string of pearls

16/05/19
Last year around now I travelled to Pitlochry to track down some Pearl-bordered Fritillaries. It was such a success (blog here) I nearly didn't do the same this year because inevitably it wouldn't work out as well and I'd taint the original journey with a second rate copy. 

Or I could try the If-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it approach and just repeat the trip. It should work out just as well since I now know the area better than last year when it was all new to me. And the actually butterfly is a real gem. And rare. Which puts it even higher on the wish list. Hell, just buy a ticket and jump on a train.

And that's where the fun begins. I buy tickets ahead of the day on theTrainline.com because if not, they screw you while you're standing in the station with your bags all packed and a full wallet. Last year I went on a Saturday because to get the 8.33am train you have to pay peak prices week days. Not sure about the 6.30 as they kinda keep all the what-exactly-is-peak-time-anyway info to themselves. The forecast and my schedule was best for Thursday and the 8.33am North was the best train. £46 for peak rate, I kid you not. Trainline said £23 for cheap day return, (maybe) okay for use on the 8.33 but not on peak rate. But that is peak rate. Isn't it? Anyway I reckoned there was a good chance I'd be caught with a wrong ticket and forced to pay extra, so I arrived plenty early (but not 6.30 early) in order to buy a 99p filter coffee from Pret and argue the toss with Scotrail gestapo.

I was so full of bluster-meets-an-innocent-abroad, (plus I'd printed out the screen grab that says yep this train is half the price go ahead why don'tcha), that when my ticket didn't open the barrier I was sure I was rumbled. In fact I'd just gone to the wrong platform and had to ask the nice scotrail gestapo lady to let me through, then 5 mins later back out to go to the correct platform without the barrier keeping my fake ticket. If I had any shame my face might have been red.

Anyway that's why I didn't take a bike. I know it is possible to take a bike on a train and it travels free. But I have fallen foul of the rule that says if there is more than 3 cyclists you have to fight the others in gladiatorial combat. And if there is a way to reserve a bike space on theTrainline.com I have not found it. Might as well just run 20 miles. Almost marathon training. Almost.

Anyway the onboard guard checked my not very peak rate ticket and didn't bat an eyelid. All I had to worry about was the return which (at 5.30ish) was also suspiciously peak-ratey. I might get all the way to Waverley and then get nabbed at the final gate. Is this worry actually worth £23?

Everything else was going pretty well. I had a backpack crammed with juice and dry clothes and a sandwich and snack bars and the NEW CAMERA (Panasonic Lumix TZ200) which I'd had for 24 hrs and tested only once. It is pretty much identical to the last one except for a couple of extra things and a longer zoom. Results are a wee bit soft and furry at the far end of that long zoom but hey nobody's making you use the full length. Although it is almost impossible to get used to NOT using the full reach. Bit like having a sore arm but only at full extension, and trying to remember that when you pass the salt. Also if there's plenty of light behind you it can be quite sharp at full zoom. And that is my full review. Possibly the best compact on the market that has a large sensor and a decent zoom. That you can run with. Although I still have a bit of PTSD from the last camera accident and a leaden feeling way down in the pit of my stomach. Like: do I really trust the idiot in charge not to drop this one too?

No word of getting the fixed one back yet. It will be interesting to take both out and measure the results side by side. I don't think the new one is substantially better, but you know how you get used to more bandwidth immediately and returning to dial-up is unthinkable? Yes, well that. I suspect I just got used to 50% more zoom, in a heartbeat.

Also just a quick note on that zoom. If you set your picture to size to medium jpeg (3840 px wide) it frees the zoom up to crop your potential image down from a much larger one and so allows you to zoom into the image even further, making 15x zoom into something like 42x zoom. Which is enormously helpful when taking photos of tiny insects a few metres away. A couple of models ago I used to have to stand quite close to the subject and zoom in to it. Now with the larger sensor models I have to stand back (at least 1.5m sometimes more if there is less light) and zoom in from there. This is helpful for taking pics of butterflies etc. which might not prefer close attention. If I wasn't running I'd probably get a bridge camera (larger but not interchangeable lens) or if I win the lottery, a mirrorless with long expensive lens. But I really enjoy combining running and taking photos. 

Anyway all that chat passed the train journey (2hrs!) and the 3 miles from Pitlochry along quiet roads and trails to the small suspension bridge marked Killiecrankie Path, Garry Bridge. I crossed the river waving to the same speckled wood I saw last year although on the other side. I had been a little held up in the station. The idiot in charge had possibly brushed against the touch screen (if there is a disable touch screen button I will find it and use it)(I hate touch screens, they are made so dimwits can work stuff ) and set the camera to take 3 or 4 shots of EVERY photo. One normal, one underexposed, one overexposed. It took me way too long to find where you put an end to that malarky. Jeezo. So I set off about 10.40. By 11.14 I had got to the spot "below the pylons" and within seconds seen and photo'd my first PBF. 

speckled

pylon

first photo

I was following a similar campaign to last year. The main site was venue 1 in Linn of Tummel. I was going to visit the Queen's View Cafe again and run some trails there, like last year, but I had mapped out a better, more efficient route. I hoped. The butterflies remembered the routine from last year and played their part exactly the same: flying straight past without stopping for a photo, or diving into the bracken and undergrowth like a celeb diving into the back of a cab.

(venue 2 in distance)

Above pic: I had a wander around to see if the corridor to the next pylon (North West) was harbouring PBFs. Didn't appear to be. So I stayed around the first venue until nearly midday, talking to dog-walkers and failing to get anything more than just "record" photos, although there was a decent number of butterflies about. A dog walker informed me it was an osprey nest atop the pylon last year and she felt it was illegally removed on the quiet by the power company. 

brown silverline - dozens of these (dull) moths

just beautiful countryside

After midday I took myself off on a dotted line I had programmed into the sat-nav. Although initially it went East, it then doubled back and went past the second pylon in the photo above marked venue 2. There was a raised mound for the pylon foundation and it faced the sun. Loads of PBFs, maybe even more than the first site. Although also far too shy. But lots of fun having nothing more to do than try to take photos under the blue skies of beautiful butterflies. I was super careful with the camera and tried to make rules like "no moving around with the camera on and lens out", a contributing factor with the last camera death. But it's tricky as you find yourself chasing little blighters that shuffle in and out the dusty bluebells over tussocky ground.

lots of speckled woods among the trees

and the flip side

These wee beauties are Speckled Yellow Moths. I am not a small moth fan but these are visually splendid so get my vote, Unfortunately they take a good deal of chasing down and will fly for 200 yards with me running behind (put the camera OFF then run!) cursing like Rasputin though the bracken; then they go behind a tree and through a portal to another world (thanks Ben for delineating this phenomenon.) And you are left with nothing. There were dozens of them but I only got photos of 2 and this pic is miles better than the other one, which looks like someone spat on the ground.

So after another wasted while getting little more than fritillary-in-the-shrubbery shots, I went West on trails that gave the impression of running through a tropical rainforest. I had hoped to miss most of the winding undulating road that leads to Loch Tummel and the cafe. I exited at a gatehouse and did a couple of miles of road. It was hot and taxing, jumping off the tarmac onto the verge (no pavement) every time a lorry or bus went past. Lots of white butterflies of various sorts in the air and all around.

Western Hemlock

girth 17', height 122' planted 1860~1880

the view at the Queen's View

Best thing about the cafe was (next to the car park) 2 Small Coppers who would supercharge their solar batteries up to a million watts then unleash hell zipping around tight circles chasing each other so fast you only got a feeling they might be there. I went past and experienced a memory of small coppers. Then realised it had entered my head through my eyes. I checked the ground and saw them sitting panting on the daisies. They waited till they got their batteries recharged then one took off swiftly followed by the other. There was an orange filter effect due to them going faster than the speed of light then they landed just as they took off. I went in for soup and bread; a filling option and still a fiver. I was just about the only person sitting indoors in the cool. Everyone else was outside as a change from sitting in their cars. 

I was glad to be off and ran down to an official trail head about not quite half a mile on the right. As I climbed I recognised the place I had seen a couple of fritillaries last year and checked it out. I meant to keep climbing to reach a small pond I'd seen on the map that I hoped would have dragon- and damselflies. But I never got there. I spent the rest of my available time, 70mins, before I had to head back to the station, where 2 or 3 tree boughs had blown over the trail. Underneath and between, were a dozen dandelions. Every 2 minutes another Pearl-bordered would float past and either land to drink nectar, or continue upward into the bracken above the trail, presumably to find a roost for the evening. It was impossible to know whether they were flying by in circuits or whether every one was yet another, in which case there had to be 50 or more. I knelt in the grass, lay in the grass, crouched, stood, up, down, which ever way. I must have turned into something feral as they stopped being shy or cautious about my presence and would bump into me or land right by my elbow. I think we were all a bit sunbaked and light headed. I know I was. And totally in the moment. All that stuff about mindfulness. All that and more, lost in a whirl of orange wings, no longer sure why I was taking photos and which one of us was a butterfly. 

The whites had a fine old time taking the mickey. They landed on some nearby cuckoo flowers. Until I noticed and sat, camera focussed on petals. (Because I knew I had plenty frit-photos and pretty much no whites or OTs.) Then they stopped visiting that flower. Then when I got up to untangle my stiffening legs they would all be there, like on the end of the flower, perfect image lined up. Until I switched the camera back on. Then they would fly up the rise and past my ear as I struggled to zoom out. Bastards. 

The fritillaries were great. Compared to hiding in the bracken this was heaven. Which is not to say they held a pose while I perfected the composition. They dashed around the dandelion heads like frantic little headbangers, jamming their proboscises under the petals like they were washing out bottles. They would constantly be turning in a circle as they went, so never still for a second. I must edit and post the video I took. It dispels any notion of gentle, relaxed and meditative. They were jabbing and hammering the whole time, then flying on to the one next door.

Orange Tip trying on a new hat

All good things must come to an end. I never did get any further up the trail. I knew continuing on this one would take me back to the cafe and from there back along the road to the station. I went back through the woods and checked out the first 2 venues; although there were a couple of frits still about I had had plenty and was more keen to head for the train without involving a mad dash. If I missed the 5.30, it was a 2hr wait. I got into Pitlochry in plenty time to buy some cold drinks. I bought a large bottle of water and a can of Stella. Only later did I remember that I had been off the drink for 3 weeks with a view to doing a dry month prior to the marathon. And here's the devil tempting me with a cold can of Stella on the hottest day of the year after a 20 mile run. Against the odds I got home with the can unopened, probably the unlikeliest endurance feat of the day. And Mary has hidden it somewhere till after the marathon. Which is actually unnecessary given the display of willpower already manifest.

2019

So before I sign off here is a couple of similarities from last year to this. I remembered this mirror/sign photo from last year and took a similar one this time. Unable to control the clouds sadly, but otherwise quite clone like.

2018

And halfway over this footbridge I also took a parting shot upstream.

So what can I say? More butterflies, AND behaving better than last year. Fewer miles in the wrong direction, same glorious weather. Next year's trip is going to have to pull out all the stops to get anywhere close to this sort of delirium. Oh and to top it off, nobody made me pay peak rate for the ticket. Oh I do love a bargain! 

2019

2018