hooray for holyrood

I've always appreciated Holyrood Park for running. A little bit of hills and countryside right in the town centre and a mile exactly from my flat. However when I saw the park touted in a butterfly field guide as a potential for a good number of butterfly species I was doubtful. I had been running there for 20 years and seen very little of note outwith an occasional cinnabar moth and peacock butterfly. (oh and a Dark Green Fritillary roosting there one evening!)

However I am having to reassess the situation. Running might partly be the problem - flying past things without taking sufficient time to see what was always there. Luckily, a couple of pals, Mairi and Ken have been doing the ground work and pointing out where the best spots are for certain delights. So I have been slowing down and having something of a search when I am out running. It is giving me a new perspective on the benefits of Holyrood and I have been really enjoying exploring places old and new in search of things to photograph. Not sure it is helping with the running! Although it is getting me out the door and up to the park, and sometimes that is the hardest part.

A peacock pressed flat against the rock.

I can't recall ever seeing one limbo-ing this low

There are always plenty of bunnies about the place but the pheasants seem to be a relatively recent addition. First there was just one male round near Dunsapie Loch and now, a few years on there are maybe a handful, maybe 10 around the place. Must be plenty females as well though with their camo feathers they are less evident. I encountered this one near Murder Acre, a field or 2 west of Duddingston Loch, between the Innocent Railway cyclepath and Samson's Ribs. (Maps further down the page.) I had some bread and seeds with me and the pheasant was happy to exchange this for a few close ups. Despite them being thick as a post and having a call that would frighten the horses (like a rooster being put through a mangle) they do have a wonderful plummage when seen close to. Since the butterflies weren't out playing I made do with some interaction with him.

squawk a doodle do

unusually asymmetric head

arborial GVW disguising itself 

The sun would come out and all of a sudden Murder Acre would be full of fluttering whites and Orange Tips. Where had they been hiding? The sun went away. I followed an Orange Tip and it folded its wings and went into stasis till the sun came back out. (This follows on from the previous blog and asking the question where do they go when it rains.) The Orange Tips went into zombie mode so fully that I could encourage them onto a hand (Iain says a stick is preferable) and then put them onto a prominent twig or branch and take a photo before the sun came back out and they flew off. Unfortunately there were none of the season's pretty wildflowers nearby that would be a great spot to pose the comatose subject. 

sleep my pretty

off we go!

on a log

on a leaf

sun comes out - time to fly

sun goes back in

what am I doing here?

note: antennae open and close in sync with wings

So a big thanks to Mairi and Ken who have been suggesting areas to look for certain things. Difficult to describe these places so I have enhanced a google map above to help show where I think stuff is happening. Ken thought there was a (near mythical) Holly Blue near the steps between Duddingston and Dunsapie. He mentioned brambles and a wee path to the right halfway down. There is no shortage of brambles and nettles and jaggy stuff that will rip holes in your legs and usually I am running in shorts. He also mentioned the damselflies. I DID actually see them. And managed a shot of an Azure although that was down at Murder Acre. There are Small Coppers around the brambles too but the ground is steep and one lap was sufficient. I was more taken by the SCs on the Cranesbill as you come round the top road. There are little nearly-laybys (marked above as copper crescents) where ragwort and cranesbill attract coppers. If you wait long enough and stand in the way of the on-coming cars you can eventually get the appropriate combination of flower and butterfly to suit your eye.

small copper on cranesbill

I will have to go back as I feel this could be done better.

Azure Damselfly

At the East side of Murder Acre near the barbed wire fence that starts at the cyclepath, this peacock was hugely entertaining. It would challenge allcomers if they thought they were hard enough. It flew directly at me a few times parting my hair as it swooshed by vigorously. On one occasion it landed on my elbow but found it too damp and moved off fairly quickly. If other flies and butterflies flew past, it would respond furiously, before returning to any one of a number of perches. Then a lovely orange butterfly appeared flying too quickly to identify. I thought maybe SPBF due to the river next door and swampy ground in the corner of the field. But the peacock saw it off, or rather had a spiralling dance round and round before I lost visuals and waited for them to return. 

The orange interloper enjoyed sitting on the fence and as I crept slowly over to it I realised it was a comma. It would take off, do a couple of circuits then land on the nearest post or the one next along. It did this again and again and I slowly got closer each time. I took hundreds of photos and experimented with different angles and moving just slightly to get the best background light and colours. During all of this I completely missed what Iain instantly saw as the most individual aspect: that the comma had silver spots on the hind wings. Come to think of it, no I had never seen that before. An aberration. But less exciting than the fact that it would return again and again and let me practise with the new camera getting really close in and shooting from all around. 

Above: shot with the zoom lens from a good distance (several metres away). Below: taken really close to the subject in macro mode, probably 5~10cm away.

thanks comma with the silver dots!

cinnabar in the gorse

BTW checking the difference between gorse and broom recently. Both yellow flowers, but gorse = jaggy; broom = long and spindly and not thorns.

blue spot aberration (the best sort!)

So as I was leaving the area I had a last check of the steeply sloping triangle at the west end below Samson's Ribs. Not much going on - that might be the flattened peacock backlit. Then just before I climbed back over the stile and gates a Small Copper generously flew up onto these blue flowers. I was extremely grateful and pretty much held my breath until I had a few shots in the bag. They are just such a vibrant colour at this, the start of the season.