best part of the day: winter sun

12th February

The clouds lift and we get a couple of days of brighter weather. Not warm, but bright. I can cope with the cold, a fair trade for the sunshine which is hugely cheering and makes it worth charging the camera batteries. Although there is a tendency to fall asleep in front of the telly after a baltic day out.

Having done a few trips further afield recently, I felt it was time to check out the Botanics and Warriston. I had meant to get into the Botanics as the gate opened around 10am but it was after 11 when I took the first photo there. I had gone straight to the Chinese Pond, hoping for kingfisher action but having to make do instead with moorhens and garden varieties. The moorhens looked fantastic in the low light. I threw them some food and they were happy to model in the shallows, their red eyes and face furniture looking amazing.

magnolias in bud - maybe another week till they flower?

viburnum

the rhodies and azaleas also in bud about to explode

There were at least a couple of robins round the pond. I think both of them came to my hand for seeds and bread and then chased each other round in a proprietorial manner. Having only the long lens with a nearest focal point of about four feet I can't focus on a robin on my hand and I couldn't be bothered changing the lens or getting out my iPhone. There were also LTTs and great tits but no sign of siskins, other finches or anything worth hanging around for. I could feel the call of Warriston so headed along there for about 12.30

In Warriston I went along to the 1859 stone at the far end of the riverside section. The light was pretty decent there. There wasn't much about initially, but the squirrels were very pleased to see me. Right at the bottom of this page I have put a video of a few clips I shot. It opens with a barking squirrel. It always seems amusing when squirrels talk. They only do it when raising an alarm or chastising other squirrels. The one in the video looks like it was chastising me. I think it felt frustrated as I had just put out loads of food on top of gravestones, it had come down to feast, then someone came along with a dog and it had to retreat up the tree again. I think it was saying "now you may think that is funny but let me tell you..." or stuff along those lines.

fly

Now flies are not my absolute favourite wildlife but I took a photo of this one because it was one of the first I have seen this year and after flies come hoverflies and bees, then bee-flies, then butterflies. Roll on all of that! Also, and this is somewhat between a confession and a trailer: I bought a macro lens. The thing about interchangeable lens cameras is the spending never stops. There is always something else to buy. I am not at all sure there is a huge difference between the 12~60mm kit lens I already have and the Olympus 60mm macro lens I bought recently. I had to buy it before January 21st as there was a £100 cashback offer expiring then.

Mairi has this lens and recommended it. She gets great results photographing all manner of small insects, flies, bugs and small creeping things. I look forward to warmer weather when such things appear, although apparently the failure rate and trial and error means you have to have the patience of a saint. And be prepared to bin a lot of photos. I also bought a ~~flash-gun~~ (I think you only call them flash guns if you still call road bikes racers, and freestyle front crawl,) I mean speedlight and clip on diffuser. TBH I haven't even tried the lens on my camera. I have watched a LOT of youTube videos and know the settings a Swedish bloke uses for his Olympus 60mm and speedlight with diffuser. I should set up a dead wasp on a pin to practise taking bad macro shots indoors where nobody can see. First potential usage will be in March when the sun (fingers crossed) will be shining. (Holiday spoiler alert.) I am very excited!

great tit

blue tit

coal tit

blue tit

bullfinch (m)

I could hear various bullfinches calling around the cemetery. I tried to lure them closer by whistling their simple 1.5 note tune and sometimes they respond. However today they came no closer than the above photo, which was disappointing as they are a favourite cemetery bird.

grey wagtail in the tunnel swamp

female blackbird in same swamp

With all the rain we've had lately the tunnel is very swampy and getting worse. There is almost a path round the side but you have to dance along a fallen branch and you're going to get muddy shoes. This does not bother the wagtail, who hops around the swamp looking for tasty treats. It makes for very poor backgrounds in his photos. At one point he perched on a stone but even then doesn't keep still, doing that titular wagging. I had to stop and retune the camera slightly. The light was poor and when I tried to crank up the shutter-speed, the ISO stopped at 1600. That's weird. Who changed that setting? It comes at a default factory setting of something like (max) 3200. Some people don't like a grainy (noisy) photo and that limits the damage. But if you want to freeze a wagtail's tail in low light you have to compromise somewhere, and in this case change the ISO up to maybe 6400.

iso 4000

iso 5000

iso 12,800!

I had to hunt through the menus then set the max ISO to 12,800 (it can go to twice that) and when I turned the shutter-speed to 1/320th near the tunnel it made the ISO 12,800. It is not a great photo (above) but it is not a BAD photo. I have always found Panasonic deal with noise really well. Although I do wonder how some of the settings change from time to time in the camera.

For instance: there is a horizontal "level gauge" I find to be an annoying distraction on the viewfinder. I set it to "off" and it disappears. Then about once a fortnight it comes back on. I have to go through the menu settings (dozens of those) to find it and set it to off again. I am not sure if I am doing something elsewhere that triggers it, which seems unlikely. The manual is far too long and dry to ever bother reading.

You can tell there is not much about when I start encouraging the magpies and crows. They are always waiting in the wings for a free handout and will pose for photos on the tops of gravestones.

beak reflecting a blue sky

drops of water caught mid-air while crow was sipping

There are lots of snowdrops in the cemetery at the moment. The best way to photo them is to get down to their height with the camera. I try not to lie on the damp ground but open the back screen, tilt it upwards so I can see it and lower the camera to nearly resting on the ground. It often makes for a muddy knee but nobody comes over to see if you have had a heart attack.

I was pretty much done and about to leave when I noticed a dipper on the Water of Leith. I sat on a fallen tree stump on the Warriston side and watched as it slowly made its way upstream, diving into the fast flowing water and swimming along the stream bed looking for caddisfly larvae and other edibles. It seemed impervious to the cold and didn't mind my company too much although spent more time on the opposite bank than the side I was on. It wasn't great light - the sun was fast disappearing into a cloud bank - so I wasn't able to take sharp pics of it in motion without the wings having motion blur. What I did enjoy was setting the camera to 'pre-burst' where it buffers the images until the bird moves and then I push the shutter the whole way down and it records images from a second before you started. This is what allowed me to take the following sequence of the dipper taking off. I ran the 31 tweaked photos together in video editing software to give a jumpy gif. Sort of re-inventing video with individual images.

The dipper spent a long time swimming mostly submerged (below) then somehow taking off from the water (above) and flying upstream to repeat the process. It was an impressive performance which it made look easy. Those wings seem to beat as fast as a hummingbird's - just a blur to both the eye and the camera. I found it nearly impossible to follow the bird with the camera - instead doing quite a lot of hit and hope, spray and pray.

Eventually it stopped on a branch on my side of the riverbank and I wondered if it was planning on roosting on this spot. It did an elaborate preen and looked like it might be settling down at this point which was well away from predators. After filming it preening (on video at bottom) I took a few photos and then left it to it.

iso 6400

On the way back out the cememtery this female blackbird was having a late bath. I stopped to check the max ISO was still set at higher than 1600 and then bumped into a late afternoon wren. I put some seeds out for a robin and a couple of blackbirds still hopping about. When they all hopped up onto the log seat near the Tescos entrance I emptied the last of the bread out too. No point in taking home old bread. The bossy female blackbird appeared and reminded us she prefers to take centre stage.