best part of the day: green hairstreaks!

18th April.

Green Hairstreaks are one of the prettiest and best butterflies, appearing early on in Spring up at the Pentlands. I have been visiting them now for a few years and they never disappoint. Someone will announce they have arrived on social media, and next sunny day I jump on my bike and cycle out there. This year it was Easter Monday. I had a work meet first but it was halfway - near Morningside - then I cycled the rest out the unpleasant A702 past Hillend and on to the car park for Castlelaw Hill Fort. The last mile is up a dreadfully steep climb though I was pleased not to have to use the granny ring this year unlike last. I was pushing the pace because Nick found himself at a loose end and suggested he accompany me. He knows any butterflying trip is likely to have up to an hour hanging about just taking photos or waiting for something to appear. And yet still came along. Good man!

I padlock my bike here and walk the last mile in - prob not even a mile. Nick had driven up. We chatted as we went along to the firing range. The hairstreak field is up and left of the ranges. It was cordoned off to stop the sheep grazing the blaeberries. And is now one of the largest and most successful of the GH colonies in the Pentlands. Others have been noticed or promoted and some have sprung up without help - like the one in Red Moss, I think. Could be wrong. It's a while since I have spoken to the rangers.

scenes of rural bliss!

The weather was bright but with a cool breeze. By cool I mean utterly Baltic. I was still recovering from my sprint up the vertical mile but glad I had thrown a jacket in my pannier for later. It was very welcome and at no point did I think about taking it off!

easy to find - go along to the trees on left and turn right up hill

this is the spot - trees on left
you can just about see a person on the top of the gorse line

It turned out to be David Stevens, someone in the butterfly world
I hadn't bumped into before.

Just to give an idea of the power of my zoom those 2 photos - the landscape and DS up close, were both taken from the same spot. Without changing lens. This is why I love my bridge camera!

We climbed under the wire fence at a point zip-tied together for ease of access, then up to the top of the gorse. Immediately we were surrounded by small brown/green butterflies chasing each other in the sunshine. Plenty about in 2s and 3s or solo sunbathing. I gave Nick my compact camera as I felt he might be seriously bored after about 20mins. He took 17 photos and I think felt that was plenty. I spent about an hour* taking 800.

I got away with this because Mary also arrived. She was out for a cycle and knew where I was going to be. She had left the house after I did but because I was doing that work meet she had cycled an extra 5 miles and swung through the Pentlands from Flotterstone. She called to check I was on site and then turned up just 10 mins after we arrived. It worked very well as she and Nick blethered for an hour while I concentrated on taking photos. Didn't get the perfect green hairstreak image but recorded them well enough for another year.

Last year I had filled my boots here and being a bit Baltic and exposed, I had run off after about 30mins. Done and dusted I thought. But when I got home the images weren't quite as good as I'd hoped and I felt I could have done better. This year I continued long after I felt I'd got good enough. I never got any photos that had that bit of luck that makes you sit up and gasp. You can usually tell on site if that happens though later you sometimes find the focus wasn't quite as sharp.

*I've just checked my gps and it might have been 90mins. Mary says more like 2hrs but I'm sure that it just felt like that!

Mary arrives!

padlocks her steed!

When it is fairly cold the hairstreaks will happily sit on a warm hand. This gives a good idea of scale - they are only just a little bigger than a thumbnail. This is what makes them difficult to photograph. However on the upside, they don't fly far when they fly off. And you can easily follow them to the next perch. I would try to look for ones sat on the edge of a gorse bush - without too many visual distractions around them. I tried a couple of shots when one landed on grass but it doesn't really work as they are small and get lost among the large blades of grass and vegetation. Luckily they have a penchant for perching on the extremes of the gorse. Often though they will angle themselves so their wings face the sun to absorb maximum warmth. This means they regularly hang upside down or slant sideways in a tricky to photograph way.

I also looked out for quality specimens. If one had notches out their wings or looked like it had been weathered by the couple of windy, rainy days previously, I would move onto a better specimen. I know this sounds like the actions of a heartless eugenicist, but you kind of have to be a bit like that to get top quality photos. (Having said that my favourite birds at Warriston are the blackbird with the broken leg and the blue tit with the club foot. I always try to give them extra.)

Mary pointed to my knees and laughed!
You have to be prepared to get down and dirty.

fly photobombing

before

Often I won't bother with fixing trivial stuff on images, although occasionally I'll photoshop something out of the background or something like here that slightly distracts. I removed some gorse from top right and the thorn and petal that overlapped the wing.