soldiers at warr

 

31st July

I enjoyed today immensely. It started with a bonus kingfisher. I hadn't seen any for ages, then, as I ran to Warriston cemetery across the tall wooden bridge (from McDonald Rd) into St Marks park I saw a flash of blue go from one side to the other. Looking over (downstream) I saw the kingy land several miles away on a branch over the water. I got my camera out the backpack and managed a distant record shot. Not brilliant, but a nice bonus; the sort of thing that puts a spring in your step. The sun was out (for a change), maybe there'd be butterflies in Warriston.

kingfisher

If I remember correctly this comma was up by the crypts and not near the tunnel. While I was approaching it with maximum stealth a holly blue swooped in from nowhere and distracted me. It was a very nice second brood female although I failed to get satisfactory pics of it before it shot off.

holly blue

Back to the comma which I noticed had a notch out the nearside rear. 

Volucella pellucens again

drone fly

speckled wood

green bottle

So I did a circuit round a few of the likely spots then returned to the In Loving slope, near the tunnel. The sun was now full gas and a comma was sunning itself in the usual place. But wait, that is the notched comma I just saw up near the crypts one or two hundred yards away. Same tailwing damage exactly. I wondered if this was the same comma first seen in this spot on the 26th and how much it moves around various places in the cemetery. (It seemed in less good condition than the previous one but maybe it was just aging fast.) Before the end of the day I was surprised to have some of those questions answered.

distinctive notch

large white

more hoverfly action

While waiting on butterflies blowing through (various whites, some landing, others not) I noticed other insects buzzing about the place. Nothing like a sunny day to get everyone out to play. One of the reasons my spirits, my morale is in direct proportion to the amount of sunshine available. And why I have been so low and grumpy since April. Anyway, watching the other stuff going on, I noticed the soldier beetles were flying a lot today. It wasn't too windy and they were out and about looking for partners to hook up with. It's what they spend most of their lives doing. They'd check out a plant, climbing to the topmost leaf, and, finding no other soldier beetles, would stand up on their hind legs, open their carapace, (probably more correct to say elytra rather than carapace) spread their wings and leap off into the void. Like a wingsuit basejumper. 

beginners luck

I saw one very close to where I was standing and, short of anything else to point the camera at, took its photo. Accidentally I caught it just at the moment of take off and was very pleased to have frozen the exact moment it stood up and opened its wings. What are the chances? It was a fairly decent image but if I were a bit closer, could I do better? There seemed to be quite a few soldiers out on manoeuvres so I looked around to find lively jumpers. You could tell when they were getting into position but they were slightly too fast to get a shot just at the point of departure and I realised how fortunate my first attempt had been.

inevitably the result when trying to anticipate take-off

are you looking at me?

common red soldier beetle Rhagonycha fulva

v nearly

While all this is going on I see the comma has moved to a point where if I crouch I could almost line up the v of its wings with the mosaic v in In Loving. It flies off before I can align the image perfectly.

Back to the flying squaddies. I realise I can catch the moment by using the Pre-burst function. This is a mode that allows you to hold the shutter button half down focussing on the target and it buffers everything in the frame until you see the subject move, at which point you push the button fully down. This records a series of stills starting one second before you fully pushed the button. You can time it to start 1.5 seconds, 1 second or .5 of a second, pre-burst. I find 1 second matches my reaction time well and gives a few extra frames run in before the beetles open their wings and launch.

There is a rapid machine gun fire of frames and you never really know what you've shot until you review the results. Some beetles jump out the frame quickly. Others are caught by the wind and whisked away. If you've zoomed in close they can disappear immediately, too far out and you don't get detailed close-ups. It is an art rather than a science and there was a great deal of hit-and-miss. However a few times it went far better than I hoped and the results were exquisite (although I'm blowing my own trumpet here!) 

Trying to do this without the pre-burst function would be pretty much impossible unless you took a live stream of potentially hundreds of photos (before the buffer ran out) waiting for the beetles to lift off. I'm not sure why I didn't shoot (highspeed) pre-burst video, which also would have been a good way to capture the moment. Although the action is so quick that it might have ended up blurred. Whereas these stills are super-crisp. And not that noisy considering I was shooting at ISO 3200. Which gave me a shutter speed of 1/8000 at f/5. (You can see the depth of field doesn't even cover the wingspan of the chap below in flight!) I have not done any de-noise in post. I haven't seen these pics since I took them and looking at them again today I think they might be among the finest I have taken with the G9m2 since I got it last November.

leap of faith

While I was entirely in the zone trying to capture basejumping soldier beetles, stuff was going down just yards away. The resident comma had returned to find notch-wing sitting on his throne. He was not happy and there was an amber flurry of wings and angry flapping. It is comical to think of butterflies being angry, but you couldn't mistake the intruder being run outta town by the one who had already established this as his turf. When I followed the shapes zipping in and out the branches as they climbed I saw three commas engaged in dogfight. THREE!? Well now? What to make of that? Last year there were 2 here and I took photos of them sat near each other which is a very rare occurrence. I thought they might be (non-feuding) brothers although I couldn't really tell what gender they were for sure.

three commas!

the once and future king

A short while later the established comma returned to announce his dominance and notch-wing did not make any further appearances. Not sure if the third comma was maybe up on the ivy nearby or on a leaf high in a tree, watching. As the dust settled I returned to search for cantharid beetles looking like they were preparing for take off. Who would have thought: the day I walk away from a glorious comma to focus on these entirely commonplace beetles! Well, you can only take so many near identical images of a comma sat on a leaf, sunbathing.

I love the way they take off with everything outstretched, and body curved, 

a thing I'd never noticed until freezing the action with these shots. 

Mydaea

fly above leaf, seen from below leaf

considering taking the plunge

wingtips are folded over to fit under the elytra;

as the beetle takes off they fully unfurl

here is a video made by running the still shots together
into what looks like motion

I went home really pleased with what I hoped were some decent photos. As I said earlier the results exceeded expectation. You never really know until seeing the images on the computer monitor how they have come out. I was particularly pleased to have found a good deal of joy and pleasure taking photos of an ordinary species I regularly walk past without thinking it worthy of examination. Along the lines of if fate gives you lemons make lemonade. It is a good reminder that you don't need huge spectacle to get spectacular images. The camera performed superbly and should take a bow for doing 50% of the work here. When people say it doesn't matter about the kit, it's the photographer, I know what they mean but I couldn't have got anywhere near these results with the camera I had previously. That said, it did take persistence, enthusiasm, some know-how, delight in the small things and a very fine (and fairly expensive) macro lens to get to the end results. Okay, trumpet voluntary over. A memorable day out.

soon be autumn 😔