hermitage pt1

12th March

I have recently been working over the other side of town, near the Hermitage of Braid. One of my favourite haunts, especially at this time of year as it is not bad for early butterfly sightings. I noticed butterfly oracle Iain's early sightings are often near rivers, and the Braid Burn ticks this box. I am not particularly great at early sightings so look to the likes of Iain, Ken, Richard and others to see what they are doing and where the good stuff lurks.

The tree cover in the Hermitage is quite good for wind shelter; there are some earlyish flowers blooming in the walled herb garden below the doocot and flowering butterbur near the river, also quite shaded from the wind. So, since I was in that part of town to see about a job, I packed the new camera and spent the rest of the day chasing round some likely spots for wildlife, primarily birds.

First up was a dipper. I must have checked out the doocot and found it empty of butterflies. The dipper sat nicely for photos. But it was in quite a dark cleft of the gorge and not particularly photogenic.

Downstream there was a robin. It chirruped as I went past so I fished out some stuff for it to eat and threw it on the ground. It responded immediately - was obviously familiar with the idea of handouts -  took a morsel and disappeared into the undergrowth. A crow nearby watched with interest, also familiar with the process but hanging back the way they do, waiting for me to vacate the area before investigating. While I mooched around the robin returned and played out his part of the unspoken bargain by posing very closely on twigs while I took photos. The results of an obliging robin in the sunlight is nearly miraculous on the new camera - every feather visible separately, you could almost count them! I said thanks and didn't even bother to check the butterburs on the other side of the stream - it was too muddy and I had new trainers on. And a little too cold for butterflies. 

Instead of heading to Newington Cemetery I went over to Blackford duck pond. There isn't often much that is exotic (other than an occasional rat!) but the sun came out and showed the locals off in their finest colours. A great photo of a commonplace bird beats a blurry pic of an exotic most days. I was interested to see the black headed gulls, who lose their titular black (chocolate brown in reality) heads during the Winter, were re-feathering their plumage with what looked like Mexican wrestlers head-masks as they grew their dark feathers back.

when I blow in here, that pops out

After standing around a little too long and getting a bit stiff and cold I set off, planning on the hoof what was next. I went into Holyrood Pk at the Commie Pool entrance (after cutting through the student grounds where well cultivated gardens often produce interesting plants, birds and butterflies) and was about to follow the boundary path when I remembered there can be good stuff going on in Hunter's Bog. I was glad I had thought of this as a large heron was celebrating the return of the toads just the other night, by eating quite a few of them. I stayed to watch 2 being dispatched in about 16 minutes. It was quite visceral. I couldn't be positive they were toads rather than frogs but I assumed toads as they were pretty large and they had just done that collective emergence that sees hundreds converge on the ponds and lochs of Holyrood, for an orgy of mating and spawning.

3 video stills from the caught-on-camera murder

I shot video of the heron as soon as it caught a toad. It was 3 full minutes of washing the toad and shaking it. Rinsing it again and again, and crushing it in its powerful beak, presumably to wash off the coating of slime they have and perhaps to kill the toad before swallowing it down whole. It was difficult to tell if the toad was really dead before being swallowed and what might be the upshot if it wasn't. But the sight of its very human-like form being tossed around and eaten was a little unnerving and distressing.