pushing the river

17/04/22

A couple of days down Warriston cemetery when nothing remarkable was happening, but there is always something worth pointing the camera at. And it all plays a part in the sequence of the year and the changing seasons. I was kind of treading water until the sun came out again, releasing the next wave of butterflies. 

speckled wood
easily the most numerous species in the cemetery

bee fly

I really like these miniature fuzz-balls. They make good practice for shooting butterflies and although they are smaller they will hover in place making taking photos possible. They frequent many of the same flowers as butterflies and arrive immediately before orange tips appear - another Springtime favourite.

hover fly

on garlic mustard

drowsy bee

LTT

robin arriving to chase off intruders!

bullfinch

coal tit drinking

magpie

The larger garden birds usually hang back until I leave the feeding area. This magpie must have been especially hungry/greedy to break the rule, and the woodpigeon must have taken that as the signal for a free-for-all. A couple of steps forward and they disappear up into the trees.

bullfinch (female)

robin - feeding a mate and youngsters?
He doesn't usually remove a beakful uneaten.

blue tit eats a sunflower heart by holding between feet

dunnock - taking advantage of robin's absence!

19/04/22

On the 19th I saw this comma on the foliage in the riverside area. They are fairly rare in Warriston - I have seen less than 5 in the 16 months I have been visiting. It looked in good shape but flew up high into a tree when I got close. I waited to see if it would return to a lower branch. It did not and the weather was pretty overcast (meaning it might just settle until the sun returned hours later). I managed - employing tactics I'd rather not dwell on here (nothing illegal or likely to hurt the butterfly you understand, but not of the noblest order) - to shift it. But only onto a higher and equally unhelpful perch. Some further stick waving and it flew off to another tree where it hung upside down mocking me. Then onto the bark of another tree and still higher. As Davina says, fuck and bugger.

inverted comma

I had a wander along to a more appreciative audience and then, as the sun prepared to appear again I wandered back to the pausing comma. I could just see it poking round the corner of a tree. It was right on the riverbank and if I reached too much for a photo I'd take a header into the water. As the sun dodged from cloud to cloud it went from closed wings to open wings. Clearly I do not have the patience of a saint. I weighed up stand and wait vs go do something more interesting and opted for the latter. Sometimes if it's not happening the best call is to walk away and return on a different day. This strategy has worked well recently for several bird and butterfly species. You can't push the river. 

blue tit gathering nesting materials

blue tit setting up home in the crypts

wren

pine ladybird

You can tell nature is thin on the ground when I start hunting ladybirds. To me they are about the same tariff as bees. ie when there are no butterflies and birds about, then I will take their photos. But struggle to find the enthusiasm to google and learn which one is which. I realise this makes me shallow and have made my peace with that. The clusters that huddled through Winter together have mostly dispersed. 

2 spot?

eyed ladybird (much less usual and seldom seen) (by me!)

phew! back to the good stuff!

love a dunnock, despite the limited palette

the bullfinches have become regulars at the feeding tables

When the robin is elsewhere - rearing a family perhaps - the other birds will stand and chat at the feeding table. If the robin is there they will arrive and leave in the same wingbeat, using smash and grab tactics. I wonder if he wasn't there at all would they all just stand around chewing the fat and not being so skittish?

crow on the mooch

riverside robins are becoming very friendly

one of my favourites - club foot blue tit

standing on tippy toes

wren gathering straw

This female blackbird has been holding her right foot off the ground for a while now. I always try to give her extra portions. She is really quite tame and lets me approach close enough to do this.

this one had just jammed down a large piece of bread
I chop it up small but sometimes not quite small enough.

not a pigeon! A stock dove!

chiffchaff: easy to recognise the call,
difficult to get near for a good photo

wren

blackcap male

I had noticed the blackcaps were back. They haunt the riverside area but as soon as you hear or see them (known as a Northern Nightingale for it's lovely song) they tend to melt into the background. I had been continually frustrated of late and was spending ages where I had seen them and had photographed them last year. Why so tricky? The one above; I zoomed in and took a photo of the bare branch. Bastardo! I realised I was in another pushing the river scenario and right enough a few days later got some video in late afternoon sunlight when the bird was so busy singing his song he didn't mind me standing a small distance away (stood absolutely still with a stupid smile on my face.)

wren

The sparrowhawk (like yello-whammer sometimes pronounced sparro-whawk for comedy) sits high in a tree near the O Section. This is exciting until you realise the limitations of the zoom and that you'll only ever get the same photo with a different degree of scowl. I saw it (her I'm told) gathering sticks for a nest until she saw me watching, then she stopped. Nope, there's no nest in that big old fir tree over there. I'll not be climbing up there anytime soon with a trail cam in my teeth getting a million itchy conifer snags down the back of my collar and a talon slash down my face like an arboreal Bruce Lee. 

peacock

Peacocks and small torts often sunbathe on the ground. It is almost impossible to get a decent photo in this case and the subject should be asked nicely to choose a blossoming tree on which to settle, as the reverse is true. This speckled wood obliged in the most unhelpful way, choosing a horse chestnut tree.  However its plan to foil my photo backfired as I think it made a rather good image. 

low art

high art

Meanwhile standing near the catacombs I spied a white of some sort which was doing that thing the orange tips made famous, for the first 2 days they are let out of jail. Drinking in bars and chasing females. Well in part. Anyway I saw it wasn't going to be stopping anytime soon so shot off a couple of in flight pics. Looks like it was a small white (could be a female orange tip or green veined white) and if so, the first of the year. Once I have three or four decent quality photos of small whites they can be ignored for the rest of the year as they are the blank page of the butterfly world, the tabula rasa, the clean slate and are prone to overexposure and burning out of the white areas. I chased this one up to the top of the crypts then chased it back down again. And when it was up, it was up. But it disappeared at some stage using the magic portal butterflies are well known for.  

After a quick walk through the riverside area I left to go home. However going into St Marks I spied a family of mallard chicks. Nine in total I think, although mum wasn't very apparent. I saw a female mallard being hassled by a roudy gang of males and suspect she had said to the chicks to head downstream and she would meet them in a short while. I took some photos and followed them, motherless and looking a bit vulnerable, all the way down past the high bridge in St Marks. I wish I could tell you a happier ending and there may well have been a happy ending just minutes later, but I didn't see it play out. Next morning (in the same area) I saw a mallard family (Mr and Mrs) with 13 chicks, which I felt made up for the rather uncertain ending the evening before. But I do know that mother nature is fairly unsentimental when it comes to tiny chicks' survival rates. 

very cute!