best part of the day: May 2026

22-04-26. If ever I need my spirits lifted then a jaunt to Cammo usually does the trick. This was the case today and Cammo worked very well as a quiet place to spend some time on my own on a mostly sunny Wednesday. Fewer dog-walkers than at the weekend. Last trip suggested the jays are more cautious or just absent when there is plenty food on the trees and they don't need to rely on human extras. No sign of them today but plenty else to enjoy.

The buses were uneventful. One to Princes Street then the 43 arrived quickly and took me to 2 stops beyond Barnton Junction (formerly roundabout) for 10mins before 11am. A short walk through the houses to the East entrance of the place and the birds are making a racket from all around. A blackcap welcomes me on the East Drive.

blackcap

marsh marigolds at the curling pond

The sun was landing nicely on the first venue - some tree trunks on the right of the water, popular with local bird-feeders and all the small birds that gather quickly as I put out seeds and nuts. The nuthatches are the star of the show and several appear, bossing the robins and great tits. Dunnocks stay in the shadows and closer to the ground, while the nuthatches fly back and forth giving me brief moments, but really great proximity, for photos. Although the shadows move across the feeding area there is plenty sunshine and after a short while (not much more than half an hour) I feel I have covered all the ground available and am starting to take the same photos for the second or third time.

nuthatch

dunnock

coal tit

robin

great tit

shake a leg - this long-tailed tit was passing through above
with some nesting material and waved with its left leg

nuthatch unimpressed

high shutter speed essential to catch high speed action
although I missed the focus here

the tiny coal tits are a great favourite
but move so quickly it is difficult to do them justice

In case the amount of sunshine for the day was limited I was keen to go for a wander, so headed off, long before I was bored, to the walled garden. I was hoping there would be a few more butterflies than last time. They tend to congregate here despite the lack of flowers. Possibly the wind shade and maybe a distant memory of when the place was used to cultivate flowers. That said, the locals do a certain amount of horticulture within the newly refurbished walls; growing trees and late Summer shrubs and flowers to keep the collection of 7~10 bee hives in business. The apple and pear trees in the small orchard area were looking splendidly in blossom and I was hoping they'd make an excellent backdrop for a butterfly portrait. Unfortunately the butterflies can't have got that email.

small white

rare shot of a female blackcap!

As I mooched around I had a feeling there were blackcaps about. I sort of know their lilting pretty song, but at least once recently I have followed it to the source, which turned out to be a blackbird. I could hear them but not see them. In due course I got some less-than-perfect photos of a pair who seemed to be lurking on the South-West side.

fruit tree blossoms

ichneumon

syrphus spec.

bee-fly

Always happy to see bee-flies. There was one or 2 buzzing around the garlic mustard (which was also the main attraction for passing orange tips and fly-by whites) so I spent a while watching and filming around the small patches of white flowers. Some of the video worked fine, (as posted at bottom of page) while other clips suffered horribly from rolling shutter distortions - the sort of weirdness you get when filming anything really fast like propellors. And their wings must beat at a similar a rate that it interferes with the frames-per-second of the video software producing stationary wings at times. However it doesn't put me off these wee cuties. Just have to shoot loads and throw away about half.

initially the orange tips were not landing

and I had to make do with fly past shots

green-veined white

The white butterflies are a tricky proposition: for a shot like the above, the camera will try to expose for general conditions and invariably over-expose the butterfly's wings because it is trying not to make the greenery too dark. I alter the exposure compensation in camera, taking it down 2/3rds of a stop to try to avoid this. Similarly if you shoot a bird in branches with the sky behind, the camera may render you a silhouette and you may want to flip the exposure compensation in the other direction to lighten the shot, in order to see some detail or markings on the bird.

primroses

I came across this spectacular comma and waited to see if it wanted to sit on a more attractive perch; maybe a flower or tree blossom, but no, it was adamant it wanted to remain here. Most it did was close its wings as I moved closer. And then open them when the sun came out.

male blackcap at a distance over the other side

superb peacock
(as featured in video)

blue tit

After the walled garden I went to the other side of the curling pond which is traditionally the area I see jays. However there weren't any about and I felt even if I stayed there ages they wouldn't show. I fed the small birds for less than half an hour before heading off to explore some other parts. (If you always do what you've always done...etc.)

Particularly the meadow of daffodils in front of the ruined building in the middle of the estate. The daffs were beginning to pass but there were still many in flower and quite a few butterflies present, likely due to the dense tree and shrub cover round the edges. Quite a few birds for the same reason.

coal tit

robin

There were at least 2 commas. They'd keep still, sunbathing on bramble or daff leaves then one would go for a turn round the territory and noise up the other. They'd go spinning up into an orange blizzard, into the sky, before returning to their respective perches. One had a notch out its right forewing and I'm not sure I got a close up of the other one. There was also a peacock which was doing a great job posing atop the daffodil flowers. I spent quite a while lying on the ground trying to get a daffodil background behind the peacock. I'm sure passing dogwalkers (this is quite a main thoroughfare) did a double take and wondered if an old man had had a fall or a stroke.

thank you peacock for being such a good poser!

just missed the peacock taking off!
but I liked the result so much I kept it.

comma blizzard

reluctant model: male blackcap

There was also a blackcap nearby that was kinda curious. Or just feeding or collecting nesting material at a spot near where I was messing about on the ground. I'd catch moments of birdsong or a movement in the tree nearby, and just glimpse the bird as it disappeared into the undergrowth. I missed a couple of great shots, immortalising the recently empty branch on the SD card and then saying very bad words. But eventually got some evidence of the bird. Only one shot being good enough to make the grade.

the other comma - what a beauty!

I was pleased it landed on a daffodil,
although a less dead one would have been better

loads of speckled woods about

Having had so much fun having a wander round less visited areas I continued the walkabout hoping to find other spots equally entertaining. I went back through the walled garden as it had been pretty fruitful earlier and had loads of garlic mustard. As the afternoon warmed up I suspected there'd be loads of orange tips. I found one or two there and followed one out the South East corner exit to a large area covered in flowering garlic mustard.

The motherload! (you can see on the map below, the point at the bottom of the map.) There were five or 6 orange tips and whites (and ssorted speckleds and peacocks) constantly dancing round the flowers; either hunting for females or just feeding and egg laying. Although a lot of it had unpleasantly rough rocky ground underneath and shin-high nettles discouraging any kind of approach, I managed to find a route into the centre of it where I squatted and took a ton of photos and video. One of these moments when you get totally lost in the zone and are not sure if you've been there 15minutes or 95. Butterfly heaven!

(got away with 1/800th of a second)

ot in a wall of gm

gvw

twofer

these 3 flight shots at 1/5000 of a second

Because it was such a bright day and the butterflies were very active it was perfect conditions for setting up take-off shots. I had recently changed the camera settings from 20 shots-a-second to 60 shots-a-second for the pe-burst mode. It is a pity there is not something between the two because 20 is not quite fast enough and 60 gives me a fuckton of homework to do later.

Looking at the day's pics there'll be 45 nearly identical shots of the butterfly at rest and then 6 of it taking off and leaving the frame, and then another 45 of empty perch. (All shot in less than two seconds.) The six shots might be fantastic but it is a long wade through the garbage to get them. I have since changed back to 20 fps as it was too discouraging to take at least a hundred shots for a gamble the 5 or 6 good ones would be in focus. (Even a magical camera like mine can't accurately maintain focus on a speeding butterfly as it leaves a flower.)

lift off!
the two dozen frames that make it worthwhile

I tried to make a composite photo layering the images of this OT taking off but I found even taking every third image resulted in too much overlap. It became too frustrating - perhaps every 8th image or somesuch would work but I have too many blogs circling, waiting to land, to spend half a day in photoshop, cloning orange tips from one photo onto another.

Also I'd get home and have 2 thousand or more files from 4hrs shooting. And if there was a good amount of slo-mo video clips (there almost always is!) in that download it could weigh up to 20gbs. And I don't even shoot raw. (Raw would generate 5 times that!) My old computer groans under the weight and I am reluctant to buy a new one because

a/ I believe in trying to extend the life of a machine to the max because we don't live on a planet with infinite resources, and

b/ I'm kinda lazy about updating new tech.
I currently need to update my iPhone because of built-in redundances and an inability to download recent apps which require a software version my old (second hand) iPhone can't upgrade to. I'm sure if Apple were more interested in being green than making profit they could address this but instead they love money (considerably) more than the planet and so make sure an iPhone becomes out-of-date in a few years and you have to buy a new one. In about a hundred years (if the planet lasts that long) this kind of profit-before-planet policy will be absolutely despised. In some corners (where quality of life is more highly regarded than profiteering and money making) it already is.

I love that shot above - I think it is a small white but could easily be a gvw. I have removed all the original files from my hard drive to make room for the subsequent day's shoots. (And can't be bothered looking up the hard drive archive.) I can see the shot on the screen but only as a smallish thumbnail and can't zoom in to see much detail. Just so you know in case I mis-name anything!