NB Circuit

 

14th July

There must be something about this time of year that makes me want to run round the NB circuit. I have not been running enough of late and felt the 18+ miles would be a good test of fitness. It is a mix of off-road trails and a few miles of tarmac and has good potential for wildlife encounters. Looking back on previous blogs it is often about July that I do this run. I got a fairly early train to North Berwick (arrived 10.15am I think) and began by going up to the top of the law - the sun was shining and I was wearing brand new trail shoes. Took a few pics then headed down to the JMW and out to Balgone curling ponds.

a newish common darter in the wee pond opposite the Law Quarry

New shoes! Hoka Speedgoat 4s. I got a pair of Speedgoat 5s and they are great, but the lighter fabric upper is not as bombproof through heather and pointy jaggy grasses as the plasticky reinforced uppers of the Speedgoat 4s. That, and the £86 sale price reduced from £125 on the Hoka website. (Still on sale now. Hurry!) Excellent shoes if a little in-your-face colourway. And Alpkit gaiters to stop some of the grass-seeds, jaggy undergrowth and dust getting into them.

fresh small tort along the JMW

giant naan breads beside Balgone pond
(hand for scale - not touching them!)

This cabin is about halfway along and beside a small jetty that is always busy with damselflies. Unfortunately the photos do not reflect just how beautiful it was all looking. There was lots of bloom or algae on the water possibly due to the warm weather.

I was kind of looking for maximum miles, within reason. Taking a longer route if there was a choice of two. A year or 2 ago I overdid this sort of thinking when the station coffee engaged my ultra brain and I got off at Longniddry chomping at the bit and keen to add another 14 miles to the original plan. I ended up on that occasion running out of steam and failing to do the whole circuit. This time I kept my ambitions to an extra mile or two rather than aim for 30plus mileage. I usually turn up the hill after the first pond, so this time I ran round the extra pond. Last time I did this must have been winter and it I remembered muddy sections. This occasion it was dry as a bone. I had also forgotten the wooden cabin and tree island. 

hoverfly captured showing wing thickness

green veined white

just about acceptable tree graffiti

I had forgotten this picnic area round the back of the second pond

sheep on hind legs to get tree leaves

whitethroat (?)

a whole pot of marmalade hoverflies

Much of the path of the JMW was edged with spear thistles which did a great job of attracting butterflies and insects. Unfortunately most of them were not worth stopping for. Whites and small torts and hoverflies. I ran the whole way (about 19 miles) with the large camera in my hand. The weather was really decent and I had high hopes for seeing loads of wildlife. There was a lot about but not very much of it was high tarrif enough to stop and record it. 

three whites chasing each other

green finch

some of these were so substantial I thought they must be large whites...

then an open wing would confirm them as small (I think!)

duck!

greylag goose actually

tufted duck chicks with mother at Newbyth pond

they quickly disappeared into the undergrowth

So I was wandering through Newbyth woods with a sandwich in my hand when I saw this. A jay sitting atop a fence post about 100 yards ahead. I stopped moving then edged forward at glacial speed with max ninja stealth. Even so I didn't get that close before it flew off. Weirdly it seemed to have a featherless head. For which I have no explanation.

perfect speckled

Across the road and into Binning Wood. I stuck to the main paths this time; last run I tried to take thinner paths and got snagged with fallen trees and a lot of bushwacking and backtracking. I was hoping to see commas or similar. Nearest was this poor in-flight photo of a small skipper (left) chasing a faded DGF (right). 

Across the A198 and up the road signed Lochhouses and on the map as Gauger's Bush (no idea of pronunciation or meaning) to the holiday homes / log cabin. Going through the woods between there and Tyninghame beach I encountered this buzzard. Given how flighty and shy the adults normally are I reckoned this was a juvenile and recently weened if that is a thing. It was calling every ten seconds, continually, possibly asking parent birds why they had stopped providing free meals. It saw me but wasn't unduly worried and I would get close to where it was howling in a tree and take photos and video. Eventually it would move on but only maybe four trees away. And I followed it for 3 or 4 perches. I could hear another buzzard in the distance answering it and I think they were both reunited. I was very pleased to get such close shots and video. Their call, their one note song, is very recognisable and you will often hear it as you walk through the woods - but nice to see it actually coming out a bird close by. Highlight of the day!

Next up was this red admiral. It flew up as I ran past. I had a bit of trouble finding it again but it would circle and then land about the same spot. We played that game for 5mins - I got bored first, wished it well and ran on. 

woodpecker

I suspect this was another young bird -
mainly because it looked smaller than the adults I see in Warriston

another youngster - a nuthatch
lacking the strong colours of an adult

where has the log cabin gone?

ahh there it is - no doubt able to afford a new roof 
due to all the expensive wedding parties there

From the log cabin I made my way to the coast and ran along the beach to the Peffer Burn. I was relieved to find zero dead gannets along the beach. I had been anticipating a few if not hundreds due to the amount of (mis)information on social media. I had seen a number of posts about avian 'flu and how it had decimated the gannet colony on the Bass Rock which was left unrecognisable. (Mind you that was Edinburgh Live - the least reliable and informative of all online newspapers from this area.) Loads of comments underneath the pictures of comparison photos (one from previous years with loads of birds; one from this year with maybe 50~75% fewer birds) recorded verdicts of "heartbroken" and "so sad". So I had anticipated a beach littered with the corpses of hundreds of gannets.

The estimate of birds on the Bass Rock is something like 150,000 and if even 1% (1,500) were killed off by avian 'flu then you could anticipate a few hundred bodies along the coast. But none? It made me think that the alarm bells were being rung a little heavily and that everyone is being overly sensitive about epidemics ever since covid. But maybe I should be more alarmed and there could still be far more death and destruction just around the corner. Although quite how humans can address or fix the situation isn't made plain. But there is a donate here button on the Seabird Centre website so I guess they know.

The Seabird Centre website (here) has posted some info on the situation and are waiting on the results of a drone survey. I was glad to see the amount of gannets (in real life) on the Rock are not as thinned out as the reports and photos would suggest. It is tragic when a disease sweeps through a colony like this, but from what I could see, the Bass Rock looks like it is not running out of gannets any time soon. 

heron

interesting to note the course of the Peffer Burn over the years

brief sighting of a red admiral

another greenfinch

This beetle was very funny. I thought I might get a clearer photo of it, if it ran across my hand. So I put my hand down to block its path across the concrete road. It ran over and did its best to bite my hand - I could just feel its little jaws/pincers scraping away. I let it go, unmolested and with a salute to its bravery: taking on something with about a thousand times its mass without a backward glance or second thought. 

does anyone else read Torness powerstation as a big smiley face
 with a waving arm raised on the East side? Or just me?

lots of gannets

hope Tam still bides here
He'd be 87 or 88

love this sign

That wee sparrow - I messed up badly. The fence top had a line of maybe 6 or 7 and by the time I lifted the camera and zoomed in all but one had flown. Not much better with the starlings. There was a flock of them and they flew into a nearby tree. By the time I got close enough for a photo they'd moved to the edge of a shed on the other side of the field.

The last few miles on road dragged a little but I thought it would be much worse - having not run consistently recently. All the stops to take photos and talk to the birds made it easier - to say the pace was relaxed is an understatement - I could nearly have walked the 19 miles in the 6 hours it took. There wasn't the usual sprint for the train and I dawdled to the station with 10 minutes to spare. I had thought about going into NB for drinks and snacks but decided to wait till I got home. 

Great day out and plenty of photos to tweak when I got home.

19 miles
plus 2 to the station and back home