best part of the day: pp 2 nb

6th February and another fantastic day of sunshine and blue skies! Mary had Thursday free so we made a hasty decision to expand our usual Longnddry to NB run, getting off the train a station early. The forecast looked very promising and as Mary is well into race training (and I always enjoy going along for the ride) we wanted to increase the degree of difficulty. We had thought there were just a couple of miles between Longniddry and Prestonpans. Turns out there were more than four which converted our normal 14miler into an 18+ miler. And that's before you count the mile to the station and the mile home.

train leaving Waverley - blue skies, ace!

Usual routine at the station - I buy the tickets and Mary gets the coffees from Pret. This was my first coffee in a few weeks and I was expecting more of a rush from the only drug I take these days. (Other than a pick-me-up swig of the cough medicine bottle in passing.) We were both a little tired from the weekend up North and plenty of running days, and the extra few miles was more noticeable. To illustrate: we often pick up the pace along Aberlady Beach and sprint. Today, by the time we eventually got there, that was a distant pipe dream and anything other than steady pace seemed ambitious. It may well have been a heavy gravity day. However spirits were high at the start in Prestonpans, probably the coffee and blue sky combo.

treefall blocking the route

first crocus of the year

lots of urban starlings in the Pans

Looking at the map we chose the ideal route from the station road (one street back from the coast) to the coast without any extra mileage. We had not planned a specific route and just ran down streets instinctively, knowing the area fairly well. I had to have a pit stop in Longniddry bents car park at the swish new toilet block in response to the coffee. Good toilets, thank you E. Lothian council.

says number 1, but in fact it was a number 2 😁

a lovely pair of tits

We dropped in for a quick scoot round the SOC building but not even bees at the flowers yet - need another month and 5 degrees more warmth. That said, I took my bigger gloves off and Mary took her buff and (only) gloves off early on. Very pleasant running weather but not great for standing about looking for absent insects.

dwarf daffs out

we photographed a tiny robin at Aberlady

wigeon

I only carried the compact (TZ100) today. While it is a good wee camera and compares favourably with a top of the range mobile phone, I forget about its shortcomings because my big camera is so good and has become the new black. I tend to forget the TZ100 will randomly focus on anything in the photo and will disregard what is in the centre, especially if it is a bird. It will no more focus on that, than a branch or blade of grass at the edge of the image. In the above photo it focussed on the bridge near me and not Mary, the only human in the frame. It is the price paid for carrying a small thing in my hand and not something the size and weight of a bag of sugar. But the pics are not as sweet.

But we were out for a run, not a photo safari. It would be nice to do both and I try to capture wildlife with the compact, but it takes much longer and with much poorer results. And Mary will continue running while I stop to photo a robin or pipit or stonechat. By the time I have a dozen pics (because 9 of them will be shite) Mary is disappearing over the horizon. This gives me extra tempo training trying to catch up, although the photos are often just a reminder of the compromise between camera size and photo quality.

the small camera is occasionally all you need to catch
a perfectly good scenery or running shot, esp in great light

There were 2 or 3 pied wagtails at the west end of the beach and I spent ages slowly approaching them trying to get an acceptable photo. Largely a waste of time. But I can't seem to help myself. The tide was way out and although there was a large group of waders at the far end it looked like mostly oyster catchers and nothing as desirable as sanderlings. I resisted the urge to do anything other than a fairly wide shot. Not worth it mate.

stunning scenery on such a fab day

Exactly the same problem with a pair of deer near Gullane.

Mary got sharper images with her TZ70 which has a longer zoom but smaller sensor.

It was delightful to see so many fieldfares just beyond Gullane car park. Mary had said she would buy a bottle of water from Hazel the Ice Cream if she was there, but she wasn't. Haven't seen her for a while. Less of a market for ice cream, weekdays, during the Winter months. But the trees were just full of hundreds of fieldfares. I knew the pics wouldn't be great and made a mental note to return with the good camera. However taking distant shots with loads of birds is probably the best way to convey the numbers and the chuckling, fluttering crowds. I can't remember ever seeing so many. The highlight was when a flock of maybe a hundred flew just a few feet above us, coming from behind as we crested a small hill and they seemed to be all around us, swooping past, as Mary said, like an AI video, something unreal.

another surprisingly bad photo! 😁

into the woods and an alien encounter

or just pointing the camera at the sun through the trees

It took so long to get close enough to that pipit (above) that by the time I rejoined the run, Mary was barely legible on the distant horizon (below.) More catching up.