not so big wood

 

20-03-25 I had already postponed one planned trip to Saltoun Big Wood because Mary reminded me that being out of town and bit higher, it can be colder and slower to produce the same wildlife results as we get in Edinburgh. It can be disappointing to hurry there expecting to find Spring and instead finding it is still struggling through Winter. Saltoun Big Wood can be a great place but it can also fail to come up with the goods. Often you will be surrounded by birdsong but achieve zero decent bird photos. Or the number of butterflies can be fewer than hoped for. This visit was nearly that exactly, but some good luck on the way home saved the day and made it all worthwhile. 

I had been swithering between going on the bike or catching a bus. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and doing one makes you wish you had done the other. I ran up the road (just short of a mile) to get to the stop at Abbeyhill in plenty of time for the 10.02 number 113. That's actually the time assigned for it hitting Waterloo Place but my previous with East Coast buses suggests they are not terribly concerned with timetables and pretty much just turn up when they fancy, so I got there a few minutes early. Then stood around till after 10.20 cursing. An East Coast bus to North Berwick stopped and I had a quick word with the driver who assured me the 113 was right behind him. I had considered just getting the NB bus and re-routing my plans for the day although if I wanted to go to NB a train would have been half an hour quicker.

The 113 eventually turned up though it was not clear whether it was 23minutes late or 7minutes early. I listened to an audiobook for the hour it took to get to Pencaitland while enjoying the sunny views of the town turning into countryside. Off the bus I kept my (big) camera in my backpack so I could run. There is about half a mile to the cyclepath then a mile and a half of that before a small amount of tarmac and a turn at the bridge signposted Barley Cottage and Barley Mill. This takes you in to Saltoun Big Wood on a thin dirt trail that makes no mention of the Wood. About three miles to get to the Wood proper.

As I climbed towards the wood I could hear the clang and bash of machinery. I had assumed the forestry work begun at the end of the butterfly season last year would have been finished by now but sadly it was still underway. Often signs are put up saying no access due to tree felling on the main paths and there are not many ways to get round this. Generally the forestry guys do not mind occasional visitors but it puts a negative vibe on any day out there. The machinery is fearsome and not only spoils the tranquility of the place but churns up the paths, making it less pleasant to walk there. The dry weather lately has been a great help - last September many of the trails were reduced to deeply churned ruts filled with mud and gloop. I'm not sure whether the swathes cut either side of the paths (about a 2m clearance with all shrubs, young trees and bracken removed) are an inadvertant part of the wide machines driving through or deliberate maintenance of the wood. It opens up the trails and makes them less friendly and enclosed. I was enjoying the hushed intimacy of the paths last year feeling the woods were winning the battle for space against human intrusion, slowly growing over the trails and paths. 

It is difficult to know if the forestry business is actually for the benefit of place or just for the benefit of commerce. In a way it is good for the place to be stripped of the monoculture of coniferous trees, if they are replaced with a variety of native trees. Although the stump-land currently being revealed looks like the rural equivalent of war-torn Siria or the Gaza Strip. The local wildlife must be suffering. The views and scenery are all changing and to me it doesn't seem for the better. But we can only wait and see how things transpire. I have no idea who owns the land and timber and what their plans are for it. Fingers crossed they don't fuck it up horribly and ruin one of my favorite venues for communing with nature.

backswimmer owning the pond

I arrived at the ponds. They are almost bereft of life at this time of the year compared with mid to late Summer when dragonflies skim the surface, butterflies flit about the perimeters and birds sing in the surrounding trees. Backswimmers were the only wildlife I could see. No newts or even frog/toad-spawn although I didn't check all the way round and there could have been a wheelbarrow full of it just ten yards away.

there was a thin smear of ice melting on the second pond

The first butterfly was a red admiral beside the woodpile. This is a woodpile that has been left for several years in a lorry turning layby just beyond the last pond on the right. And not to be mistaken for the many woodpiles which have appeared in the last year as the result of the woods being chopped down. One positive aspect of the pine trees being removed is they are leaving the non-fir trees; many of which can be seen for the first time without a difficult trudge through the dense undergrowth. 

Anyway I stopped at the woodpile to photograph this RA. It was up quite high up and not easy to see when it closed its wings. I have been here when the willow catkins were attracting 6~10 peacocks to them, plus commas and admirals. Not today with just this solo specimen. I took far too many photos mainly to fulfil my photography habit, rather than the scene justifying it.

"butterfly alley" showing the cut-back swathes either side

and machinery tracks

compared to how it looked in Sept 2024

a family of 4 buzzards were flying above the wood
but always just too far away to get decent pics

At the top corner - the furthest Easterly corner - I heard a jay. I had realised that it was not going to be a brilliant day for wildlife and was now desperately chasing anything. I have heard jays and caught glimpses of them in this wood but generally they are super cautious here. Nothing ventured... I thought, as I left the perimeter trail and headed East. I have been in these woods maybe 35 times but never extensively explored away from the main paths. I followed a small path along the edge of the woods (to the right of the above photo) for maybe a hundred yards or more. It wasn't easy ground and I wouldn't be able to run with the camera in pursuit of a shy bird. Which I could hear but not see. Maybe it saw me and stopped calling. I lost the scent and the enthusiasm, and then I trudged back to the spot where we used to sit and eat sandwiches on a large fallen log. Which has since been removed, presumably sawn up and sold. 

you can now see the trees for the wood
at least the non-coniferous ones

chiffchaff

I could hear the first chiffchaffs of the year. Their repetitive call is charming for a short while before it becomes just background noise. A little like Small Whites being really quite exciting to see for about a week (as Ken pointed out on ESB) before nobody bothers with them for the rest of the season. 

buzzards still buzzing

I returned to the woodpile and at first it seemed the singular RA had flown off. I had my lunch sandwich while poking around - looking for beetles in the well-drilled well-seasoned wood and even slime mould in the wet leaf litter over by the higher pond. I thought I found some bright green coloured mould but it turned out to be miniscule leaves growing out a black mouldering stalk of pond weed and not worth putting on the macro lens to examine further. I get very easily discouraged about slime mould searches (raking through wet sludge trying not to kneel on the wet ground,) and very easily distracted by almost anything else. Like this ladybird who landed on my shoe. I could see it was thinking about taking off and just about caught the moment. Should've used the pre-burst mode and done it properly.

ready, steady...

go!

Either the same RA had been there all the time or it had returned. I noticed it when it flew down to a much lower branch very near to where I was eating lunch. I quicky pocketed my lunch and raised the camera. Unfortunately by the time I remembered to shoot some video (results towards bottom of page) it was just about done with these pussy willows.

When it flew off, it chased up another butterfly which had been sitting in the undergrowth nearby. The 2 went spiralling into the air as they do, and I followed the other which shortly returned to a rock on the ground. It was about 75% of a peacock having lost its rear quarter to birdstrike maybe. I remembered that many of the peacocks I'd seen here previously were bird-damaged suggesting a lively and active small bird population. That said, in the years of butterfly watching I have never seen a bird clip the wings of a butterfly. A stonechat chased an emperor moth once in the Pentlands, briefly, (without success) but the amount of rear wing notches I see does not match the bird activity I have witnessed.

75% peacock

migrating bird

I went past this dude in the large log loader while he was at rest or having lunch. I waved hello and he waved back. I braced myself for a lecture from him about proximity and that I shouldn't be in the woods while they were working, could I not read the signs? but he didn't bother getting out his cab which I was glad of. If there were signs at the main entrance I would have missed them; arriving via Barley Mill.

About 60+ rings suggesting this larger trunk was about ages with myself.
Is this why I was feeling a bit uneasy about the wood being felled?

about the most scenery I could get into the frame 

with the 100~400mm

One thing I wasn't able to do was take wide shots with the long lens. I kept the long lens on all day and meant to get out my phone or the DJI Pocket to take scenery shots. Parts of the wood were looking pretty decent and the long lens is no use for wide shots. In the end I couldn't be bothered to get other lenses out or even my phone to shoot more scenery. Spirits were falling and I thought rather than fight it and mooch around trying to find something worth pointing the camera at, I'd just walk back to Pencaitland and see if anything appeared on the cyclepath. 

The only spawn I saw was in a deep ditch at the side of the trail. 
Unsure if toad or frog.

I presume the above house is Barley Mill or Cottage. The small path from SBW to the Pencaitland cyclepath is much more pleasant than the trail out to the main road between West and East Saltoun. I had a wander down to the river looking for dippers and kingfishers but no joy. Walking along the field edge to Barley Mill I saw a butterfly flitting along the perimeter, presumably looking for a potential mate. It was a Small Tortoiseshell, my first of the year. I broke into a jog to follow it and was very pleased when it first flew up into a large willow and then down onto a daffodil. The day was suddenly looking quite a bit better!

Prior to today I had already photographed a red admiral (Botanics) and comma (Water of Leith) and so was hoping today would bring about the other two that overwinter: small torts and peacocks. The peacock at the woodpile was not a great specimen but here was a great small tortoiseshell and it (like my celebrated comma) was obliging enough to sit on a daffodil between flights up to the catkins. Making a much better shot than just sitting on the ground as it was also doing. I was keeping a very close eye on it since butterflies were in short supply today. So I noticed it doing a survey of the local area and stirring up a peacock. Which then, having been disturbed from its torpor, also sat on a daffodil while trying to work out how to reach the pollen/nectar. I was delighted! This does not happen with any kind of regularity and I fully expected to be accused of AI-ing these images. 

flower already occupied

now where is the the good stuff

getting warmer

what? all the way under there?

the tortoiseshell would flit between
the willow, the ground and the daffodils

video clips of RA, small tort and peacock

why did the pheasant cross the road?

There were lots of small birds on the cyclepath back into Pencaitland but no great photos were taken of them. I had got a late reprieve on the butterflies so was not bothered about the rest of the day's failures. Things had gone from meh to great in 20minutes and having got plenty good pics and video was looking forward to seeing them on the computer at home. A few hundred yards from the bus stop, with a spring in my step, I was pointing the camera at some sparrows who were evading capture in a bushy hedge. I was spotted by Vivienne the lollipop lady who suggested I might want to take her photo as well. A great day out (eventually).

8.87miles in 4hrs