paradise found

Friday 8th April was an outstanding day. I go on about the weather a lot. Like my camera, I work better when the sun is out and work less well when it is dull and overcast. I noticed the forecast was decent for Friday, especially earlier in the day. I recalled a recent encounter with a dog walker in the cemetery, who had said the birdsong, especially between 9 and 10am was just fabulous in Warriston. I made a mental note to get there a bit earlier sometime soon.

I awoke unusually early on Friday, maybe the brightness of the early morning, maybe those words about the birdsong in the cemetery calling me to get up and out. My backpack took longer to prepare than usual as I was carrying a special load and had to prepare it well. Pilrig church says just after 9.20am. The adventure started as I passed Gormless in the river there, looking a bit chilly. A whole day of blue skies ahead. I climbed the bridge at Powderhall carefully, as I had my camera slung round my neck. Usually it would be in my backpack until I got safely down the bridge and over the small wall into the riverside area but today there was a brand new camera in my backpack!

fearless chaffinchers

excuse me I think you've forgotten something?

that's better!

One of the riverside robins presented itself very much right in front of me. I had stepped into the undergrowth following the peeping of a wren. When I saw this one arrive on the branch directly ahead - no coincidence - I got out the food bag and he flew down to my hand. I have mostly been wearing large clumsy gloves during the Winter but had taken them off today as it was quite warm. The feeling of 2 small feet lightly holding onto finger tips is nearly enough to make my heart swoon. A tiny weight, there for a second, then a flutter of wings and they are gone. And yet the joy is immense.

jelly ear fungus

While clambering through the undergrowth I found a dead elder branch with these fungus growing on them. Auricularia auricula-judae. As wikipedia says... Its specific epithet is derived from the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder tree; the common name "Judas's ear" was largely eclipsed by the corruption "Jew's ear". Today, "wood ear", "jelly ear", "tree ear", and other names are sometimes used. The fungus can be found throughout the year in temperate regions worldwide, where it grows upon both dead and living wood.

It is edible and I was a little bit peckish at the time and almost tempted to try it but apparently the texture is like "eating an Indian rubber with bones in it". Wikipedia also says it cannot be eaten raw and needs to be cooked thoroughly. Is this right Hilary and Mike, the fungus experts? (And ear eaters!)

I like them because they are easy to recognise and have that fascinating quality of being equal parts pretty and repellent. And look like ears!

pleased to find my second speckled wood of the year!

Before going into the secret garden I encouraged the radge robin out of his home which seems to be this large mound of debris and collected undergrowth. Quite often there are blackbirds, great tits, wrens and other birds hopping about this bit. The robin and his mate are often just here which leads me to believe he probably has a nest nearby. I hoped by feeding him up he then wouldn't follow me into the feeding area as I had a project that didn't require his help.

Back around November last year I saw a Panasonic marketing thing on facebook. Like and share and you could win blah blah blah. Being a huge Panasonic fan I liked and shared, and consequently when she saw my post, so did Mary. A few days later Mary said did I get the same message from Panasonic? No! Oh well says she, maybe it was just her and not sent out to everyone. It implied she had won the prize and asked for her address to send it to. We raised our eyebrows and sort of held our breath, but said nothing until about a week later a huge box arrived with a full frame mirrorless top of the range Panasonic camera. For a like and share on facebook!

Originally about £3k when they came out a while back they have perhaps not been selling that well and have dropped in price. But are a very robust and amazing quality camera. It came with a 24~105 kit lens and that is the main reason it has sat unused until now. All my bird shots and most butterfly shots are taken at some distance from the subject and require a longer lens than 105. It would be fine for portraits and landscapes but falls a long way short for wildlife photography. 

That said I should perhaps make myself familiar with the camera (Mary's new camera) since the lens I might consider buying to make it more useful for wildlife would be four figures, whether I enjoyed using it and what the results might be in comparison to the FZ2000 which I totally love and am in no hurry to replace. The first thing that is very noticeable right away is although it is close in size to the FZ2000 it weighs considerably more and with a 150~600 lens would weight even more again. Is that a road I want to go down? I also suspect that the leap from bridge camera to full frame will produce better images but maybe not significantly better images. Anyway to help me weigh it all up and look the gift horse properly, full in the mouth, I better take it out for a spin. 

I had a feeling it could easily spoil a lovely day so I had a cunning plan. Stick it on a tripod right in the faces of the little darlings feeding at their table, then operate it remotely while I sat a few metres away looking at a linked iPad on which was the view through the camera. I had linked my FZ2000 to my iPad while on holiday and was intrigued by the possibility of taking photos while being some distance from the camera. You can adjust several of the parameters and choose what to focus on by touching the iPad. You can't zoom in and out as this is a manual operation on the lens of the new camera. I set up the S1R on the tripod (Mary's tripod!) about 2m away from the feeding table. I only put food on that one not the others to start with, to force the birds onto that area in front of the camera. 

camera set up to photo birds on feeding platform

I got out my iPad and checked wifi signals - it picked up the camera (I always find this something of a miracle - bits of plastic and metal speaking to each other through the thin air in invisible voices) and normally I'd then open the Panasonic app and either transfer photos or operate the camera remotely. You see the image through the camera lens (how amazing is that?) and where you touch the iPad makes the focus jump to that spot and it takes the photo. If I could touch the image of a bird as it landed I'd focus on it and take its photo. And I'd be sitting or standing well away from the birds. Wouldn't that be cool?!

Well yes, but alas, like a lot of technology, the route to happiness isn't always a straight line. Unfortunately my assumption that every Panasonic camera would use the Panasonic Image app let me down. The message on my iPad said now start the Lumix app. (The Fucking What!?) I'd either have to go home and download the Lumix app or sign in to a BT hotspot or put some credit on my payg sim card within the iPad to download the app. It was all becoming too much and rather than try to buy some wifi in a cemetery and maybe not be able to sign back out and run up a massive bill just to download an app, my inner Scrooge said put it all away and bring it back later.

(I have since downloaded the correct apt and done a trial of remote picture taking - something I should have of course done before I hauled it all down to the cemetery.) 

However since I was here with a fuck-ton of equipment (and iPad) and tripod, I may as well take a few shots. I had been there about 15 minutes and the food had been on the table. There was the usual gathering of birds queueing to get in front of the camera. And they didn't seem to be bothered by me squatting behind the camera or this new lump of metal right in among the feeding area. My brain was kinda fried by new tech and the camera was new to me so I didn't get the best out of it. I'm sure I could have touched the screen where the birds were and it might have focussed or taken the photo while focussing on the bird but instead I just had it focussed on the brick and when something landed I hit the shutter release. So most of the photos are brick-centred rather than bird-centred. What can I say? I have never taken such beautiful brick photos. 

Then the robin appeared and pretty much saved the day. He is an old pro at posing for pics and knows to hold a pose while I dick about with settings and fumble the controls. I experimented with the joystick control; a device I have been totally envious of ever since I saw it on Ken's (and Mairi's) G9. Just near your thumb there is a button you can move horizontally, vertically and diagonally, to put a crosshair over the thing you want in focus. On the FZ2000 I have to flip out the screen and use my left thumb to do that on the touch screen while viewing through the EVF. A process I am now more familiar with than operating a very sensitive mini joystick. Unfortunately the sun wasn't blessing the pics at the time I had the S1R out and they look a tad dull. I did get a sense of the quality of the beast (pics below) but I am not convinced that I will throw away the FZ2000 and run off to the lens shop to take out a mortgage on a long lens. It may well happen in due course but it was significant that I carried the S1R in my backpack for the rest of the day and didn't get it back out. 

shot with the S1R

I was really lucky. The bullfinches could tell I was having a bad time with my equipment and so came by to pose for photos and cheer me up. I didn't do them justice and left them a bit out of focus. The brick however is spot on every time. Oh well, it is all a learning experience. 

Back to the FZ2000

I have totally bonded with the FZ2000 over the year I have used it and when I go out with just a compact I almost hope that nothing visually impressive happens as I only have the B team along to capture it. The difference is substantial. Not always the quality, but ease of use and higher success rate as well as better quality of photo all make the larger camera more fun to have along. Yes it is larger and heavier and not easy to run with. But it very quickly became instinctive to use and often I will have switched it on and begun to zoom in, while it is being lifted to my eye as I spot a distant bird or butterfly trying to escape. I am not sure how much I need a really heavy and cumbersome beast of a full frame job, that necessitates changing lenses to cover the ground the FZ does with no lens changing. Time will tell. It took a few years of talking about it, before getting around to buying the bridge camera. This gives me a superb opportunity of using a top piece of kit to see if it suits my requirements. Big hurray! to Mary for winning it. (She isn't that excited about using it either, currently, but feels we should make the most of it coming our way as it did.) 

As I was dismantling the tripod and packing away the camera and iPad, Lucinda appeared. Ken had introduced us along at the Botanics and she was having a rare visit to Warriston having heard there was a kestrel about the place. She wasn't that familiar with the layout so I had said where I have seen it (immediately South of the catacombs and sometimes in the high trees just above, and over near the East gate.) It is not regular enough to be dependable - you just have to turn up and keep your eyes peeled. And look for bird shapes high in the trees and on top of the higher monuments near the crypts. Recently it seemed to have got more flighty, and on the last occasion flew off as soon as I got within shooting distance.

After chatting for a while, she went off in search. I was going to do likewise then noticed there were a few regulars on the feeding tables. I might as well take some photos now I had a camera in my hand with a decent zoom that I could actually work. The bullfinches returned which cheered me right up and I shot some video as well as loads of stills. The sun came back out and I knelt down, not in worship but to get the right line past the subject to the daffs and red bricks behind which make a fab bokeh backdrop. This produced one of my favourite shots of the day with the male bullfinch. (Photo at top of page and below x 26 when I returned to the secret garden again later.) It is the blurred yellows and reds of the background that make the shot.

robin showing me how clever he is catching a bug of some sort

double trouble - 2 robins!

coal tit

f and m bullfinches

I must have gone for a wander at this point. I returned later. Meanwhile I went off - possibly I heard some crows squawking and wondered if they were mobbing a bird of prey. With the day being bright I hoped to bump into one and get a photo or 2. I do get distracted by the small birds though, and can easily spend hours tip-toeing through the undergrowth following the calls of a wren. They are singing a lot these days. More like shouting when you consider they are nearly the loudest thing in the cemetery and yet one of the smallest. You get a short chance to take a photo before they see you and dodge into the long grass or brambles.

snakeshead fritillary

I wondered why (one of) my favourite butterflies and these flowers both share the name fritillary. I believe it is because it references the checkerboard patterns on either. 

another wren

I found myself back in the secret garden! How did that happen? Not sure I was just wandering aimlessly and maybe heard something like bullfinch calls nearby. Anyway the sun was out by now and I got much better photos as a result.

The bullfinches behave differently to most of the small birds. They will spend a while cautiously checking out the feeding area before descending to the tables. If not chased off by the robin they will stand and feed. Many of the other small birds will land, take food and then fly up into the trees to eat. The bullfinches will stand on the bricks munching away. 

favourite shot of the day - bullfinch and bokeh

mr and mrs

bullfinchers video

Rosanna looking for sparrowhawks.

I hadn't met Rosanna before. I saw her looking up into the trees. The camera round her neck let me know it was probably a bird she was looking for. I snuck across as quietly as possible and sure enough it was, Rosanna confirmed, a sparrowhawk. (I thought it might be the kestrel which had been seen here a few times recently.) Unfortunately it was well up a high tree and I was unable to get more than a distant near vertical shot from underneath. I was pleased to see it but had to try several stances to place the bird between branches. I have only ever seen sparrowhawks in Warriston in flight overhead. Not counting the dead one I came across. Occasionally it would look downwards and give us a scowl. Not great photos but nice to get a record shot. It seemed well settled in for a snooze so I gave Rosanna the thumbs up, mouthed thanks and snuck away. 

A short distance away I came across Lucinda again and pointed her towards Rosanna. At the mention of a sparrowhawk, her eyes lit up!

Within minutes the kestrel swooped overhead. I was beside the crypts on the low side and it flew up to land on a tall obelisk on the high side maybe a hundred yards East. I hurried to climb up the slope past James Young Simpson and then took a shot using the trees on my right as cover. I moved forward and stopped for another slightly closer photo. At this point it heard something behind me and took off in that direction. I fired off a couple of shots as it went past but the zoom was set too far and I just badly photographed empty trees! It landed in a tree below the crypts and I got one shot before it moved off again, towards where the sparrowhawk had been. 

Lucinda and Rosanna

Alas no further birds of prey. However there was still plenty good things to come. It was nice to see the 2 new benches just above the crypts. Although I'd be tempted to put a couple of coats of protective varnish on the wood. 

shouty wren

dunnock

great tit

After chatting with the riverside robins I put some food on the flat stone near their tree as several other birds had gathered. Chaffinches and this blue tit. Who approached with caution as the robin is quite assertive about who is allowed where. This is not the radge robin but another one with a similar temper.

is the coast clear?

robin hogging the seed pile

Further along the riverside path I stopped in my tracks. I can't remember seeing a grey wagtail anywhere but puddling in the edge of the small stream by the tunnel or down in the muddy shallows of the river next door. And here was one perfectly perched on a branch, having a snooze. I took some photos and moved closer. The light wasn't great. It sort of woke up, stretched and shook itself. I stood still and it relaxed again. They are very delicate and pretty birds but I don't get many decent photos of them as they continually live up to their names bobbing up and down and usually hopping about the gloomy edges of a body of water. I felt I was having a particularly lucky day.

I forgot to say earlier when I was walking down the centre aisle of the riverside area I felt something hit the top of my woolly bobble-hat. I took it off to find a huge bird poop right on the fluffy pom-pom. Dead centre. Good shooting! I looked into the trees behind me but couldn't see the sniper. Judging by the calibre of the ammunition I'd say it was a woodpigeon at the very least. I felt I was maybe the butt of a joke and there might be stiffled sniggers in the trees. Now some folk say it is good luck; I've never really bought into this as I don't associate being shat on particularly good fortune. It did make me smile though. Not so much the second time a couple hours later when I found a much smaller paint ball splat on my sleeve. I didn't even notice it appear. It may have been ricochet from the first attack. On the upside I did have a particularly lucky day seeing many marvellous critters and some I'd never had the good fortune to come upon in the 16 months I've been a regular here. So maybe it is lucky? 

grey wagtail

chiffchaff

blackbird

blue tit

sometimes the woodpigeons don't even wait till I'm gone
before swamping the feeding area and dispatching the seeds

the squirrels look on concerned there'll be none for them

wood mouse / field mouse

Now this was just fantastic. Apodemus sylvaticus. After googling the difference between Field Mouse and Wood Mouse it turns out they are one and the same, both sharing that Latin name. Their white underside say they are not house mice. This one was tiny and quite timid. If there was a loud noise or a crow made a bit of a shriek it would scoot into the ivy behind at the speed of light. I see very few mice in Warriston - quite a few rats, but very few mice. This one was an absolute beauty and returned several times while I was putting seeds on that stone for the birds. The top of the stone is about chest height so I have no idea how it learned of the seeds. Maybe it has a really good sense of smell. Or was just passing or lives in a hole up the tree. Or worked out that they were falling from above as the birds knocked them down. Another star of the riverside area. I shot some video that I have to edit slightly. It was very skittery and hard to follow. And, after eating a fair amount would then try to stuff as many of the remaining seeds into its mouth and cheeks before scampering off. Off the scale of charming and cute. Look at the size of those tiny hands!

a magical minute of marvellous mousie!

It is a bit unfair on mr or mrs ratty here, because they lose some of their charm when shown next to the beautiful little mouse. However that is the burden of the rats and the price they pay for their success and ubiquity. If they were as rare as otters or pinemartins and never came round our houses we'd love and treasure them more. This one realised I was not a problem and gradually tested the water more and more until it came over to within about 2m of where I was loudly chatting with a local, out taking the afternoon air with his wife. He was slightly concerned about the amount of rats that appeared to thrive in the place. I have never seen more than one at a time and regard them as wildlife that is entitled to the same respect as any other species making a living there. I might not feel the same if I had a family of rats in my attic. 

I had been meaning to return home for some time but kept getting waylaid by something else. And the fact the sun was still shining. I eventually left but on the way home, came across a pair of goosander swimming up the river. I followed them from below Gormley all the way back to Powderhall Bridge. Staying at a distance that didn't hack them off while taking dozens of photos. They are splendid birds although I got far fewer decent pics than I thought as the elements of water and high contrast of the male make for tricky subjects. I had also left the last of my bread in the cemetery so was short of a come hither bribe. They are used to handouts from folk feeding the ducks and have grown accustomed to humans.

Gormley again at the other end of the day.

spectacular skies on the way home

5 miles in nearly 8hrs.
wonderful day!