bother with a hover

 

26-05-26  After all the complaints about the weather, along comes a day with another more-of-the-same iffy forecast. So I plan nothing more ambitious than an afternoon in Warriston. The sun comes out and the insects clearly got the email because they come out too. Nothing particularly exotic but things were on the move and I had a brilliant time trying to photograph them, in decent light, for a change.

wren with what might be a butterfly caterpillar

I went to the variegated holly tree. I'm not sure why it is bustling with wildlife there, but it is. Probably the trees, and the shelter trees give birds. And the holly blues love a holly tree - although I think they have come and gone as I haven't seen any for a while. To be replaced by a few whites and a large white that flip-flops out the tree next door to the holly, and flits about doing an extensive circuit looking for love. Similarly a red admiral perches in the centre of the nettle and bramble jungle below, at full stretch of the long lens. Sometimes it lands closer when it is bored and wants to get me jumping around saying bad words as I brush the nettles with bare legs, before it retreats to its jaggy sanctuary.

Today there was a special on click beetles. Not sure why but all the local Athous haemorrhoidalis were climbing to the tops of plants, opening their wings and flying off to the plant next door to do the same. I have seen ladybirds and soldier beetles do exactly this and quickly went into pre-burst mode which anticipates the action and helps take a series of action shots as the beetles take off. Click beetles are quite slow to open their wings and leap so it almost proved too easy. Their surname haemorrhoidalis simply means blood coloured in Latin in case you wondered why that was piled on there. And they get their common name because if you flip them over on their backs they flip back with a click.

Athous Haemorrhoidalis

oooh, orange underwear!

click twice for beetle taking off

And then I noticed a couple of big fat Volucella Pellucens hovering not far from my head. They can zip about at great speed and are quite flighty. Pun intended. If you raise a camera they seem to feel its gaze and fly off. Once the camera is stationary they will return and if you hold it still long enough they might even come in close for a look. They are one of my favourite hoverflies, mostly because they have a lovely name and are easy to recognise - due to that translucent band across the middle, the pellucid bit. 

I had the macro lens on from trying to photo the flying click beetles. And it proved easier to hold; arms up to face and camera pointed upwards, than the hefty long lens. At one point one of the hovers flew right above my camera. It would have been way too close for the long lens and I managed to shoot some video. These three photos are screen grabs from the video. It did not stay in the frame long and although I shot a few clips while it was filling the frame only about one and a half came out. Close proximity does seem to make the rolling shutter (bendy wing appearance) slightly worse. But I love the results. I haven't seen anyone else doing close ups videos like this of hoverflies in flight. 

One of the secrets is trying to get the focus correct, or in the right ballpark, before the fly arrives there. Either by focussing on something a similar distance away; ie the path at your feet or nearby bushes, or by using the near and far focus buttons on the camera. Not every camera has them - they pull or push the focus away from, or towards you, and help you change focus if the auto-focus is not jumping to your subject.

Volucella pellucens

video of slo-mo hoverflies

The first 3secs of the video was shot in realtime, the rest in slo-mo. I prob should have shot more stuff in normal speed but we have all seen what hoverflies look like in a sunny spot going back and forth with each other. I quickly turned on slo-mo because it makes 2 seconds into (nearly) 10 and you rarely get a full 2 seconds of good stuff. Also it lets you see a bit more of what the flies are doing, possibly nearer their rate of perception.

It is quite hit and miss as the camera has a tendency to focus on the background objects. If struggling to find the hover, lie on your back and film it against the sky. I mostly shot video rather than stills as it was giving such interesting results. Later when I was discussing this with Colin R, I found out he has a page of hoverflies and flies some of which are flying. Turns out we are doing very similar photography journeys. He doesn't bother with video though.

Dutch garlic - Allium hollandicum

red admiral in rare friendly mode

gvw

large white and gvw

large white

orange tip

volucella pellucens having a breather

the unhelpful RA from the other side - looking dapper backlit!

I rounded off the day by going to the North side of the crypts to see if the admiral from the other day was there. There was an admiral, but I think a fresh one. It was quite playful and did circuits, landing on different warm stones. I held a hand out and it mostly ignored it, but once, just before I left, it landed on me. I had the long lens on by this point and so couldn't take photos of it on my hand. I just enjoyed the feeling of trust and maybe curiosity.

I also enjoyed the sunshine lighting the gravestones like art exhibits. And took photos of the stones sans butterfly as well as with. I think that was the occasion I saw a blue damselfly but lost sight of it before it landed. So no photos. They turn up in Warriston regularly. They must emerge from a nearby garden pond; I suspect the WoL is too fast flowing for them.

like art but better

special lighting

Myathropia florea - Batman hoverfly on warm gravestone

this is that rhododendron bush shaped to look like a tree
the lower buds flowered ahead of the upper tree flowers

a second admiral had the next avenue over and sat up in a tree
giving me a long hard stare

It also came down to nectar on daisies and perch on leaves among the shady cool grass before flying back up into the tree. It took a seat on my right wrist momentarily, I think it was checking out the camera and that I had the correct settings for its close ups.

obsidentify says Green Parasite Fly - Gymnocheta viridis

I was practically out the cemetery gate when I noticed this handsomely coloured fly, a metallic green tachinid. I had the long lens on and it seemed to be happy to have its photo taken. The top photo is the best I could do without putting on the macro. Maybe I was just looking for a reason to squeeze the last juice out of the day but I stopped and changed lenses for the macro. I fully expected it to fly off before I even stood up again. But it stayed for a couple more pics!

I should really have got the flash out as well but all that was too much hassle. There was lots of light about and it was nearly 5pm. I took a quick look round the rest of the nearby gravestones. They are underneath a row of coniferous trees and often you get ladybirds and interesting bugs on them.

As I was doing this I noticed a Painted Lady lounging on a gravestone. This was just about the time of the rumoured late May butterfly invasion but I hadn't seen many at that point and it was another highlight of the day. Not sure what made me switch back to the long lens but I managed to get some decent shots of it on the gravestone as well as when it flew up into the amazingly blossom-covered tree next door.

what a tremendous tree
(photo taken with a mobile phone)

painted lady video

Three clips of the painted lady in the video above. The wind was getting up and in the second clip a double pine needle, blown off the tree nearby, goes bouncing past the unmoving butterfly. It doesn't flinch. Did it calculate the flying pine needles would miss it or did it not see the missile coming perilously close towards it? (I suspect the latter as it was travelling 4.8 times faster than in the video.) There was quite a lot going on with all the grasses blowing about and the focus behaving badly but I quite liked the moment, so it made the cut. Same soundtrack for all three videos: Seven Sisters by Pianika. 

a terrific ending to a great day out
although it cost me nearly 15GB of hard drive for just under 1000 files

all those slo-mo hover clips adding up!