return to Cammo

 

9th April

Cammo is a hotspot for wildlife but I don't go there that often because it is on the other side of town. I associate it with 2 things, though in truth there is lots more. But the 2 birds that fly into my head at the mention of Cammo are jays and nuthatches. Every trip to cammo provides nuthatches as they are used to people putting out seed in a few places and will appear before you have taken your lens cap off. Jays however are never reliable and sometimes appear and sometimes play a bit harder to get. While you are waiting for them to make up their minds, you can at least revel in the garden birds and nuthatches which will sit 2 metres away and, if not pose for photos (they are fairly hyper little whirlwinds) then at least pop back to the same spot so many times that eventually you will get a decent photo. 

I got the bus along Queensferry Rd and walked along Cammo Rd. The sight of the unwashed hordes (arghhhh it was SUNDAY!) was nearly enough to chase me away, to come back on a weekday, but I persisted. Which was the right thing to do: as soon as I got off the main paths, I got away from the families of screaming kids and dog-walkers. It was like night and day.

hello kitty

unwashed hordes!
the horror the horror

I went to the spot beside the curling pond - a regulated river that appears almost like a section of canal and then disappears into a drain at the other end. On the right hand side are a couple of treestumps where the birds have allowed people to feed them. They knew the score; as I appeared and got seeds out my back pack, the nuthatches were sitting in the wings, impatiently, from word go. So far, so good. Bit by bit the whole place came alive with blackbirds, robins, coal tits, blue tits and great tits. Occasional dunnocks and shy squirrels swept up any food that got dropped from the tree trunks. 

coal tit

jay!

A jay appeared to check me out. (It was keeping a sizable distance away.)I felt this was a good omen and decided to move over to the other side of the river where they would sometimes come down for food. But there was such a good showing of enthusiastic birds at the first site I had to stay for just a few hundred photos more. Although the birds tended to arrive one at a time there was a near constant arrival to several points I had baited. I took dozens of shots, half of which I deleted as soon as I had them on the computer.

coal tit

coal tit

This squirrel was munching away and staying about the same spot. I saw the nuthatch arrive and hoped it would sit (facing into the image) where I could get a shot with the squirrel in the background. It did exactly as I hoped which rarely happens! The nuthatches are so quick you have to just go with what they are doing and follow them and hit-and-hope. Because they were so numerous and kept returning to feed you got continual chances to get the perfect picture. But it wasn't that easy. 

Nuthatches and squirrels both have a storing mechanism. As soon as they realise there is more food on the go than they can eat in one sitting they will continue to come and take it away but stash it in a good place for later. You'll see nuthatches take a few seeds and jam them under bark or in the end grain of cut-off branches, or under a stone. Or dig a little trench in soft bark and then plant the seed then cover it with another piece of material to disguise the stash.

Like the speckled woods, I believe nutchatches are a relatively recent arrival, and weren't around when I was a boy. Maybe their housekeeping ways of putting stuff away for a rainy day when there is plenty has helped them go forth and prosper. They are a very charming little bird. And due to the large claws and beak don't take any backchat from aggressive robins or other similarly sized birds.

bingo!

I went over the river to the other side where I placed bread and seeds on some horizontal trees and then stood quietly to see who turned up. It took a while for word to get out but crows, magpies, squirrels and the usual suspects (including the nuthatches) were the only ones to show interest. I decided to have a wander over to the walled garden. A couple of birders I'd spoken to said they had photographed a pair of blackcaps there, near the beehives. None had turned up in Warriston at this point and I was keen to see some. Another smallish bird, about chaffinch size, with a pretty song and rare enough to provoke interest.

On the way to the walled garden was this troop of reenactors. I didn't stop to inquire were they reenacting specific era battles or if it was a tv related game-of-thrones kind of a gig. Nor did I have the slightest interest. I used to scoff at folk who had different enthusiasms to my own. Now less so, although if ever someone earned scorn it is these fat beardy children bashing toy swords off toy shields, while dressed in vintage clothes. If I were a better person I'd say well done for getting out on a warm Sunday and getting some exercise in whatever form. However I am not. 

If they are going to the trouble of accurately portraying people from bygone times should they not be carrying much less weight? And I'm not talking body armour. Surely it was only King Henry 8th who was a bit of a lard ass and everyone else was quite lean back then due to a lack of processed foods and harsh non-centrally heated lifestyle? As you can imagine I kept those thoughts to myself, not wishing to be lashed with a cat-o-nine, or strapped into a dunking stool. 

Meanwhile in the walled garden the sun was flickering like a dodgy fluorescent tube. Peacocks lay shivering in the straw wondering why they had bothered to appear this early and were now stranded miles from their warm Winter snug. Then some hooligan comes marching through necessitating 3 laps of the old oak tree before exiting stage left.  

I got a whiff of blackcap despite them doing their level best to give me the slip. I checked out the trees near the beehives and sure enough there was (eventually) a quick exit by some likely suspects who pretended to be chaffinches. I wandered slowly after them using tolerance and dogged endurance while they flitted from perch to perch. I'd do another circuit and come back to where they had resumed their singing competition. Perhaps a couple of males competing for the attention of a female? Again they'd fly off and I'd follow glumly at a tenth of the pace. Eventually they gave up and let me have some sub-optimal photos...

thanks and yes I see what you're saying

Ms. Blackcap, technically a browncap

ahh front on and from a hundred yards, how gracious

Having ticked that box as much as could be hoped for, without pulling out all my hair, I left the walled garden in the direction of the woodpeckers' drumming. So much promise, so little delivery. I climbed the nearby hill and then got distracted by a pheasant and the total lack of woodpeckers. I got through a hole in the wall and followed a thin trail past some very jaggy blackthorns that tried to sting and bite, emerging onto the edge of a golf course I didn't know was there. I stood in front of a spread of blossoming blackthorn (or similar) and three peacock butterflies flew out from it and away. The sun was weakly vomiting radiance between armadas of clouds and I felt if I just stayed here long enough I'd get a magnificent image of peacock on blossomy twiglet. What could be better?

I got out a sandwich. Entirely tactical, although I was quite hungry too. Just as you've put the camera to one side in exchange for a fistful of cheese and bread, all the butterflies and birds in the area start to dance in front of you, and you have to either lay down the lunch on the edge of the fairway which could be trampled by passing golfers or lose the shot of the century. I think I was there about 30 minutes but it felt like 2hrs and the peacocks were very reluctant to take positions on the blossoms within reasonable distance and hold still while I focussed (with sandwich in other hand.) One would settle and I'd wade into the chest high thorny shrub trying to reach over to get a photo. Another would fly past and the 2 would soar into the sky chasing in circles. I would say some bon mots and unhook myself from the spikes and go back to prowling along the edge of the fairway.

Several groups of golfers passed by without so much as good morning until 'FORE when one of them had too lively a pitch towards the green I was near. I crouched with hands over head and clenched my puckering glutes hoping the ball struck my face rather than my camera, but it was quite a bit further away than they had reckoned. I suppose by then it is too late to continue with fine morning for it!

shite

more shite!

laughing peacocks fly away unphotographed

yellowhammer at rest

yellowhammer fluffing tail out

still taking the mickey

n'autofocus

After a while I realised the blossomy masterpiece was not to be. I retreated down a different exit where I hoped fewer thorns would gouge my flanks. After a bit of mild bushwacking I realised I was just yards away from the curling pond and might as well see how things were going there. Pretty good, compared to standing up the top of a windy golf course waiting on butterflies and sunshine appearing in tandem. Completely unexpectedly a goldcrest appeared and jumped about collecting moss for lining its nest. It (the lighting) was quite dull where it (the goldcrest) was and I took 300 photos before I realised they were all blurry except one where the bird had held still for a nanosecond before resuming its manic shopping. 

one acceptable image
(complete with eponymous crest showing - fuck-a-doodle-do!)

I put more food out on the tree trunks and almost immediately all the birds appeared again, as if by magic. I took some more photos but the light wasn't great. I stood a bit closer to the action which didn't put the birds off. They seemed very trusting and comparatively tame.

coal tit feasting on suet pellet

I had brought some suet pellets along. I had had no time to go shopping for more seeds and Dofos round the corner, which seems to employ young women disinterested in restocking shelves, had run out again. Or had not bothered to get more in since the last bag of sunflower hearts I bought a month ago, in Tescos. I suspect there would be a better chance of the african grey in the window ordering more sunflower hearts than the girls who take 3mins 25 seconds back shop to return to the counter to tell me nope, none in stock. What were they doing all that time? Having a bathroom break? Anyway I now suspect the african grey is the manager and the brightest of the three that work there.

who's a cheeky boy?
Coco the african grey.

Anyway I was a bit short of seeds and bait for the birds. I took extra bread and also a bag of suet pellets with impregnated flies. Rather flies impregnated in the suet. I don't think they were expecting. I had put this gourmet treat to one side as it leaves a residue on your fingers when handled and potentially on your camera, if not careful. However they were resurrected in light of the great sunflower heart shortage sweeping (Dofos) europe. I blame brexit. I tried to pour them directly from the bag rather than sprinkling them by hand. The photo above of a coal tit with one paw on a hard won suet pellet makes it all worthwhile.

I have since been back to Dofos and again left empty handed. Tescos however came up trumps and I bought a large bag of sunflower hearts AND a large bag of peanuts. I have been surprised to see even the littlest birds (like blue tits) carry off a peanut in preference (sometimes though not always) to sunflower seeds or bread. And while we're on the topic of who eats what, I found a walnut in Warriston. Whole, in the shell. A gnarly globe of wooden-like material. It must have been taken along to feed the squirrels as I don't think there are any fruiting walnut trees in the cemetery.

I put it in my rucksack strap where it languished for a month or 2 until I was feeding a squirrel in Warriston and recalled I had it. I tossed it in the rough direction of the squirrel who leapt upon it excitedly, then ran off with it in its mouth. And buried it in a favourite spot with relish. Now where does a squirrel accumulate knowledge and memory of an unshelled walnut. Does it hang out near the Canonmills Deli? Would it recognise Brazils? Does it know all the exotic culinary nuts and droops, both in and out their exocarps? Are they born knowing? Do they have lessons in legumes? Do they just have an eye for it? I might have to start nutshopping for our furry friends. Funny to think of a walnut being left in Warriston, then collected and travelling round in my backpack for a couple of months before being deposited back in Warriston where it is buried next to a large tree. Could be the start of something?

Argh cropped his little toes! There is only a fraction of a second to frame
the shot and stuff like this can happen. Still, what a cutie?!

Not many LTTs about today so I was happy to nearly get this shot
and the one bellow

And this stock dove, which I largely ignored last time in favour of the jays. 

distant jay (in another part of the estate) not playing ball

goldcrest

The day slightly fizzled out although I greatly enjoyed being there and taking a million pics of all the birds. I have not worked out why the jays are sometimes there and coming close, sometimes absent entirely and sometimes half and half. I don't see them often and never in other venues as close as they can be here. Although not today obviously. However that doesn't seem to mean they won't be there next visit. And given it's not bad for orange tips and other delights I may well be back soon. There's always something of value there.

4 hrs of walkabout