east lothian lovelies

 

30-09-26 This was clearly an early birthday (third October) present from wildlife jesus. It didn't start out particularly impressively but things built nicely and by Aberlady the treats were arriving thick and fast. I can't remember the last time I've had such an unexpected number of animals and birds cross my path. Especially this late in the year. I think everything was out celebrating the last of the sunshine before cold damp Winter squats on the face of Scotland.

Since the forecast was better in the afternoon I bumped the 10am train to a midday start. As I ran down from Longniddry station to the coastal trails, the sun was breaking through nicely and there was a clear view back to Edinburgh. I was wearing a t-shirt with a jumper in my backpack which I didn't put on till I got to the bus stop at Gullane at 5pm.  

just hovers where there were painted ladies last time

small white on the beach

Green Craig

As usual I called in to Waterston House just before Aberlady. The Scottish Ornithologists Club always have a superb display of flowers to attract pollinators so it was a little disappointing to find only one small tort when I arrived. The weather was fairly bright and I had hoped for more. However a small tortoiseshell is a very fine thing especially as it was sitting handsomely on these asters. It was also the only one of the day so I was more pleased with it retrospectively than at the time.

While I was watching it, a small copper arrived too, which was amazing. It went quickly round all the blooms then headed off, in a hurry to get its life's-work complete asap given the weather was likely to nose-dive anytime soon. 

the most exotic butterfly of the day
and almost certainly the last one of the year

a small white passing through the SOC garden

I made the most of the tortoiseshell

speckled wood

there's always a wee gang of them between the SOC and Aberlady
and they rarely if ever accommodate a decent photo

small white at the memorial garden, Aberlady

dashboard dancers

soundtrack: Alika by Genoa Keawe

There is this campervan always parked near Aberlady churchyard and every time I pass by I enjoy the solar powered dashboard ornaments that dance in the sunshine. I also noticed the characters on the other side of the dash. I felt it was time to immortalise them (again) in video.

I bought a sandwich and a fizzy water and 2 Portuguese Custard Tarts in Margiottas, I couldn't help myself. I think the cooler weather recently has triggered my sub-conscious and told my brain we need to stock pile for a long cold hibernation. It is deadly and all my clothes feel like they are shrinking. My only hope is the lack of butterflies during the Winter months will leave plenty time for running. There is talk of a few weeks in Tenerife the other side of the c-word. Which leaves time to get beach-body ready, if only I could remember how to enjoy running! 

Richard had flagged up something like 30 red admirals and a handful of commas along Postman's Walk the day before. I had seen a few last time through (four days previous) but not thirty and I wondered if more had appeared. There was a stiff breeze today that kept all but the hardiest butterflies indoors and initially I thought I'd be hard put to find 10 admirals or any commas. 

I waited where I'd seen a couple of commas on the ivy hedge but there was little joy. There were a couple of admirals but not the dozens I was hoping for. There were more along the narrow leafy corridor that runs between the fields taking shelter from the wind. I walked the length of the field in case there were pockets of butterflies elsewhere. There was a group of about 8 admirals in the ivy corridor path but I still couldn't find any commas so returned towards the large white house near the start of Postman's. Not really any joy although I caught a glimpse of a comma retreating up a tree. I waited for it to return but never got any photos.

lots of seasonal berries

two
a gang of between five and ten admirals on the far side of the path

three

four

buzzard

I spent a while at admiral HQ trying to get as many as possible in the same frame. Eventually I gave up and walked back to the first clump of ivy. While there, a dog-walker got chatting and asked what sort of butterflies I was looking for. We chatted and she pointed over to the far corner (think first brood holly blues) saying there were lots flying on that ivied wall but she didn't know what sort. I thanked her for the tip and walked along the North Perimeter for the third time. She was absolutely spot on and there were maybe another ten admirals and possibly 4 or 5 commas. Best tip of the day.

Back past admiral HQ and couldn't resist another few pics!

I remember getting up to about 21 admirals on the north perimeter. (I send the numbers on to the area recorder Nick so have to keep a mental note.) Then there were maybe another dozen on the East perimeter wall after the corner. However I got distracted by commas and pretty much dropped the admirals like hot potatoes to favour the commas which had been largely absent till then. 

large white (probably)

I am pretty sure this (above) was a fly-by large white. I tried to get a photo to confirm but some idiot was moving the camera too much (at not fast enough shutter speed) and this is as good as I got. But I'm fairly sure it was considerably bigger than the rest of the whites I saw today. Last one of the year possibly.

best butterfly wall

There were several commas and I tried to identify them individually so I could count how many there were in total. This was tricky for obvious reasons; they all looked similar and they swapped places flying about the wall. There was one really good condition light coloured one, a dark and a quite tatty one and one in between. The good the bad and the ugly. But then I saw one, maybe two others, that might have been different from the first three. I took photos hoping that would separate them later but I never got round to checking them all. Let's say four in total plus the one from along the way I didn't get a photo of.

I put this sequence of photos to show that commas and wasps can
get along together sharing the same stem

even a gentle slap didn't dislodge the wasp

I think these commas are just the good one (above)  and the dark tatty one
(2 above), the rest were maybe not such decent photos

butterflies of Postman's Walk
plus the small tort and small copper from Waterston House
soundtrack: 180º by Eric Kinny

comma sandwich with 2 red admirals
I was willing them all to open their wings at the same time!

Feeling I had at last got enough comma pics I felt I should get underway as I wanted to get into Aberlady reserve and photo birds there. First though there was the wildflower meadow next door between Bickerton's Walk and the watertower. The farmer had planted this small field with loads of wildflowers and they were attracting mainly white butterflies. I may well have seen distant large whites but the only pics I got were small whites and a painted lady. There were also speckled woods nearer the trees.

small white

trying to catch whites in flight

the only painted lady of the day I was able to photograph

geese
probably pink-footed

I wondered about how people (online) were so confident about geese being pink-footed vs greylag which always look so similar in my mind. I'd never be able to tell them apart from a silhouette in flight. Then I realised it is just as hard for someone to refute your guess, so just say it confidently. The pink-foots likely outnumber the greylags by loads so statistically it will be them. (I can tell them apart on the ground if I can see their beaks.)

Glebionis coronaria, crown daisy, edible crysanthemum

how quickly can the farmer plough an acre?
(call-back to last blog)

syrphus hoverfly

as above

After a while in the wildflower meadow I cut across the field to Aberlady and across the bridge to the reserve. Not sure where the geese go during the day (possibly feeding in local stubble fields) but there weren't many about. I believe first thing and end of day are the best times to see them.

greylags snoozing with curlew, lapwing and shelduck

lapwing

lapwing

starling

looking from the savannah towards Edinburgh

So I was jogging and walking along the reserve listening for stonechats and other birds, hoping to see a short eared owl quartering the fields, when I stopped abruptly. Three young roe deer were 7m ahead of me eating the leaves from low bushes and not particularly bothered by my proximity. I couldn't believe my good fortune. They saw me, but where I had stopped my lower half was covered by a bush and maybe they didn't recognise me as any kind of threat. I had been running for a few miles by then so probably smelled more like another deer than a human. Certainly of the countryside, and not in a particularly good way. 

I instantly set about taking photos and the first thing I noticed as they continued to come towards me, was that I had to pull the zoom in from 400mm as I couldn't get them in the frame without cropping legs! They saw me and you can see them sniffing the air to work out whether I was bad news. "Nope, he smells like one of us," seemed to be the conclusion and they continued about the business of stripping leaves. I took photos and shot real time video and then zoomed in for some slo-mo before they moved on. They ran a little but just because they were young and full of beans. Normally a deer family sees you at 50m and takes off in the opposite direction These had been about 5m away and nonchalantly scampered off, but not because of my being there.

It was the closest I'd been to wild deer, ever. I was glad it was nearly perfect light - and the footage was pretty good. I got that close to some near the North Esk a few years ago but there was a lot of shrub and tree between the animals and myself (they couldn't really see me) but the photos weren't great. I'm absolutely sure if the parents had been with these three youngsters they would all have scarpered at a gallop. Maybe they have just got used to golfers ignoring them and thought humans were harmless, badly dressed idiots. 

young buck with new horns pushing up
I presume the other two were female as they didn't have those bumps

roe, roe, roe (you're deer)
soundtrack: Life's Longing for Itself by Benjamin Gustafsson

I was mightily chuffed about the deer encounter: it was the highlight of the day, but as I continued towards the beach going West I bumped into a curlew and then a wheatear, both closer than I would normally anticipate. Not quite SE Owl impressive, but nice distractions.

just before the beach, a curlew

evening bunnies

I couldn't tell what this bird was from a distance
so I approached it slowly and indirectly

it turned out to be a wheatear
and it wasn't that bothered by my indirect approach

it never flew off any kind of great distance
so I'd slowly change course and walk parallel to it

wheatear video
soundtrack: That We May Not Meet Again by Sean Angus Watson

the stiff wind whipping the tops off waves

do you remember the coconut and the crow? (2 blogs ago)
well it (the ball) has been repurposed on a stick beside this sign,

still looks like a coconut

Those signs, and there are several. I've never seen any sand around Aberlday and Gullane any sinkier than one's shoe going in maybe an inch or 2. Isn't that what beaches do? And that's over 25 years of running all over this area and all beaches. I don't like to make too much fun of it in case it is a random thing that can happen if conditions are just right (wrong) and one day I go plop up to my waist. But so far, nothing more than slightly soft sand when it is wet. Usually signs like that turn up after an accident.

I asked google A.I. and it said there is a lot of traffic out to the midget submarines at low tides and there was an incident where a young girl and her father became trapped in quicksand-like sand up to their knees, prompting the signs. They must have been fairly unlucky. Mary and I have covered many miles over the exposed sand visiting the mini-subs and doing run training laps and intervals there and never had sand over our shoe tops. But never say never and go cautiously.

My next wildlife joy was four or more sanderlings not far from where I popped out onto the beach. Almost under my feet, and so small I nearly didn't notice them. They were doing their usual thing which is running from East to West along the tide line. They were split up into two pairs and I positioned myself a little inland of the waves, West of the second pair. They of course saw me - there is no camouflaging yourself and your arrival on their turf. And since I didn't chase them, they mostly ignored me while I took photos of them. I had left just enough room for them to run along the edge of the water in front of where I was. If I stood too close they would just fly past and the game would be over. So I gave them room to run. We have all played this game before and know how it goes.

They eventually wanted past and (after a bit of reconsidering) did that sprint along in front of me. I knew I had to get it all in one take, which was extremely challenging to keep them in the frame. Remember what I see and respond to is 4.8 times faster than the slo-mo video posted below. They are lightening fast wee sprinters and I seem to have judged the distance perfectly as one takes off momentarily but then resumes running which is fantastic to see while the other one keeps running.

Both of them looking back over their shoulders while dashing along the tide line. It is one of my most successful videos and although it flirts with going out of focus at times the variable autofocus mostly keeps them sharp even though their distance from the camera is continually shifting. They are delightful birds and it was one of the highlights of a great day out. 

sanderlings video
sountrack: aptly titled To Be Happy by Joey Pecoraro

The only downside of the video was it going over the 100MB size (106MB) which meant I had to link it from youTube rather than post it directly here. Both it and the deer video quickly climbed to well over 200 views on facebook reels a couple of hours after posting. Nothing compared to funny cat videos, A.I. slop or cosmetic applications by repellent influencers, but a steadily climbing audience.

love this atmospheric photo of Aberlady beach

Sea Buckthorn

And that was pretty much that. One of he best days of the year for photos and encounters! 5 videos and over a hundred photos. (Chosen from 1,462 files totalling 18+ GB) (no RAW just jpeg).

Hazel the Ice-cream wasn't parked at Gullane. I suppose a blowy Wednesday afternoon isn't going to sell many cones. She watches the weather forecast like I do as both our fortunes depend on sunshine and warmer temps. It has been a mixed Summer with occasional brilliant days between overcast weeks.

I hear many butterfly folk down South saying it was an amazing Summer. Although their heatwaves produced fires and droughts as well as butterflies. Lots of migrants coming across from the continent. Clouded yellows establishing themselves as the next native species if they can over-Winter here (which current thinking says they can't.) (Although they said that of red admirals for the longest time.) 

It was a mixed Summer here; some species doing good business while others thin on the ground. There are always fluctuations though most come and go rather than do what the small torts seem to be doing, which is taking a noticeable nose dive the further South you go. And then there are the bandits reintroducing extinct species or just non-native species from abroad. There seemed to be a sudden appearance of large tortoiseshells that looked at least partly man-made rather than just blowing in from abroad. I have no strong feelings about this either way though we should perhaps put the effort into looking after what is already here before importing species unsuitable for the environment we have.

The general trend for all species seems to be a (depressing) downward spiral. With a few bucking the trend and a few spreading North as the climate warms. I really enjoy this as Scotland gets warmer and sunnier. We have some way to go before I'll start worrying about climate change. If you look at considerably warmer places throughout Europe (and all round the world) they all have far more species of everything compared to (for instance) in the Arctic circle. Sunshine and warmth = life. By the time I die Scotland may have reached a pleasant climate. Meanwhile there are always butterfly holidays abroad. The Greece butterfly holiday this year was beyond amazing and if money was no object it would be how I spend the rest of my life. Going round the world to warm places photographing wildlife.

Autumn crocus

a final admiral on ivy, opposite St Adrian's churchyard, Gullane

The bus ride was hellish. I had obviously used up all my luck and karma on the day's encounters. The wait at Gullane was nearly 40mins and then the bus filled up with noxious loud youngsters (entitled students?) around Musselburgh (from the racecourse?) who were so loud I couldn't hear my audiobook on earbuds properly. Then we all had to change bus again. (Limmy, Yoker, again.) Then it crawled into town in a series of nose-to-tail jams that moved at 5mph.

However that couldn't detract from an excellent day out and it was a fair trade off. Given how the forecast has changed from balmy Autumn to hat-and-gloves weather recently, possibly the last decent day of butterflies for the year. (Although Ken has counted seven species for October so far. But the best is behind us.) Time to channel my energies into running and a bit of fitness.

9.4 miles in 5hrs

brilliant day out!