best part of the day: cammo ramble

11th November. Another fantastic day out.

I thought it was a week or 2 since I was last at Cammo and hoped that sufficiently large amounts of leaves had departed the trees, allowing the light to hit the birdy breakfast bar. In fact it turned out to be exactly 4 weeks from the last Monday (14th Oct.) I was there.

starting and finishing with a weather vane

Time seems to be messing about. That 4 weeks flew by. They do say as you age, time speeds up. Having considered this I suspect the problem is memory. On days when I am not out having adventures (maybe blogging indoors or setting people right, on the internet), a day can pass without anything significant happening and is dispatched without making the hard drive. A week of dull weather scoots by and there is nothing to pin down or make it memorable. The daily rituals come and go and you find yourself thinking how come I need to shave again; it can't be 6 hrs since the last shave ffs.

All the more reason to head out the door and do something worthwhile. It takes 2 buses and an hour to get there, being at the opposite end of town. However that keeps it special and undervisited. (I didn't fancy the hour long cycle as I'd need to carry a second set of dry clothes to change into and then push my bike about or padlock it in the undergrowth, all of which seemed like hard work.) A nice trip on the bus lets me catch up with whatever book I am listening to on audio.

Last visit there was an atypical lack of nuthatches and jays. But even then it was an above average trip with plenty photos. I was mulling all this over in my head wondering how things would pan out this time. I walked alongside the canal or curling pond, trying to assess the amount of available light and whether the trees had dropped enough leaves to let the light through. I kept a lookout for the kingfisher that haunts the yew at the far end. I have never yet seen one here.

I unshouldered the rucksack to get out 3 ziplock baggies of bird treats; sunflower hearts, homebaked bread (cut small) and peanuts. The horizontal bough which I use (on the North side of the water) was not well lit but I could tell it was going be a good day from the small birds that gathered in the trees just feet away, hopping and bobbing in anticipation of the feast. They were on it before I had even retreated to photo-distance. A nuthatch was one of the first to get stuck in, along with tits; great, coal and blue. On the ground a dunnock searched for overspill and a couple of robins chased each other in tight circled dogfights through the branches.

Where had they all been 4 weeks ago, and was it just the threat of Winter that made them all so focussed on getting fattened up? I didn't really care I was too busy trying to get photos as they nipped and dipped and darted about the tree trunk. Frequently the frrrip of wings would zip within inches of my ears. I was in heaven.

nuthatch

dunnock - prefers to hop about at ground level

no shortage of squirrels about

The squirrels were amusing. They are fairly timid at first but the promise of nearly unlimited food makes them greedy and they just sit down in the middle of it and gorge till it is gone. Every now and then they seemed to be dominating the area to the exclusion of the birds so I would walk over the 6 or 8 feet between us and shoo them off the feeding table. After this had happened once or twice they realised I posed no serious threat and just edged a token amount back, before we all went back to our positions.

Rather than push the river I left them to the last sweepings and went over to the South side of the wee stream where I'd previously photo-ed jays. It was a hit-and-miss activity and you can never count on them turning up. However I felt more confident than usual as one had already come past for a looksee at what was drawing the other birds in numbers to the food pile.

coal tit - not many about this visit and very fast moving

which means fewer images

The robins here are not top dogs and will defer to the nuthatches,

who have larger claws and more powerful bills.

nuthatch - love their bandit masks

me no scared

blue tit

North side jay takes a sneaky peek at all the activity

The small birds were nearly fearless, or maybe just used to the passing traffic, and happily fed just a couple of yards away from where I was standing taking photos. I had set the ISO at 4000 to keep the shutterspeed around 1/400th as there wasn't a great deal of light. The aperture was as large as possible (around f/5 to 6.3) to let the max light in. I haven't used any noise reducing software and although there is more noise than on a really bright day, I don't think it is that bad.

At this point I wandered over to the South side of the water. There are fewer disturbances here as it is off the main paths, although there seemed to be fewer dogwalkers disturbing the North side than usual today. Nobody came past on the South side while I was there and almost immediately I got glimpses of jays among the branches. There were lots of magpies and squirrels moving in on the food I put out on six different places - mostly horizontal branches near the ground. I also bait a couple of eye level branches the nuthatches like. It gives me something to photo while waiting on the jays. They will have a look from various angles and check everything out before coming in closer.

There seemed to be a pair of jays egging each other on. I even got a photo with both of them in the same shot which is rare. They are masters of their environment and regularly fly to a perch that will put a tree or branch between them and myself. Then peep out from behind. They give an impression of intelligence although maybe it is just being hardwired for maximum caution and to not take unnecessary risks. Also those nearly human eyes are kind of uncanny. And that glorious near luminous flash of blue on the wings. The fact they are notoriously hard to get decent photos of adds to the delight of doing just that. I know the ones at Cammo are about as tame as they get, and the result of someone doing a fair bit of groundwork a couple of years ago that I have piggybacked on. Mostly you can't get this close as easily. Well worth the bus ride across town!

So although they appeared relatively quickly and were in the vacinity, there were times when you'd go for 20 minutes thinking they had left the building so to speak. I'd be photographing the nuthatch returning to the aerial branch; taking sunflower hearts and secreting them in nooks and crannies around its tree. Then notice there was a jay on the low branch I'd baited, 20 yards away, or down on the ground chasing bread that had fallen off when the magpies had raided it. They rarely made a noise to let you know they were there. Their call is perhaps the nastiest screech in the woods, like a cat being throttled. They may be lovely to look at but have the least lovely voice, as if in reverse compensation. Example here. It is a good reminder they are part of the crow family.

more greedy squirrels on the South side

backlit

I was very pleased to catch 2 together
- they seemed to be playfully interacting

The above photo and the ones 20 pics below were taken of the birds on the baited logs just 8metres from where I was standing. (I measured the distance afterwards.) They could obviously see me there and weren't that happy about it. However there were peanuts on the log and nowhere else locally, so they reluctantly came over. But did not stay long and were fairly restless about it. It helped that I got a text message. (Funnily enough it was from Ken letting me know he had spotted a red admiral in the Botanics. Last one of the year in the Lothians?) I took my back pack off and phone out to answer him and while I was crouched down (making a less fearsome presence?) they flew over and got stuck into the peanuts! I was indebted to Ken yet again!

I also considered getting out the cammo waterproof poncho I bought a while back in the Leith Army Store outdoor shop. I didn't because I could be arsed unrolling it and also because I didn't think it would fool the jays for a second. Although seeing their approach when I crouched down actually it might. I'll try next time. I couldn't stay crouched for long because I am in my 60s. I stopped carrying the padded rolled-up kneel mat I carried for ages, because I never used it. I use a poly bag under one knee sometimes if it is really wet or muddy. What I might try and get hold of is an extra lightweight tiny stool in which I can sit with the poncho over the top of me, that might work. Although the amount of kit I already carry is nearly approaching maximum. After which it just subtracts from the day out rather than adding. Swings and roundabouts. If you are wedged in a stool it limits being able to reach around a tree or lean just a bit more to get past a branch blocking a view. The pics below were taken doing just that - moving between things obscuring the line of sight. No sudden movements either, or the bird would be off.

meanwhile others were scoffing the bait at the nearby log

the only wren of the day!

Interesting to see this squirrel and nuthatch both getting stuck in and not bothering about the proximity of the other. Bickering would break out between the different squirrels and also the nuthatches would get quite possessive and chase off other birds but I didn't see any squabbling between mammals and birds.

audio is jet noise from the airport nearby

I didn't shoot much video, just 3 shorts clips. I recently took the time to try and work out how to shoot slo-mo video and what settings to use. Doing this late at night indoors I wondered what to video to check it was working. Eventually the only thing I could think of to test that might show up significantly different if the slo-mo was working was the seconds ticking over on my watch. I managed to make them go at half speed and one third speed. But then totally forgot to turn the dial on the camera to S&Q (slow and quick) out in the field, before shooting any video. A year into G9 ownership - one of the things I was most looking forward to - quality slo-mo video - and I am yet to shoot any. (Except for three second seconds!) Come on Buchanan get your act together. Watch this space. Hopefully lots of holiday slo-mo coming soon!

golden hour blue tit

So that text message from Ken got me wondering about the potential for butterflies. If there were any here they would be in the walled garden. Last visit it was in churned up turmoil as heavy plant machinery had delivered scaffolding to put round the walls before they were partially knocked down and rebuilt. Even worse on this occasion. The whole interior of the walled garden was churned up. Most of the walls had been repaired but they had also been denuded of ivy and no doubt the resident birds would have departed. It was sad but hopefully by nesting time the place will have recovered somewhat. I'm not really sure what the point of rebuilding the walls has been, except a huge expense to stop them falling down over the next 100 years. Which would have been a problem why? Anyway most of the rudbeckia and asters had finished and there were no interesting insects about at all. Apart from one or 2 of the hives being active with honey bees.

biggest nut of the day but how to get it home?

I took a round about stroll eventually going over to the big field on the North side. There is a bird feeder there and it can be busy with garden birds. It was empty so I partly filled it. However I was getting itchy feet and could not be bothered to wait for the birds to discover it was in operation again. A blue tit and robin turned up but there wasn't great light so I called it a day. I was going to head down the Almond but that would take me further and further from a bus stop so I went back to Barnton and swiftly caught a bus back into town, then walked home. I had about 800 photos to tweak and was excited to see what they looked like. (About a 1 in 10 batting average is a decent hit rate and 80 have made it here.) You can never be sure to get the target species when you go out the door: I was really pleased to see today's 2 main subjects - nuthatches and jays - and get to take their photos.