I don't. However, apart from being bitten by an adder he has not actually seen any, so we are quits on that score.

We talked continually and he mentioned another guy Phil, a wildlife photographer who was less sure people should be made aware of these little corners of wildlife bliss. I could see both angles. I really like George and the generosity of his spirit; get people to appreciate the joys of nature, everyone wins. But I could also understand Phil's view which seemed to be more about not publicising the place and have it turn into a funpark with the trails mashed down by hordes on the way to the giftshop to buy plastic carrier bags full of woodpecker drinking straws and nuthatch tea-towels. Actually I would buy a nuthatch tea-towel. I have a beautiful butterfly and insect tea-towel but it is too nice to use for dishes and lays on top of the piano waiting to be framed.

Anyway, all this while the small birds are darting down to the horizontal tree trunk, taking a seed or mealworm and dashing back to the trees or hopping about posing for a photo. Great tits (black heads, black stripe down belly); Blue tits (blue hat); Coal tits (smaller with white strip down back of black head, not greeny yellow!); Robins and Nuthatches. Iain called the latter Poundshop Kingfishers and I am struggling to get that idea out my head. They do have front ends like them but also have charming black bandit goggles and a warm coloured breast with flash of reddish brown under a blue grey upper deck. They have the charisma of rarity although there were 3 or 4 constantly returning to feed today.

Only when you see the still image can you appreciate the length of claws

and the way it holds them off/on the surface like ice skates or crampons.

I think these birds all live on a different time scale. You have to take photos constantly in a continual battle to capture a decent shot. Occasionally one will hold still for a moment but if you don't fire off a shot immediately the bird will have flown off and you take another, yet another, shot of an empty branch. I took between 6 and 700 shots and got around 20 I was pleased with. And if I was doing it properly I'd not be using any photos with the food in. Spoils the completely fake idea that birds would just be passing by and saying hello because of your charm! Or to have a look at your 5 grand lens. The only reason these photos are considerably better quality than the ones I usually take of a silhouette of a blur up a tree in the distance, is food. Make no mistake. I was tempted to photoshop out the seeds and nuts and worms, but really could not be bothered. It wouldn't make me a better person.

George, (an angler first then nature lover close second) after lots of chat and fun, eventually left. Next along was Bruce. I was setting up the G3 to video and was a bit distracted. I put it on a gorilla-pod on the bough (in photo below) and pointed it at the junction of two other boughs where there was a flat area for food. It was so long since I had used it I initially forgot about the swivel out tilt screen which is very handy when needing to check you're not making a 10 minute video clip of just birds feet landing and taking off.

Bruce had a 3 grand camera and 5 grand lens. He was mid60s and filling his retiral with hillwalking and nature photos, birds mostly. I asked him if he was Phil. No, but he knew Phil. Again I'm last to that party. He told me Phil says you have to have photos without birdfood visible.

Bruce

Bruce mentioned he had seen a butterfly earlier just along there. I tried to contain my emotions but did cycle about the vicinity afterwards for quite some time, possibly looking like some kind of pervert looking to make an abduction, although I'm not sure a bicycle would be the premier mode of abduction transport.

boing!

I like this photo (above) a lot while I appreciate it's not a good quality photo. The downside of my compact camera is it's just not high enough spec to freeze birds in flight, zoomed in, and get a sharp result. I'm sure Bruce's camera can. He professed not to be an expert, only to have been at it for a year or 2, but that it helped and inspired to have great equipment. Although it was too large and expensive to carry it easily to remote spots over tricky ground. Which is why I use the best compact I can find. Although I was recently toying with the idea of a walking camera! Has it come to THAT?! (Not quite yet. I may have to work harder than I have been to afford that option.)

Sometimes I am a right tool. I somehow switched my camera to 4k burst mode. I blame the touchscreen. It nearly fills the whole of the back of the camera and if a finger touches it you can change the settings. Quite often I put the camera in one hand to free up the other and it will bleep and put up a caption saying are you sure you want to change to 1970s crappy instagram mode and delete all of your photos? There will be way of disabling the touchscreen somewhere (despite it being a huge selling point presumably because that is how iphones work these days.) I have never found the need to touch screen my way to choose 4k burst mode. There is a one touch button you can use if you want to do that. I really must learn how to disable the touch screen: total pain in the arse. And once you are in 4k photo burst mode you have to remember how to change back to normal, while a total stranger you have just met for the first time is telling you about a kingfisher in the botanics (2 MILES AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE DIMWIT) that will practically sit on your shoulder and snuggle into your face for selfies in exchange for goldfish. OK not all of that is strictly true, but the hardest bit to believe, a kingfisher in the Botanics IS. Another party deadline missed.

Anyway the 4k burst mode is interesting and, turns out, semi-useful. You point and shoot, and for a second or 2, things happen that appear to be outwith your control. What the camera has done is shot 2 secs of 4k video which is a large enough format to allow a still frame to be extracted with sufficient quality to use as a stand alone still. In the burst I shot of a blue tit on a branch it turned it's head and moved and gave me quite a choice of angles from which to pick the optimum. I probably could have used it more as many shots were spoiled by a blurry wing or head that a fraction of a second later might have been still. I must learn how to extract the full sized frame as I just flicked through the complete set and did a screen capture, so not best quality.

The Great tits lived up to their name and were the least flightly and skittish making them properly Great. I did love the Nuthatches partly because I don't see them often and they have a sleek and streamlined look about them. (Not the poor man's Kingfisher Iain, NOT!)

I should really have just dumped the last of my mealworms at the feeding tree and let them make a run for it. Instead, after a last chat with the Robin, I took them with me and now have to store them or get rid of them before I have a chinese carry-out of beetles. Free to a good home! Any takers?

Bruce in background with his huge lens,

essential to get close to the birds.

So there are several Robins near the feeding tree. They kind of stick to their own area and only the one will come to your hand. I presume it is George who has encouraged and brought about this behaviour. As a consequence of getting special treatment on Mondays and Fridays (and last 2 times I've been there!) it is rounder and plumper than the other 2 or 3, and tends to be found on the trees to the West of the area. George reckons it's possibly the offspring of another he has been feeding for several years. There is one thing undeniable though. You get a huge buzz from direct contact and interaction with an animal like this - whether the Rainbow Lorikeets at the zoo or with this little fluffy ball of joy, it really gives me an enormous pleasure to interact with a wild bird and have it land on my hand. Bruce was quick to express the same feelings and you can see the same from the cheesy grin on Nick's face a couple of blogs ago. It really lifts your heart. And all for the price of a tray of mealworms. (I can't remember but I'm pretty sure they were less than £2!!)

An excellent day out, I was so high when I got home I went for a 5m run with Mary. And next day while blogging this I have just checked to see how long I was at the feeding tree taking pics. Nearly 3 hrs. Holy shit! I was so busy making new pals, humans and otherwise, I didn't notice the time zoom by. I was really pleased with quality of photos though many MANY more went straight to the recycling bin. And the in-house-tree-house-video came out pretty well as well. I must do some clever editing of it; gives an appreciation of the lightening fast movements of the birds. I was moving back and forth on the time line to check for interesting bits and noticed a Coal tit land so quickly it is actually in the same frame twice, flying and landing. Probably something to do with being viewed on a different frame-rate than on which it was shot. Screen grab below...