butterflies are back!

Tuesday 16th March

Today I was starting back to work and noticed the forecast was high temps and sunshine. Possibly a butterfly day?! But I can't call in sick on day 1 of a new job. (Well not with any shred of professional integrity, although I did consider it.) What to do? I was working near the Hermitage, so managed to carry my camera in on my bike as well as a fuck-ton of paint and kit. Plan was to nip out to eat my sandwiches by the walled garden 1.4 miles away. That'll work? 

Before I even finished my first sandwich there was a fluttering up on the third shelf. I jammed the food in and munched as I climbed the steps on the right up to where a Small Tort sat sunning itself. Hurray! First butterfly of the year. It flew off before I could get any decent shots but at least I recorded one actual butterfly, (about 3 days ahead of last year's first on March 19th.) I think there were a couple of other fly-bys before I noticed the comma basking on the lowest shelf and chasing off any other insects and butterflies that had the cheek to invade its airspace. 

plenty bees on blooms

comma

peacock

I was pleased to have seen the 3 likeliest of the season's opening batters and all in the time it took to eat my sandwiches. However I wanted to check progress on the riverside butterbur so cycled downstream to the Howe Dean Bridge that crosses the stream and pushed my bike a little bit upstream till I could padlock it out of harm's way against a tree. I walked further upstream till I got to the area I had last seen a week ago when it was flooded. It was drying out well and the butterbur was in flower. A couple of butterflies flew up and I got my camera out. I spent a short while taking pics of the 2 or 3 remaining specimens then jumped on my bike and cycled furiously back to the grindstone!

I hadn't thought I had taken long enough to get any good pics so was quite surprised when they turned out to be better than anticipated. So often it is the other way round - what you think is going to be ace turns out to have motion blur or have focussed on a twig and not the subject. It did help it was lovely weather and the new camera does a great job of seeming to know what I was trying to focus on. Anything fairly central popped up quite sharp. 

I have to admit to feelings of reservation. This is strange and I may well get shunned or excommunicated by my Aurelian pals but I didn't get the massive boost I expected when I saw these first butterflies of the year. I was anticipating I'd be cock-a-hoop for the rest of the day, hell, for the rest of the week. And yet... it felt a little hollow. 

Not so I tossed my camera in the river and decided to take up crochet. It wasn't a big thing, but it was a slight hint that some of the excitements I have for a few years now associated solely with butterflies; some of the glitter had rubbed off along the way. I know - it's kind of sacrilegious - and I found the feeling itself less incongruous than the realisation, so I wasn't reeling like a gambler who wakes as from a living nightmare to declare he will never make another wager. I just didn't get as big a hit as I anticipated from the first flutter in 6 full months.

I had an inkling it was the birds who stole my butterfly mojo too. The interaction with robins more specifically. You can see the light in their eyes - they give you feedback. You spend ages on the phone talking about mutual friends and plans for the Summer. Well maybe not. But there is a 2 way street and the danger here is these wee bits of coloured paper flap about in a robotic way, and there is less feedback. Also they are harder to follow than a straight-line flying bird; suddenly zig-zagging over a cryptic background and - they've disappeared. How did I forget that? That's not fun. It's almost as if they're trying to remind me of the frailty of my eyesight. Flipping and winking out of existence while I stand open mouthed and camera pointed nowhere. I had forgotten their portals and mystical ways. 

I am pleased to report the feeling was not a major revelation and if I had to score the day out of ten it would be up in the top numbers. Higher again when I saw the photos. And 2 days later when I revisited the same 2 sites on Thursday lunch-break and there were some great specimens posing in a slightly more user friendly manner, I almost couldn't have told you there was a space wide enough to slip a playing card between the pleasures of last season and this. So let's not talk about it again. I am back on track and really excited about having the whole butterfly season ahead and possibly (fingers crossed) the chance to see them uninterrupted by the pandemical restrictions we had last year. It was just a blip and maybe I was just tired or had the manopause. It won't happen again! (I hope.) (Fairly sure! Yep, the words Orange Tip make my mouth go dry. It'll be fine. Just nerves and being back working after months of not working.) Just ignore my blip. Normal service has resumed.

older more knackered specimen

view from the treetops

 
I'm so tall!

13/03/21

Another trip to Warriston, again the new camera doing the honours. I now consider the photos I used to take with the compact of substandard quality and how did I ever manage? Actually is it very easy to take shite photos with the new camera, but in general it makes taking better photos much easier and a total joy. In the past if I took photos in poor lighting or from beyond a certain distance they would look okay on the screen in situ, but once home they would be noisy or just dull on the computer. There is a far higher hit rate with the new camera. And you can get decent pics from a greater distance away. The main downside is weight and size, but it seems to survive travelling in my backpack without, so far, the shoogling doing any damage.

On the 13th March I went along to the cemetery again and it seems another mixed bag. I can't remember much specifically but I would have been hanging around the crypts looking for early emergers. Not vampires, but butterflies, overwintering in the vaults and appearing now the sun was striking the stone facing for several hours each day. The butterflies usually return about mid-March so I would have been keeping an eye on the flowers near the crypts, but alas, no signs of them so far.

What I did see was a goldcrest. Often, the trees a couple of rows North of the crypts can be popular with the rarer birds. Treecreepers, goldcrests, nuthatches and even woodpeckers. I had been getting so involved with the wrens and robins South of the East Gate I'd been neglecting this area and today enjoyed revisiting those trees, squinting up into the high branches trying to identify small things far away and take photos of them. Sometimes I wasn't sure of what I was pointing the camera at until later.

Goldcrests are small and fast moving, continually hopping about looking to pick off insects and BUTTERFLY EGGS from the twigs and branches. The bastards! They do not make it easy to get decent photos and you have to get that streak of yellow on their heads as otherwise they are a bit dull in colour. I took dozens of photos and not one was satisfactory! All good practice though, and keeps you on your toes following something not much larger than a butterfly around at a distance and trying to anticipate where it will stop next for a nanosecond before flying off. 

similar game with a treecreeper

siskin

I was standing still and listening for the tweeting of gangs of finches. I'd hear their chatter and wander over to what otherwise appeared to be an empty tree. Way up the top there would be a gang of goldfinches hopping about eating the small buds and shoots of emerging leaves. And what are those greeny yellow birds bickering with the finches? Ohhh! Something new! I thought they were maybe siskins as I'd seen someone post photos of siskins, but hadn't paid sufficient attention. I got chatting online with Warriston regular Alan who suggested they might be greenfinches but when I showed him pics he confirmed siskins. I was pleased to identify a new species I'd not knowingly seen before although felt there was plenty room for better photos if they ever came down the tree about 30 feet. 

the view of an "empty" tree full of tiny birds

siskin female (I think) not so yellowy

goldfinch

Another thing I'd been failing to see was ladybirds. I'd been hunting for them ever since Alan had pointed out some to me a while back, snuggled into some ornate stonecarving. And yet I'd completely failed to see any every time I remembered to check the headstones, particularly those with Celtic or elaborate carving. Today I found a couple and was very pleased with my eagle-eyed vision. I think that is the problem; my distance vision is pretty good, but for screens, books and anything small, closer than arms length I really need reading glasses. 

closer

closer still

ahh there they are

Most trips to Warriston I'll go past the secret garden and put some food on the bird tables. Almost immediately the female blackbird (with the ring) pops out and eats the bread. She seems to have got used to me and takes her time in a non flighty way. I presume she lives on the ivy-covered wall right next door. The ivy has recently been chopped and is now disconnected near the ground so that may all be about to change. A large portion had blown or fallen off the wall last time I was there.

redwing

woodpigeons

I then had a wee mooch around the riverside area. You go under the tunnel and it has a slightly wilder feel of being less well ordered. There are a couple of friendly robins and someone puts out food in a few spots for them and the nuthatches and great tits and squirrels along the riverside path. There was another casualty there recently in the strong winds as yet another tree swooned across the river. All three of the recent trees to fall over had been marked for cutting down. Partly I think because they were developing a lean, the roots being not very well supported by the riverside mud which has had a real soaking this Winter. It is a bit of a coincidence (or is it?) that all 3 seem to have jumped before they were pushed. 

The light was beginning to fade but this robin came over for a chat before I headed.

x marks the spot
the latest tree to throw in the towel

3 trees down