the emperor's new hairstreak

 

23-04-26 Another wonderful day out; again pretty much ideal weather for Springtime and late April. I had considered catching a bus but in the end decided to cycle. I had a fair bit of kit to get onto the Pentland foothills and the bike seemed the best way to do this. As a concession to age and fitness I cycled across town in a relaxed fashion instead of racing as fast as possible which is nearer to my signature dish.

I arrived at the Bonaly (Scout Camp) car park fresh rather than moist and wrung out. There were new bike racks at the top of the car park. Hmmm. In the past few years of doing this I have left my bike in the nearby trees, padlocked and out of sight. Leaving it in plain view, albeit padlocked made me uncomfortable. I hoped the other flashier bikes looked more tempting to bike thieves and I hoped the bike thieves did not come to this out-of-town spot to steal bikes.

Is that a fixie on the right? Wow that fashion came and went. Or are people still buying and riding them?  I just did a bit of a deep-dive online and cut to the summary of a 30min youTube about some semi-pro cyclist embracing a fixie for a few weeks to try and get over his fear/suspicions about them. His conclusion? Bottom line: gears are better (but)... etc.
Edinburgh is far too hilly for fixies.

From one pannier bag I took my backpack including camera. The other held the traditional Lidl cooler bag and moth trapping kit plus ice packs and packed lunch. Recently I've been lazy about making sandwiches, either buying them en route or doing without. However there are no shops in the Pentlands and I was VERY glad of them around lunch time.

Going up through the trees I saw what I thought may be a juvenile kestrel fly up high into a tree. On closer inspection (looking through the camera) the speckled front and brown wings belonged to a mistle thrush not a bird of prey. I wondered how I could have got it so wrong and whether it was expectation or just oxygen depletion from cycling the fairly intense hills all the way from the turn-off at Woodhall Road. 

I got up to the boundary fence and stepped over at a stile or wooden fence. Within a few minutes I had seen green hairstreaks taking off from the blaeberries, chase around and land. An excellent start. 50% of the day's target species already. I took a few shots just in case there weren't so many over towards Torduff Hill.

there were quite a few peacocks (but little else, apart from GHs)
spread about the hillside, some weathering badly, others looking quite fresh 

I used to go to Castlelaw to see green hairstreaks as they were easy to find in the gorse and blaeberry next to the firing range. Since Richard and a pal got a telling off from an associate of the military there, for butterfly hunting while the red flags were flying, I have not been at all inclined to return. Also the cycle there is on hellish roads (long, busy and dangerous) culminating in a vertical mile up to the carpark. And then you stand the chance of a waggy fingered belligerent arsehole telling you to gerrof his land. No thanks. By comparison the cycle to Bonaly is well under the hour, the roads are much less dangerous (apart from the heart-attack final mile) and the scenery is free from shouty wankers.

However there is no gorse. The green hairstreaks will sit on their fave foodplant, but because it is blaeberry rather than gorse you have to work much harder to see and photograph them, and because they are the same colour as blaeberry leaves they blend right in. Once you get your eye in though, you can see them from a couple of metres away. Then you have to get down like a snake and slither forward across the carpet of grass, heather and blaeberry getting the camera quite close. Because they are tiny - not much bigger than my thumbnail. 

I shot the first ones here with the 100~400mm zoom. The second session with the 90mm macro. The zoom meant not having to get as close, but the second session on the way back to the car park, the shots are possibly better quality.

rare shot of upper wings

Because the greenies were taking off regularly I did some pre-burst shots to get open-winged uppers images. They are another species who always sit with wings closed showing the green underwings. When they fly they look greeny-brown because the uppers are this drab brown. The best way to photograph this is as they take off. You have to be extremely quick - I think these were shot at a shutter-speed of 1/6000 and faster. I thought they came out well although the subjects would quickly leave the focal plane darting all over the place, and so only a couple of the sequence would be usable.

another fortunate shot showing upper wings

However I stopped this photoshoot early, feeling I'd come back to it after I'd tried my hand with the emperor moths. These are fantastic creatures you rarely see if you don't have a lure. I bought a new lure this year because I couldn't fnd my previous kit or remember where I'd carefully tidied it away to. Of course after the new lure arrived (about £14 from England, sent in post) I came across the jars, screw-top tupperwares and cool bag I used last time. Doesn't hurt to have a new lure. I was glad to have found the midgey net I use as a container. I tied the lures in one corner and waft it around my head at the top of a small rise near the pylons that cross Torduff Hill. The arrival of emperor moths can be so dramatically prompt I generally time it. Last year I worried because 5mins later no emperors, although they did arrive shortly after that. This year it was about 2m30secs although just a single moth initially. Several minutes later there were three or four circling ground zero and I had to put the midge net lure into a zip-lock baggy to prevent calling all the boys to the yard.

form an orderly queue please

those impressive antennae can detect lady moth perfume from afar

Bibio lanigerus

On my way to the moth hill I collected a couple of pieces of wood. The moths are happy to sit on heather but fall over and flutter about. Far easier, once they are cooled, to let them warm up on a wooden display board or any kind of handsome plinth. I was a little bit excitable after seeing hairstreaks and spent the least time possible choosing suitable bits of kindling, which was lying around under the trees, before exiting the woods. I could have paid more attention and got better, more aesthetically pleasing back-boards. Those I left sitting in the sunshine. Many of the local fly population adopted them as new homes or at least as sunloungers.

There was no shortage of volunteers to be photographed. I collected them in screw top jars and put them in the cool bag which was cold (and dark) from the ice packs. After a short while they stopped fluttering like crazy things and sat quietly. I'd fish them out the jar very carefully on a stick and then try to get them to sit on the display board while I photographed them. Some responded very helpfully, others upon release from cold jail, made an instant run for it and disappeared over the horizon in a flash. 

Some realised the whole thing was a scam within seconds of seeing the midge net and turned around and flew off - others would have spent the whole day romancing the mesh and lure, flying at it with a rabid enthusiasm. Most were in a pretty good condition, suggesting I'd got the timing nearly perfect. Too early (my usual rush to get to the good stuff early in the season) and there wouldn't be many about. Too late and they might be worn and ragged. (Same with the green hairstreaks - they tend to be later at Bonaly than Castlelaw - so I left it a few days after I heard they were being seen in good numbers at Castlelaw.)

Generally best not to let them get on a hand. They like a warm hand and it helps them warm up to the temperature where they can fly off. However it does show what size they are. I always think of them as large, even though they are the size of a medium sized butterfly (wingspan 60mm), and smaller than a good sized peacock or admiral. However their patterns and majesty is so awesome they look more impressive. Their skittering about the heather and grass is less impressive. 

Like last year I swapped lenses to the 90mm macro. If done properly there is plenty opportunity to get very close to these fabulous moths while they are fairly sedate, before they warm up and fly off. I was able to get right in to shoot wing close ups showing scales although often I was having to do so at high shutter speeds because the wings would be shivering to warm up. The patterns are well worth a close look, as are the antennae.

The moths, latin name Saturnia pavonia, are the UK's only silk moth. The adult mlaes fly during the day while the females (a gray version similar in looks, usually larger) fly at night. Maybe this accounts for the males always being so flightly and skittish.

Torduff Hill, Edinburgh and the Forth valley beyond

I changed lenses again to the 12~60mm (street) lens to get something of a wide angle, with the moths in the foreground but showing more of the landscape in the background. I felt this worked well - a plan I had formulated before the trip, trying to work out a more original approach to how to present these amazing beasts. Not easy to balance a fluttering moth on the end of a lichenous stick in my left hand while taking the photo with camera in right hand, checking it was central in the frame and in focus, before it took wing and flew off. The hilltop breeze was useful as it encouraged the moth to open its forewings showing those fabulous orange hind wings.

emperor video

The video shows the amount of skittering involved. When they get wind of the female pheromones they approach the area very manically; crawling and flying like crazy. The one sat nicely on my hand had been in the cool bag and was behaving more calmly. The others, shaking their wings, are warming up just before flying off. All returned to the wild successfully and flew off undamaged from the experience as far as I could tell. 

I always feel a little bit guilty of robbing the moths of a few minutes out their busy schedule and luring them to an area with false promises. However it is virtually the only way you can get to see these amazing creatures at close quarters. I only do this once or twice per season and never repeat in the same area. An absolute pleasure that this year was a great success and good to see so many specimens around the usual venue.

Leaving it slightly later meant there were more green hairstreak available too and after an hour trapping and photographing emperors I packed up the kit and continued towards Torduff Hill to look for hairstreaks. Every half hour or so there would be a fly-by from an emperor moth. I had already zip locked the lure and midge net away but felt the residue pheromone was probably still on the equipment and my hands, and that that was the cause of irregular visits from passing emperors. Either that or there was a larger amount on patrol than usual. They would circle and fly off disappointed.

the hilltop venue I use for luring emperors

although there were loads of peacocks 

this was the only small tortoiseshell I saw all day

In previous years I have searched the valley between the pylon hill and Torduff Hill. There are usually green hairstreaks on the lower ground there, on the blaeberries on the edge of the swampy ground, and on sunny slopes. However the wind was doing an odd swirl there this year and although I found a small number of greenies in the usual spots while I had my lunch there, much of the action was on the steeper slope climbing up to Torduff Hill. This was not convenient for taking photos and getting close to the butterflies. They'd see me approach and fly off. Or get drawn up into dogfights before I'd crept near enough to get photos. (I had the macro lens on which requires getting the camera to within half a metre or closer of the subject.) After REALLY enjoying my sandwiches I decided to return to where I'd seen them earlier, South of the car park.

they love a bit of a dogfight

The specimens next to the boundary fence seemed more relaxed and I found as long as I kept low I could get very close to them for photos. I was wearing shorts (as usual) and checked myself afterwards for ticks, removing several on site and several later once home. You have to be prepared to get down low and slither through the heather to get close enough for photos.

This one sat on the barbed wire fence which I was very pleased about. It seemed to enjoy the raised perspective and it was good for isolating the butterfly from the background. It flew off before I got the first photo and I thought I'd lost the photo-opportunity of the day, until it flew back and sat up there again. I approached super-slowly second time and managed to get really close before it moved on. They are really small and a lot of the time are difficult to distinguish from background vegetation especially blaeberry which they look identical to.

pair of peacocks - both in very good condition

I spent quite a long time crawling about the heather and blaeberry until about 3pm when the greenies seemed to decide that was the end of their day and began to disappear. They were there, then they were gone. I felt I had a good haul of photos but then I always feel that until I get home and wish I had been a bit more diligent, that the photos I thought were winners had the subject looking away from the lens or was blighted by grass and vegetation. It is a species I always like to go the extra mile with, as it's a long trip back to reshoot them. Happily I managed to get a decent spread of images today although I am rarely entirely pleased with my photos and always strive to do a bit better than last time. 

I had noticed the blossom on the trees beside the car park on the way up the hill. On the return the sun was lighting them better and I went over to see if any butterflies were there. On cue a peacock appeared from nowhere and although it stayed slightly out of reach on the higher branches it was a perfect finish to a brilliant day. 

glad to see the bike was still there, unmolested

I rattled home (not sparing the horses) and noticed that unlike the way there, I was hitting all the traffic lights at favourable times. I realised I was scooting across town at a decent clip and by the Parliament Buildings at Holyrood had 7 minutes to get over Abbeyhill, down Easter Road and along Iona Street to limbo under 40minutes for the return 7.5miles. I knew it depended on the lights at Abbeyhill and the crossroads at London Road, however they weren't bad and I arrived breathing heavily putting my key in the front door with thirtynine-thirtysomething on the stopwatch. Fantastic - not lost it! 😆

1.6 miles in 3hrs 21mins