archerfields

 

2 commas in the same sentence

9th Aug 2020
It was probably the wind direction that encouraged us to head East out of Gullane and along to Dirleton and Yellowcraig beach, rather than the usual Gullane circuit. It was while since we had done this route and I was delighted to find that just past the first mile, the gatehouse at Archerfields was hoaching with butterflies. I knew that it had potential and always check it out, but the last few visits it had been a barren desert with (for instance) a wasp and a lacewing as sole occupants. I had begun to lose faith that it ever was one of these wildlife oasis that crop up where foodplants and windshelter/suntrap overlap, making a mini-zoo of concentrated wildlife. 

However, first we did a scout around Gullane looking for Holly Blues. We had been aware of sightings in the churchyards and elsewhere and it seemed the Holly Blues were really establishing themselves around many areas in Gullane. It was becoming apparent they were now in such numbers that they were beginning to emulate the behaviour we see down South where they are the most common blue butterfly likely to be found in gardens. While they form colonies based around high trees and ivy bushes, as numbers grow they can be seen flitting around the neighbourhood looking for flowers on which to nectar. Reports were coming in from all over Gullane. 

We did a quick circuit of the old graveyard around the ruins of St Andrew's, next to Sandy Loan. There is a very nicely kept vegetable garden at the back and I was admiring the many large whites benefitting from it, when I saw a Holly Blue take off and fly into the nearest sycamore tree. There were also peacocks on the buddleias nearby. 

On the way back across Goose Green I stopped to check out a high ivy-covered wall (below) and saw several holly blues flying above it and into the tree next door. Yet another site. And it does make you wonder if every high wall with ivy contains a mini colony. Tricky to explore or get close to for photos, but there may well be loads more activity than we are ever aware of until it spills over into folks' gardens.

rubbish photos

Hope this chap discourages the speed merchants heading into Gullane.

Anticipating there might be a wasp and lacewing needing their photo taken I ran ahead to Archerfields gatehouse on the John Muir Way. I was well over-excited when Mary arrived 2 mins later and we stayed for 25 minutes taking photos of the walls, COMMAS, Peacocks, RAs, whites and Holly Blues that had converged there. Lots of commas have been posted on facebook butterfly groups and yet I hadn't seen any since the first generation ones right at the start of the year. I was very pleased to see 2 here, sat fairly patiently in the foliage. They tend not to gather in groups.

wall (female)

comma

holly blue

Just as Mary arrived a Holy Blue arrived at the same time and I couldn't help but think she had something to do with it. She also took a better open-winged photo of it than I did. There have been so many photos of them recently (this year and last) that some of the rarity value is rubbing off. They are not quite common place but they have definitely changed in status (in East Lothian) from exceptionally rare to seen-on-a-regular-basis. And photos are frequent rather than a hastily snatched shot of a distant HB in the tree tops. I suspect we are at the beginnings of an invasion and that in 5 years time they will be well established in East Lothian. At least I hope as much. They are a charming and attractive species and still uncommon enough to make my heart skip a beat when I see one. I think their mythical (Scottish) status owes much to their habit of living in inaccessible places and perhaps not appearing in the same place twice until they become established. 

Mary's shot with her cheap camera.

There were a number of brand new Red Admirals centred around the buddleias.

After 25mins of taking hundreds of photos we ran on to Dirleton and then down to Yellowcraigs before turning West and coming back along the coast.

speckleds in the woods

late in the year for small skippers

spider hiding in the berries

We had both been so impressed by the numbers of butterflies at the gatehouse that when Mary suggested we head back inland at Archerfields beach I was totally in agreement. We ran up the side of the golf course then spent another 25mins taking a whole load more photos. Not quite shooting fish in a barrel but reassuring that I wasn't mistaken about the venue. No Holly Blues on this occasion - it was getting later in the afternoon. But 2 commas sat near each other and looking gloriously orange. They were sat in the middle of a clump of brambles and tricky to get anywhere near. Worth a few scratches though.

green veined white

2 commas, a peacock and a meadow brown

gatehouse at Archerfields
good mix of snowberry, bramble and buddleia, short grass and long grass

Tradition has it that we run at race pace, the last 1.5 miles back into Gullane. 

9 miles over a relaxed 3hrs

The gatehouse is where the circuit joins the main road

butterflying with C & J day 2

I was long overdue a big day out down the Berwickshire coastal paths. Hearing Colin and Joan were planning a trip to Burnmouth, and seeing the forecast was excellent, was sufficient motivation to buy a return ticket to Berwick upon Tweed for Saturday 8th Aug. It turned out to be a good idea right enough!

I have done this trip several times and am now familiar enough with the routine I can do it on autopilot. There is not much wiggle room on the return bus from St Abbs to Berwick to match train times, and it pretty much limits you to a long wait or the last bus of the day at 6.15pm which means nearly an hour in Berwick before the return train at 7.30ish. And best buy train tickets in advance rather than buy them on the day at the station when they just pick a price out the air which can be £15 higher than online, just for a laugh.

As usual I hurried North to the Scottish border refusing to have a good time until I cross back into the homeland. I do not consider myself a fervent nationalist but when you see some of the stuff that goes on in London with or without regard to our part of the land it makes even the least fiery of us up here wish, at the very least, a pox on them. 

still in Engerland

yikes! Compare and contrast from May 2019
Am I just cloning my adventures?

the wall at the border between England and Scotland

It was only stopping at the border gate and going through it, that I noticed I needed to have a pee. With a childish glee I stood at the fence and peed back through the gap into England. Yes, childish.

Not long beyond the gate there is the sign below. I must have had a coffee from Pret in Waverley (89p for filter with soy milk) as my brain had quite the conversation with itself about this sign (which always makes me roll my eyes). After some consideration it went something like this...

'That sign is a work of genius. Nobody could have spelled cliffs wrongly by accident. That is no typo. If you were going to do a typo you'd spell fulmars, fulmers. You might get that past the signmaker, but not "cliffes". So what does it achieve? It makes us all feel better. You run past and say to yourself something lookes wrong here. Bigly wrong! Wow they spelled that like a buffoon, I am much more cleverer than those dudes, I am quite the polymath.' 

and you go on your way slightly more impressed with yourself

And perhaps just a little of that rubs off on the surroundings. The cliffes if you will. And, the fulmars. You are now whistling a tune and saying hello to the sheeps and have something of a spring in your step. It is all shaping up very nicely!

There were no small blues at Lamberton. There might have been a second brood emergence, and if there had been they would be there or at Blaikie Heugh. But there wasn't. I had scheduled 30mins for photos at Lamberton and after finding hee-haw I was now 30mins ahead of schedule. This meant at some point soon I should get the mobile out my back pack and interrupt the glorious weather to squint at the screen in bright sunshine to text C&J and IC that I was ahead of schedule. I thought if I put that off and dawdled for a bit I wouldn't have to send the text, and could instead stay outwith the bounds of the real world, the absence of which I was thoroughly enjoying. "I'll think about all that a bit later."

Of late I have been preferring macro to zoom. A rare case of the reverse here; as I descended the steps to the East end of Burnmouth. Although you get more butterfly detail in the (macro) pic below, the blurred out background colours of the one above (zoomed) is actually the better result. 

decorative bird boxes in Burnmouth

I was now so high I was seeking out people to wave hello to and shout hale and hearty "glorious day"s at. I was looking forward to Partanhall Brae. Last time I was here (late May 2019) was with IC and another Ian and all 3 of us finding the first NBA of the year. This year it would be nearly the last. But not before seeing Colin and Joan descending the brae as I ascended, all 3 of us watching the butterflies flap about in the sunshine. I shouted that that was one less text I had to send. They were also 30mins ahead of the schedule we hadn't really arranged. It was all panning out very well. Meanwhile an NBA flew up the brae and would have escaped us had not Joan and her legendary spotting skills not followed the tiny brown beauty to the ground nearby. I took a handful of depressingly unskilled photos before it made off. We wandered up the trail past the village hall and round the cliff top paths. I have no idea why the NBA season here lasts way longer than in Holyrood Park. They have all come and gone a few weeks ago. 

There were wall butterflies in abundance, but they danced ahead of us on the cropside trails always one step ahead. When you raised your camera they popped up the trail another 20 yards and continued in this frustrating hopscotch remaining just a small distance away but far enough to avoid the paparazzi. We walked to the notch in the wall at the top of the next field, a spot known as Blaikie Heugh. It is a shelf of grass and gorse having a steep drop off to the North down a sheer slope into the sea. And is sheltered enough to attract many local butterflies.

As well as the walls, the coppers and whites there was a rancidly stinky dead fox lying in the long grass. It wore rather a lot of Death number 5 and once you realised it was there you couldn't get far enough away. Although there were butterflies, we didn't stay as long and it took some time after I galloped down the side of the golf course to get the stench out my nose and throat.

If you caught the small coppers at the right angle
their iridescent brown gleamed an oily blue.

Colin and Joan returned to Burnmouth. Iain texted to let us know he was in that area but being a little early we had missed him. C&J were anticipating perhaps bumping into him but only realised their paths had crossed when they texted him later to say they found a Holly Blue back on the Brae. He was on the bus by this point. 

I meanwhile was running towards Eyemouth. Last time I'd done this tour I left myself with too little time to explore St. Abbs, before catching the 6.15 bus back to Berwick. I still had 7 miles or more to get there and although the day was time well spent, I could see it slipping through my hands and tried to increase the pace. I ran past all of the butterflies except the absolute corkers and those posing in the most outstanding manner.

Fear Not out of Leith.

I even gave the pub (and lunchtime pint) a miss. 😢

Going up through the caravan park leaving Eyemouth there was a tortoiseshell and peacock posing right beside the trail, ignoring all of the passing traffic. I stopped and took loads of pics mostly in macro, trying to get the flavour of the blurred coastline behind. I didn't realise I'd got the (near) perfect foreground and background mix (5 below) until on the train home.

Then a couple of whites danced right in front of me oblivious to my presence in their jousting or mating dance. They fluttered right in my face and I fired off a couple of random shots to see if I could catch their flight. It was a shame they were a bit tattered. You can see the headland of St Abbs in the background. In fact a lot of the best butterfly incidents happened before I got there.

wall on a wall

I was keeping one eye on the trail and one on the wall beside it for walls and others sunbathing. Then I came across a gap in the wall and a small picnic of flowering heather. Thinking there might be walls on top of it I approached to find there were 5 or 6 graylings blending in so well I only saw them when they flew up and then settled 10 yards away. They were fairly keen to regroup on the heather and I took a lot of photos over 10 mins of chasing them. They are just as frustrating as walls for getting close ups and when I later reviewed the dozens of photos, only 2 were any use. But great to see graylings at all. I have run this coastline loads and they are not one of the frequent flyers.

social distancing?

Coldingham Bay is always busy with folk on a sunny day. There were loads of folk on the beach but they did seem to be keeping a reasonable distance from each other (except on the boat rides.) I hurried through while looking out for Holly Blues one of which was spotted here a while back. I hurried so much I actually got to St Abbs about an hour earlier than expected which left me with nearly 2hrs there before I had to get back to the bus stop. The weather was still fairly ideal even though it was just after 4pm.

I'd heard there were loads of small coppers here and sure enough as soon as I started the first lap of the loch I saw quite a few. Enough that I could choose the shiny new ones over the more raggedy ones. I was on my second lap of Mire Loch when I fell into a rather obvious trap. I had been photographing a really mint copper until it was chased into the air by another 2. The three of them went shooting into the grass and I followed, keeping my eyes on the targets and not really looking at where I was placing my feet. (This is butterflying 1.01. You can't take your gaze from the specimen as they will disappear the moment you do. Happens every time. So you must get used to running through fields of thistles watching the butterfly, NOT the ground or thistles.) Unfortunately I didn't see the rabbit-hole and stepped into it up to my knee. I was on quite a steep slope and continued down headfirst, shielding the camera first, and everything else second. I shouted bad words loud enough to make the nearby ducks and swans quack in rebuke. After dusting myself down it seemed like I'd got away with it and I looked out for the coppers, who would certainly have enjoyed their jape.

It took a couple of minutes to realise I had lost my sunglasses out the back pack top pocket, It was unzipped and they must have gone walkabout when I went skooshing down the hill. I looked about to find the rabbit hole to then gauge where I'd fallen. But there were many holes with trampled grass below. I walked about for 20 minutes but could not find the specs. It was more annoying than a huge loss; they were quite old and I am not someone to be duped into spending a week's wages on a pair of shades. (Who came up with that idea? Was it Mr. R Ban? Or maybe the same genius who started selling tap water in bottles?) Anyway I was properly turned over by the wildlife there and look forward to the photos of the bunnies of St Abbs frolicking about the lochside in (inexpensive) wraparounds.

I only saw the one common blue and although it was old enough to have lost most of the white fringe round its wings it was still a really vivid blue and I spent some time following it to get a photo. It had lost none of its pace or agility either and I only managed to keep it in view due to the striking blue of its wings (not apparent from this photo.)

such an amazing place

those three bandits robbed me!

not many skippers about

I gave myself a 30 minute margin to catch the last bus of the day. But it only took about 10 mins to run from the loch to the bus stop back in town. The bus arrived and a small group got on. Back in Berwick I got a pint in the pub next to the station before the train whizzed us back to 'civilisation' in about 40mins. It was a great day out and very much appreciated after the limitations of lockdown. Great company with C&J and sorry not to bump into Iain (or the Holly Blue!). Maybe next time!

sundog from the train window

18 miles over 6hrs 44m