the emperor's new hairstreak

 

18-04-23

Exactly a year ago to the day I went in search of green hairstreak butterflies in the Pentlands. Also, on the 8th May 2022 I went searching for Emperor Moths also in the Pentlands. Both trips were successful so I thought I would combine 2 joys into one trip and see if I could find both species near to where I found the emperors last year. Unfortunately the weather didn't quite live up to the forecast and it was something of a damp squib. However Mary and I had fun and got to eat our sandwiches in a beautiful part of the world so I can't really complain. But I probably will.

7 mile cycle

red grouse

We cycled out to Bonaly and padlocked our bikes at the Scout camp car park. A heavy low cloud was not what we were hoping for. There was a bit of a breeze making the prospect of the cloud clearing a real one, but it also lowered the feel of the day which was not much above Baltic, rising to merely chilly. I got the pheromone lure out but there was zero sign of any emperors. We walked about the place and a very occasional emperor appeared, took a look at us keeping its distance, and then flew off. It was fairly gloomy although that said, there was a few specimens about, apart from the lepidoptera, to keep us from cycling home. A couple of red grouse (both males) were raising their heads above the heather line when we arrived and made some very comical noises (between a cluck-cluck and a glug-glug) before flying off a short distance.

dreich

can you tell there wasn't much to point the camera at?!

Ahh the Scottish springtime sun. (Above.) You can look at it directly without any possibility of damaging your eyes. There is a tiny warmth in it but if you stay outside for a couple of hours you have to keep moving or be dressed suitably. I think I kept my cycling gloves and hat on. We trudged a bit round the heathery landscape and in truth it was quite pleasant if a bit thin on butterflies and moths. 

Torduff reservoir

(Rock or) Meadow pipit - don't care!

I think we had seen just the one emperor by lunchtime. It caught a whiff of the lure and zoomed by a couple of times but wasn't coming anywhere near the humans. It whizzed by, then whizzed off. Oh well, at least we saw one. Normally this is as close as you will ever get to one and not even see it for long enough for a positive ID. Hence the lure. I bought it last year (online for a £10); the rubber plug has been saturated in pheromones that make the males think a female is present. If they are about they will drop all they are doing and investigate. Some are totally fooled and will crowd the lure. Others take a quick look then zoom off. They are one of the most spectacular moths in the UK so are worth the effort.

lunch time

We found a spot out the wind with a rock or 2 to sit on and got the sandwiches out. The sky cleared a bit and the sun appeared enough to cast a shadow. There was flickering as a few brown moths flew about the place. Hang on they are not brown moths they are green hairstreak butterflies. The sun had frisked up 3 or 4 hairstreaks and they launched themselves skyward to chase anything in their air-space. Their underwings are bright green and they always settle with just the underwings showing. However in flight you get the impression of their brown upper wings and they look a bit like small moths.

in-flight hairstreaks just below Mary's gloves

showing green underwing and brown uppers

proof that sandwiches always bring out the quarry!

I took loads of photos knowing how tricky they can be to catch well in an image. Mainly because they are so small - about the size of my thumb nail, with their wings closed. Which means if you photograph them on grass or blaeberry they can disappear into the background morass of vegetation. This is why I usually go to visit them at Castlelaw where they sit up on gorse perches, where it can be easier to isolate them against a blurred-out background. No gorse in this area. However I knew they were here, having been shown them here a few years ago by ranger Victor Partridge, and was trying to kill two birds with one stone. Inappropriate metaphor. In fact I was a bit early, the weather was a bit cold and blowy, and I failed to do justice to either species.

If you can get in close enough they have delightfully Disney-like faces with big cartoon eyes and hooped antennae and socks. Being so small and weightless they have a bad habit of hanging upside-down and angling their wings over like a solar panel to get the maximum energy out of a watery sun. This often increases the degree of difficulty to get a decent photo. The one above was actually tweaked through 90' and in real life was hanging backwards off a twig sprouting out the ground (as below).

common heath (moth) (male) making itself scarce

mistle thrush

Although the weather was slowly improving it did not feel like the day to hang around waiting for emperors not to appear. I kept the lure out, swinging about in the breeze, but we plotted a return to the bikes via a walk round Torduff Reservoir.

A couple of birds (3 maybe) had flown overhead making unusual noises. We caught up with them up the hill a bit and they seemed to be just Mistle Thrushes, and yet were making a different song from the ones I'd heard in town. 

really very pleasant surroundings

As we went round the reservoir there were 2 buzzards
perched clifftop on the South side of Torduff. 

panorama of Torduff

3 miles walkabout

Peacock - one of the few butterflies about today

As we left the road to cross the Northern end of the reservoir - 2 emperors must have caught a whiff of the lure I still had out. They circled us a few times before getting bored and flying off. At first I thought they must have been hunkered down in the flowering gorse round the edge of the water, until I remembered they don't have mouthparts and don't feed their whole adult lives, living on just the energy they consumed as caterpillars. They didn't settle for a photo but it was nice to know the lure was still effective after a year in the freezer.

this toad swam lazily out to sunbath in the reservoir

pied wagtail

These fabulous fluffies are alpacas. There are a clan of them at Bonaly (BobCat Alpacas) and I believe you can take them out for a gentle fluffy walk, which I am sorely tempted to do. I think they have been asked to blank anybody not coughing up the appropriate fee and so stood in their field, backs turned, refusing to acknowledge our calls, whistles and "camera-loves-you-baby" schtick.

A last peacock just above the car park. It was directly below a huge blossoming tree and I tried to shoo it up into the blossoms for a suitably Springy photo. It refused. 

Mary had had more than enough outdoors for one day so planned to cycle directly home. It is against the serious butterfliers code of conduct to go home before 4pm while the sun is still out, so I planned a route via Holyrood Pk. It only added 3 miles to the return journey and I had fond memories of some blossoming shrubs halfway up the Duddingston Steps that attracted commas, peacocks and small torts last year. Looking back I see it was on March 23rd that I got loads of decent blossomy pics and videos. Which makes me feel it has been a pretty dire so-called Springtime this year. Also when I arrived - humping my bike up those challenging steps, the halfway blossoming shrubs were nowhere to be seen. Had I imagined it? Had they been chopped? I'm really not sure.

Luckily, and by way of compensation, Ken and Bob were standing there as if we had all arranged it. They were mainly stalking holly blues which live over the wall but occasionally fly over to the steps and land on the ivy. Bob and I had met at one of Iain's small blue treks down in the coastal borders. Ken and Bob had crossed paths and Ken was able to point out some of the happier hunting grounds in Holyrood, Bob being more familiar with where I'd just come from, the Pentlands. 

steps holly blue

We managed a little HB sighting though they mostly stayed on the wrong side of the large wall. Meanwhile a comma was circling and landing which gave us something to focus on while the HBs teased from a distance. Ken was first to leave going up the steps, possibly to look for orange tips and the likes. I went down the steps to check out the path round Duddingston Loch for commas and HBs. Of which there was none, however I did bump into Caroline S, who I recognised from Lothian Birdwatch. She seems to manage round all of the interesting Lothian birding places and produces great photos regularly. We had a bit of a chat while a long tailed tit posed nicely. Okay home time!

the Duddingston Steps comma

LTT