blue heaven

There followed a few days of excellent Springtime butterflying. It makes you realise that with a little bit climate warming and a little more sunshine, Scotland could be a fairly decent place to live. It's a shame the already warmer countries have to get burnt to a crisp and suffer forest fires and natural disasters, but well, they've had it good till now, it's only fair. 

Aberlady Cross (a replica)
Original being looked after in NMS.

23rd April.

Today was a belter. It did not start that way and so maybe expectations were set low early on. In fact I got off the train wondering if I should have bothered. There was not enough light to cast a shadow (the very minimum for butterfly activity) and I was in no hurry to get to Postman's Walk to find an absence of everything. I reasoned at the very least I'd get a decent run in East Lothian, but hoped the sun might appear as the forecast had predicted. It was a bit of a gamble, although the sky slowly improved as the train progressed from Waverley to Longniddry. 

I love this Aberlady window display which merits close inspection.

My usual option for butterflying around Aberlady is to catch the train to Drem and run back. However the farmer has ploughed and planted the whole fields right to the edges, where last year he left a dirt trail round the perimeter. There are no pavements on the roads and the cars go awfy fast around there, so running on tractor trails till they join up with the gravel path that goes along to Luffness was the best option. I didn't want to push my luck too often or annoy the farmer too much - I leave that to the (small minority of irresponsible) dog walkers! 

Interestingly the distance from Longniddry to Postman's Walk is virtually identical as from Drem - 4 miles. And you get the option of dawdling through Aberlady to pass the time till the sun comes out. I slightly recommend the small memorial garden between the bowling greens and the Kirk, where there are a couple of memorials, one being the Aberlady Cross which has funny eyes. (As above.)

Another place of note is the Old Bakehouse Tearoom which has a window display by the Aberlady craft group. And is very good quality. I once did a similar aquatic project with the Gilmerton art group, and while it was a great success it was not a patch on this enchanting undersea diorama. Better than virtually any contemporary art in the Modern Art Gallery at Belford. 

starling - fantastic birds

not sunny enough for butterflies 😭

I could put off arriving no longer. The sun wasn't shining and there were heehaw butterflies about. What to do? I remembered Joan reporting there were nuthatches in the trees nearby. And I had seen a blackcap last time I was there. They do not require (intense) sunlight so I went off on a rummage through the trees. To my utter surprise (I've never seen them there before and I've been a few times!) I found one or 2 nuthatches high in the branches. Almost impossible to photograph properly, but it passed 35minutes while the clouds thinned and the sun squeezed through. My spirits rose. 

here comes the sun!

shaping up nicely!

The first things to appear were orange tip males. Most were busy hunting females but some were stopping to nectar on the garlic mustard.

camera shy goldfinch

a butterfly close to my heart

a few speckled woods about too

then I saw a silver shimmer
a holly blue came down to nectar on tree pollen

The males were first to appear. Unless the sun appears they are reluctant to show themselves. They get progressively more lively as the temperature warms up. They would perch on glossy leaves around head height then fire up and down the wall looking for females. There were few to no females on the walled section of ivy so they would land again or chase each other.

The best section for first brood holly blues is around this corner of the field. The July/August brood adopts the ivy and taller trees along the Northern boundary. (Left wall in this photo.)

female enjoying the garlic mustard

Both sexes seemed to enjoy several nectar sources locally. I saw them on the flowering Lilac shrub, the garlic mustard and anything in flower. Also appearing to lick the sticky aphid juice from glossy leaves. And the flowers or blossoms of the sycamore(?) trees.

peacock on Lilac

There was a singular peacock that sunbathed on the dirt path next to holly blue corner. I wondered if I saw a Red Admiral fly by, but when I checked the direction it headed I came across this peacock. I have no further evidence of an RA from either this or the next visit there. One of the other guys who visited recently saw a Wall butterfly and there was a large white I recorded as well. All in all a decent site for passing lepidoptera as long as the sun is shining.

shield bug!

flies sunbathing on a rock

a war wounded peacock - still flying strongly
but looking more like a hawk moth in flight

by mid-afternoon it was baking hot!

I watched and filmed this female egg-laying

she stayed in the vicinity for a while 
before I was able to examine and photo the result

a tiny egg - only just visible to my dim eyes
(didn't have my reading specs)

video of holly blue (female)

green-veined white

It was getting late-ish and I had forgotten to pop along to the other side of Aberlady where there are sometimes small coppers. I ran past Helen, who had come by earlier and photographed the female on the holly, who sat patiently for photos. I shouted I was off to another site and ran about a mile or more to where there is a decent spot. It turned up trumps with a couple of small coppers and the first Wall of the year. I was delighted - perfect end to the day. 

I had a note of the times of trains out of Drem which was now nearer. I reckoned I could make the next one which gave me 30 mins to cover 3 miles over mixed terrain of tarmac, dirt trails and lumpy field edges (due to farmer planting over the usual dirt trails round the fields.) I packed my camera into my back pack and ran fast for the first time that day. When it came to that field I just ran in the tractor tyre furrows which were free from crops. I was still a little high on the coffee I'd had on the morning train and really quite enjoyed the cross country sprint to the station arriving with 5 minutes to spare. I felt I was returning home with fabulous treasures in my camera!

10 miles, 5 hrs, top day out!