disaster averted

 

7th June

I had been watching the forecast to time a trip North for fritillaries. Initially I had been planning to see Pearl-bordered fritillaries in Pitlochry, a trip I have made a number of times. However, the weather and a poor show of PBFs (due to weather) made me change plans and instead I hoped to see Small pearl-bordered fritillaries which appear near Tentsmuir around the 12th of June, going by previous years. Both those butterflies look nearly identical however have very different terrain preferences. I watched the forecasts for around the 12th; and initially Tuesday the 11th seemed promising. But then the forecast quickly turned to shit like a lot of recent days.

I took a risk travelling up on the train to Leuchars on the 7th, a few days early but at least the forecast was half decent, a minimum requirement for Small Pearls. Since it is quite a long day out - 20miles from the train station to Morton Lochs and back - I decided to take the bike, rather than run. Partly because the camera I now carry is much heavier than before, but also because knocking out a 20 mile run when there is a strong chance of no butterflies is a consideration. Trainline now does bike reservations, a thing they had previously failed to option. It means you have to stipulate and reserve a specific train time rather than have the freedom of an anytime day return. When I collected my tickets from the automatic vending machine it spewed out 9 tickets in all, when 4 would have been plenty to cover me and the bike in both directions.

Very little about travelling on trains is geared towards the cyclist. If you have ever taken a bike on a train you will know this. Abroad, there are whole bike carriages to encourage cyclists on trains. Here, it is almost the opposite. From collecting your ticket, to going through barriers, to getting bikes on trains and into bike specific carriages, the whole business is designed to hamper and discourage cyclists.

yeah that's not going to work
(Bike hung here for return journey.)

There were slightly more than the usual 2 or 3 bike spaces on the carriage I booked on. (But most of the trains didn't have bike spaces available.) 4 bike spaces where some seats flipped up to make reluctant room for bikes, and a small cupboard in which an optimist might hope to hang 2 bikes side by side. My handlebars touched one side and were 2 or 3 inches from the other side. And the bike - if you'd managed to hang it there, which depended on your tyres not being 2.5 inches fat, as mine are - was then out of sight from any seats. Living in Leith I am reluctant to leave my bike unattended. Anyway I put my bike against the fold up seats and we got off the train an hour later in Leuchars. At least bikes travel free.

boardwalk over swamp - nae butterflies

nice enough for a cycle, but no butterflies

here we are into June and it's jackets and hats back on 😭

Once out the station it was a boon and a blessing to be cycling. The day (to start with) was cool with some rare glimpses of sunshine. The road out of Leuchars hooks up with the Fife Coastal Path and crosses fields and swamps before travelling up the coast through Tentsmuir. I have run this route in races (and searching for wildlife) maybe a dozen times, and cycling was SO much easier than each and every one of those adventures. After a couple of miles I came to the boardwalk that goes over the swamp. Some years the swamp is dry enough to walk on; this year it had several inches of standing water atop the gloop. The boardwalk keeps feet dry. However I saw no butterflies. I had quite a look around but felt it wasn't quite warm and sunny enough. I knew the forecast improved as the day went on, so rather than sit around moping and waiting for the sun, my Plan B was to cycle 10 miles to Morton Lochs (bird hide) and have some fun there, catching the SPBFs on the return journey. Fingers crossed!

the dangers of driving

I went past the car park and cafe caravan at Kinshaldy up to the Ice House and then a left turn across towards Morton Lochs. What was previously quite a hike on foot, was easy on the bike. It also gives you more scope for looking about and so I got the camera out and wore it around one shoulder like a courier bag. It was not as easy as the previous camera, being heavier, and it swung to the lowest point which was in line with my knee every turn. It did mean that when I saw stuff - like a buzzard perched on a tree stump - I could jump off the bike and move to a position for a shot. Unfortunately while I was creeping up behind another tree, a spoilsport crow chased the buzzard off its perch. Very bad words were spoken.

I was very pleased to be the only person at the hide for the 1hr40m I was there. Last time I arrived, there was a large, silent, unfriendly bloke watching the empty tree stumps. I didn't like to assume command and was reluctant to put out food or chat. This time I put out bread crumbs, peanuts and sunflower hearts on the tree stumps. They were not in an ideal arrangement but I didn't want to change someone's set up, not being a regular or local. Within minutes there were several garden birds taking food, flying off (perhaps to nests) and returning for more. The sun was out, the sky was clearing and things were looking up. I got my sandwiches out and ate them between taking shots of dunnocks, robins, blue tits, great tits, chaffinches and coal tits. There was also visits from a great spotted woodpecker. It looked (like a couple of other birds did too) that it had been washing in a muddy puddle and had scruffy wet looking feathers when it first appeared.

robin, chaffinch, dunnock

pair of robins

coal tit

wet woodpecker

blue tit

coal tit

I had heard (on the Friends of Morton Lochs fb group page) there was an annoying mallard (pair) who arrive and scoff everything laid out. This female arrived on her own but when I gently chased her off (while replenishing the food tables) she returned with a male mallard as back up. He wasn't as brazen as herself and the 2 of them quacked a lot and tried to let me know it was their backyard. There wasn't a great deal to do about it.

A mobile phone pic of the set up.

You sit in a hide - much the same as most hides of the garden shed variety, with a flip-up open window out onto a small garden of tree trunks on which to place bribes. The birds cannot see you (in theory) although there is no door on this hide and it is fairly bright on the inside. Several times a robin (and once a blue tit) flew up and landed on the window sill but I was too slow to turn and get a photo before they took off again. You can see where I put bread on the window sill to encourage more of this activity as it was just outstanding to see them close enough to touch. (I got my mobile phone out to take their pics as they were too close to photo using the big lens.) However they weren't looking for food, I think they were just curious and came over to check me out. 

In the above photo, the 2 trees to the right were favoured by the woodpecker and the jay, and the 2 more distant central trees were where I first saw the jay checking out the situation.

villain of the piece

Mrs. Woodpecker returned lots and took loads of peanuts.
I think that is bread on her beak.

I would catch a distant glimpse of a jay, just at maximum zoom distance away (the central trees in the phone photo above) and hoped it would come in for a closer look. Then 40minutes would pass without any further contact. Then it sat under the tree on the left and I knew it was checking out the tree stumps to ascertain the food on offer. I held my breath but it still hum-and-hawed. They are nervy and cautious birds for sure, and like to check all the angles before approaching a situation involving humans. Even one like this where food is regularly on offer.

the great tits were quite late to the party

my heart skipped a beat when the jay moved into the tree
 just a few yards away, to check out what was on offer

coal tit

this chaffinch was a fan of the sunflower hearts

dunnock

nice to see a blackbird
- not exotic or rare but a lovely bird anyway

coal tit nodding thanks
(at least that's how I interpretted it!)

wood pigeon - another potential villain
who moves in, eats almost everything and flaps off the rest

however it wasn't the worst, and prepared to share

blue tit

dunnock

coal tit

I think the jay did a couple of fly pasts before it settled on the tall stump on the right (the one with red squirrel feeders) (no red squirrels today, although the hide record book showed they turn up regularly here,) then eventually swooped down to the main feeding table. I was delighted and tried to keep back in the shadows of the hide. I'm certain it knew I was there and had been watching cearefully for an hour, but once committed to food, it came back several times in a row and was happy to hop about in a very corvid manner, posing for photos. I was elated. Although I have had some close encounters at Cammo Estate this was the closest and most obliging jay I have had in front of me.

boing!

great tit

holding the famous Buchanan homemade seeded wholemeal loaf

(same stuff I had for lunch) what an endorsement!

It was about this time I heard a couple of older dudes come past and sit on the bench by my bike just to one side of the hide. I had heard them say oh there's someone inside. Meaning me. Not sure if I'd taken their favourite seat but I got the feeling they were more about having a walk than observing the birds. They sat quietly chatting on the bench but I knew this meant an end to the jay coming back - they were within the sightline of the tables. I looked at my watch - it was well past 2pm and I risked missing any butterflies back at the swamp. (I had almost entirely forgotten about them!) It was more consistently sunny now and turning into a decent afternoon for SPBFs but if I left it any later they'd be off to bed.

woodpecker and jay

I exchanged pleasantries with the pensioners as I unlocked my bike, and they pointed out a crime had been committed: there was a huge bird poop on my cross bar and waterbottle mouthpiece. Someone (Mrs. Mallard prime suspect,) had taken a HUGE dump where my mouth goes. Fob watch in size. I was both taken aback and really impressed. That was no happy accident I'm sure and yet such specific intention and aim was uncanny. Someone sat on the fence, (or on my saddle!), associated the unusual addition (my bike) as belonging to the bossy bastard who chased them off their property, then shat where my mouth goes. While I cleaned the bird-turd off the closed bottle mouthpiece with great care, I couldn't use it for the rest of the day. Except to unscrew it and drink from the uncontaminated bottle.(Even then I felt it was somehow tainted!) Whoever says birdbrain underestimates these rather shady characters.

Cycling out of Morton Lochs I saw that buzzard on his tree stump perch again. I put the bike down quietly behind a tree, got the camera out from within the pannier bag (not easy as it lives in a zipped cube of protective case,) and just as I began to leave the gravel trail to shorten the distance between us, he flew off. Having just photographed a jay, a far rarer and more exotic bird, I was in sufficiently good mood that it didn't ruin the day. But it wasn't a highlight either.

By the time I got across to the coast again, the sun was now properly out, and so after a quick scout about at the new pavilion (which I have raved about on previous blogs - still fantastic, but could do with a quick sand and 2 coats of varnish.) I was looking for common blues and the like. No sign of much, other than a few moths, I jumped back on the bike and pedalled like a man possessed back towards the swamps, worried I'd miss the best of the weather.

No common blues or any butterflies. It has been a desperate year for them with far too much rain and wind. Quite a few cinnabars, and common heaths, and a few silver Ys as ever.

cinnabar moth

orchid

the only butterfly of the day - a small copper by the swamp

On the way, just as I turned off the tarmac to the Fife Coastal Path dirt trail a bloke on an electric unicycle turned from the other direction and went ahead of me. I was intrigued as to how he would manage once the trail became single track and undulating. However not only could he go faster than I was going on the flat, (I checked my gps and he was doing 15mph comfortably while I gasped to keep up) he began to disappear into the distance once onto the rougher, undulating stuff. I was suitably impressed. 

He had stopped just before the swamps so I got a chance to meet him. He was just out on his own and happy to chat about his device which I'd kind of written off as a novelty encumberance. Did he fall off much? He used to when learning, and pointed out the knee-pads and hand protection. And helmet, obviously! Now if you google electric unicycles there is a whole world of maniacs riding through the streets of New York and off-roading round trails in a stood-up position at some quite ridiculous speeds. The opportunity for imparing one's health seems huge and yet I find myself thinking I'd really like to buzz silently round Tentsmuir skooshing along at 10~20mph standing on a single-wheeled teatray. I forgot to ask his name and stupidly didn't video him zooming off on it, which he did looking confident and remarkably secure. I think the gyroscopic nature of a spinning wheel helps it keep upright. That it is more like a motorbike than a single wobbly wheel. Do check out the youTube videos of some nut job going around the streets of New York at 35mph. Should be titled "...and you thought those skooters were a bad idea". And yet, I kinda want one!

The journey home was a (mild) nightmare. Since there was no sign whatsoever of any butterflies at the boardwalks or about the swamps I got back to the station an hour early. There were 2 trains before the 5.30 I had reserved my bike on. The 4.35 to London was busy and had no extra bike space for me, so back into the waiting room. The next one was cancelled and never appeared. Finally after a long 80 minutes I got my bike onto the 5.30 train but it had to rest upright in the bike cupboard, a badly designed area by someone who has never seen a mountainbike. There were no seats available nearby so for the next hour back to Edinburgh I sat, squatted and stood in the train corrider next to a smelly and overflowing bin where people had jammed in half eaten odious food containers. I tried not to let it influence my thoughts about returning the next sunny day to try to capture the Small Pearls. Not sure I could face all of that again. However the photos I got of all the birds, especially the jay and woodpecker, made the day very worthwhile and having the bike meant it was less taxing than running 20 miles on top of the hassle of travelling as well. So, no disaster and a decent day out, but will I have the stamina to return?
(No sign of any weather windows on the horizon, to date.)

21.5 miles cycled, 6.5hrs

and just one butterfly!