Largely Levenhall, with Admirals at Warr

 

12-06-23 

Bob had posted photos of Large Skippers taken at Levenhall. It used to be that you would have to travel to the other side of Dunbar to see the nearest large skippers to Edinburgh. When requested for further details Bob also drew a map. Levenhall, just the other side of Musselburgh! Excellent! I jumped on my bike. Imagine how pleasing to be able to find large skips by bike, first sunny Monday that comes along! I'm glad I never bothered to catch the train to Dunbar and run or cycle 6 miles East to Dunglass to a dirty field next to the A1 on the promise of a small orangey brown butterfly that may or may not be there. Large skippers are only large by comparison to small skipper and in truth you'd be hard pushed to notice the difference at 10 paces. 

There is no clever way to leave EH6 heading into East Lothian without the slog of Seafield, Porty, Joppa, Musselburgh and the racecourse. Don't get me wrong, it is not a slag heap, (lots of nice houses and ambience) but after you have done it a thousand times you have to just get your head down and motor through till you get to the countryside. Which starts exactly about Levenhall. 

So that makes the directions easier: cycle East past Musselburgh on the coast road till you get to the countryside and turn left off the main road onto a gravel trail. Walah! Large skips! Nope, not that easy. Bob had posted lots of photos which I naively assumed meant lots of skippers. I, to this day, do not know if that was one skipper (large) photographed many times or the vice versa. I felt I'd done well to get a map, so I shut up and started looking. About 90 minutes later I found some.

I'm certainly not complaining about the 90 minutes. I remember the days when I used to work on Mondays and 90minutes of that is much worse than 90minutes of red admirals, little birds in the trees and wondering if it's time for my pocket snack yet. No this was a rather fine 90 minutes. Only I was beginning to wonder where the skippers (variety large) were. Maybe the map was drawn in haste and Bob forgot to extend the skippered area as far East as he should've? And didn't he mention thistles? "At the far end". The trouble was there was scarely a square yard sans thistles and there didn't really seem to be any end to the corridor of scrubland designated. Although it sort of fizzled out over where the thistles met some other thistles and it all became a thistley field of thistleness. (I was very glad of long trousers, worn defensively.)

I had already pushed my bike from one end of the scrubby corridor of thistles to the other and I wasn't doing that again. It was ideal butterfly terrain but not great for humans on bikes. I propped my bike up against some shrubs and began ever greater circles, beginning to wonder if it wouldn't have been quicker catching the train to Dunbar. And then I saw a common blue, the first of the year no less! And it was in brand new condition, just arrived from the other side of the butterfly portal. It was so welcome and magical. Even higher tariff than any amount of skippers (medium size and upwards.) I was delighted and thanked Bob telepathically.

Surprisingly the blue was remarkably well behaved. It did not come over to shake hands and share a pocket snack, but it didn't fly off 250 yards on realising I was approaching for a photo. Which is pretty much the usual response of recently beamed down Polyommatus icaruses. Also it stuck to its territory - within spitting distance of a six foot rusty cage that could contain a human if you had a padlock and cattle prod. So that when I went past on 2 subsequent ever increasing circles, it flew up and we danced the tarantella again, him posing on grass stems, me asking "can you remember using those same eyes and legs when you were a caterpillar, or are they completely new ones since you came round?"

silver Y moths (no shortage)
shaking like a religious convert but without the charisma

There was a small rise to the North West of the place. "I wonder what's up there?" I had a feeling it was the gravelly cyclepath that dodges around the scrapes - shallow ponds in a landscape made from the ash residue from coal-fired Cockenzie power station. Since the fence was all stepped down at that point I walked up to see, and came across the impressive spectacle of a large pond surrounded by a million red poppies. It is the most Easterly of the ash ponds. Despite the acreage of poppies I couldn't see any butterflies so returned to the skipper hunt downstairs.

common blue again

whitethroat

On one of my forays along the corridor of shrubby trees parallel to the cyclepath my eye caught something orange. Bingo! As I bent forward to have a close look and confirm large skipper it took off, instantly at bullet speed, did 2 circuits of 25 yards and landed again. It flew so fast I couldn't always follow it and occasionally it got away. However it would return to roughly the same patch and perch on the tops of thistles and plants rather than hiding under a bushel. I took photos but all the photos here are of the second one I found as it was much newer and in better shape. I also found a third, or maybe the first one again along nearer the man-cage. But just those and no more. My previous experience with large skippers was finding groups or mini-colonies of several in one place. However small skippers (very similar in appearance but with singularly coloured wings not chequered) are often solitary so maybe they are spread thin at Levenhall. Someone else failed to find any so I didn't feel too bad about my limited cluster. And the common blue more than compensated. 

There was still some afternoon remaining and the sun was out so I decided to catch up with Mary who had said she'd prob walk along to Warriston. I reckoned I could get there in 25~30 minutes however this proved optimistic - it took nearer 50 minutes to get along and padlock my bike in the graveyard.

Levenhall - lots of birds and insects out and about,
the dotted blue/green is the large pond surrounded by poppies

When I arrived at the cemetery I called Mary on my mobile and she told me where she was. I told her I was near the crypts and went to where she was. 5 minutes later I called her back to ask where she was now - at the crypts of course. After this lame sit-com start, things improved considerably. The place seemed full of red admirals. There were reports of a large migration of RAs arriving from the continent although these looked super fresh and newly emerged - and did not have the battle-scars or worn looks of long distance travellers.

We found one dominating a small sunlit area and it kept flying up and returning to the same spot. Butterflies quite like the highest perch possible and sometimes if you hold out a hand they will use this as a perch. Red admirals like hill summits and other apex places. The one circling us had a fly-past inspection of Mary's hand and then second time round, landed on it. As you can see she was delighted. It is an honour to be lit upon. Mary said she could feel the tiny weight of 4 feet land on her hand. (They have 6 legs but generally keep the front 2 folded up to their chests (thorax?) and stand on just four.

I also love when they fly close to your ear and you can hear the swoosh of wing on wind. The one on Mary's hand had a good look into her eyes (and soul!) before turning and aiming its back to the sun. We took photos and laughed, and it was in no hurry to leave and didn't mind a bit of jostle. It was something of a magical moment.

It is rare you get any feedback or interaction with butterflies. Well apart from them perhaps wishing you would leave them alone. I noticed during their absence in the Winter that I was doing far more bonding with birds, than ever with butterflies. Just because you get real life feedback from them. They see you coming and start to cheep and peep and tell their mates the food guy is here. And some of them even sit on your hand and chatter away (while I grin ear to ear). Hard for a butterfly to compete with that. And yet... there are glimpses of acknowledgement from time to time.

an absolute beauty!

Well it wasn't going to get any better than that! Mary headed home via the Tesco stepover and I went to get my bike from beyond the crypts (it came from beyond the grave!!!) and cycle it out round the cyclepath meeting Mary halfway home. However I got delayed. Another admiral flew up from a gravestone and then, as I watched, it returned to the same stone. I don't know if it recognised the carving it was sitting on was a flower - I doubt it was the flower-like qualities that drew it to settle there, more a sunbathed warm stone at a suitable angle. I couldn't walk past this, and stopped for photos.

Moments later up another avenue of stones and I saw this tremendous specimen whose preference was bramble leaves. Another five minutes of taking photos, trying to get close but not disturbing the massive butterfly. I quickly lost any sense of time or urgency.

And then just before I got to my bike, a last RA nestled in among the daisies. I have seen another RA do this but it was a year ago or maybe 2, so definitely not the same insect. One flew up and down this avenue of gravestones and sat either on the stones or down on the neatly cut grass. I lay down to get the longshot and it jumped up once or twice but returned to the daisies to pose. While I was standing it did a couple of laps round my head. The sun was behind me and without turning my head I could see the butterfly shadow on the ground in front of me. It flew behind my head and landed on my shoulder although I couldn't actually see it. Just the slight electricity of its proximity. It was just there for a moment and then off again. I heard the swoosh of its wings beside my ear as it left.

I then unlocked my bike (they recently put a mini-bikerack near the main gate - thanks, appreciated!) and pedalled like crazy to catch Mary most of the way home. She presumed I had got home ages ago and not that I was delayed by more admirable interactions.

favourite tree:
Possibly just a rhododedron shaped into a tree shape
that once a year explodes with flowers! 😊