warr-cor, the new favourite

 

12/1/21 a palindromic out and back

The Warriston (Cemetery) Corstorphine (Hill) route is fast becoming the new favourite run. I have temporarily transferred allegiances from butterflies to birds, and joining the 2 bird hotspots produces a decent sized run across town and back with the promise of something worth pointing the camera at. It rarely pans out like that, but the potential for some wildlife pics gets me out the door when the sun is shining and I always feel better for it. 

Michael going shopping.

frosty bonnet

bribing the locals

Warriston can be hit or miss. There is usually lots of twittering in the trees but sometimes I come home with nothing of value in the camera. If the sun goes behind a cloud my current camera is not good enough to get anything more than a blocky record shot. So we were fighting the odds. It was nice we got a few luckies with a tree creeper landing right where we were standing and hopping about the tree in front of us. Mary got better shots - I shot some video when it was closest and have extracted a couple of stills. They move so fast it is probably an idea to shoot with a fixed high shutter speed but there is never the time to change to this - once the bird is in front of you there is rarely more than 8 secs to find it, zoom in and shoot a few frames.

Mary has a new camera, too large to run with, but it is great in lower light and has a larger lens so lets more light in even though it has a smaller sensor. It has greatly encouraged myself to look at Panasonic Bridge cameras and may well get one for the remainder of the winter. And see if I can't get some way of transporting it on runs. I do like the convenience of a high end compact but find it is limited when trying to shoot birds (at a distance) in poor light conditions. 

always great to see a nuthatch
Mary spotted this one but it disappeared pronto.

tree creeper

more bonnet frost

WoL

I am so right there.

I was overexcited to get to Corstorphine hill. It shows how stupid about butterflies I am: the above illustration of a Red Admiral gave me a flutter in my heart. And it was only an illustration. Jeez what a state. I was also a bit over excitable about the birds and when there weren't any buzzards, kestrels, woodpeckers, jays, nuthatches or finches, I tried to get close to a coal tit that was perched magnificently in the light on top of an adjacent branch. I wandered into some bramble and it snagged badly around my legs - I was looking at the bird not where I was standing. I fell to the ground as the bird flew off and to offset the pain and indignity I said all the bad words I could think of. Several times. Before noticing a middle aged gent sitting on a nearby log, studiously texting and pretending he hadn't witnessed my childish tantrum. Mary would normally take a photo but swithered between concern and amusement. What a red face. Sober up Buchanan.

collateral

Corstorphine Hill was looking superb in the low sun but alas the birds seemed to have flown off for the day. Maybe need to arrive a bit earlier. I hate the boring drag along Ravelston Dykes but Mary likes it, so we returned that way. I think it is the most direct line home and Mazza gets a bit done-in after the miles get into double figures. Near the Dean Village there was a stand of birches just behind the wall we were running past. We saw a gang of gold finches at the zoom limit of a bad photo. However because we had had no joy at Corstortphine we tarried for slightly too long taking bad pics. The finches were eating the shoots or seeds from the trees. There was also one or 2 small drab looking birds that I had a notion were gold crests. They moved very quickly and only occasionally came low enough to bother taking photos of. The pics revealed they were gold crests (hurray!) but the images were shite (boo!). Maybe if I get that new camera...

13miles in 4hrs