best part of the day: one for sorrow

08-10-26 The forecast was great so I caught a couple of buses across town to Cammo. This is quite a palaver so I waited for a really strong forecast. Unfortunately the weather did not remotely match the forecast and instead of sunshine it was overcast and the day was largely a waste of time and energy. A jay turned up and almost saved the day. Had it not, I would not have bothered to blog this outing which was mostly just recording one greedy magpie eating all the bait I was putting out for other birds.

I'm not sure I've ever visited Cammo in the Autumn. Winter is good for jays and nuthatches and Summer for butterflies but at the unsunny crossover there is a good chance of neither hungry birds, nor butterflies. That seemed to be the case today. When I arrived I went to the walled garden. I went via the curling pond but the daylight where I put out food for the birds was nonexistent. I left some bird food but there was only a robin mooching about and I wouldn't have been able to get photos faster than 1/250 of a second without pushing the ISO well above 10,000. Lack of sunlight and thick foliage still on the trees blocking the remainder being the problem.

On to the walled garden. Slightly better light at the borders of asters and rudbeckia. But no sunshine meant no butterflies. There were a few hoverflies about and I was tempted to change to the macro lens and shoot them, but again the light was poor and I don't have noise reduction software. It is one of the few situations that would have been more suitable for a full-frame camera, with a large sensor picking up the available light. It is rare I am prepared to admit FF kit does have its uses and benefits over Micro four thirds. Mostly I avoid days this dull for camera safaris for that very reason. But here I was duped by the innaccurate forecast and trying to make the best of it. I had a feeling the best part of the day today would be my homemade sandwich.

not as sharp as it could be

So rather than a bus home, I headed back to the curling pond, on the South side. Where I baited half a dozen horizontal tree boughs and waited without much hope for jays to appear. I could hear one or 2 with their raucous screech nearby about once an hour but saw nothing of them for about 90minutes.

Meanwhile what to do to pass the time? Usually, (in the Winter), there are loads of nuthatches to keep me entertained. Today I saw zero nuthatches. They maybe only start to appreciate human hand-outs when the living gets harsher. Also very few great tits, blue tits and even robins. No chaffinches and no coal tits. Disappointing for Cammo.

Looks like it has to be the magpie then. I watched it go round all the places I had carefully balanced seeds, nuts and bread. First it took all the peanuts. Then a lot of the bread. After the first few visits it was no longer eating the snacks just taking them off to somewhere I couldn't see and burying treasures under leaves. Not the best plan for bread. I had put out unshelled sunflower seeds (the dark green/black ones) because they are a nuthatch favourite. The magpie, (and there seemed only to be one,) left most of these out of the kindness of its heart, for the absent nuthatches.

The magpie worked methodically round all the bait I had put out, starting at the most distant from me and working inward until it eventually started hoovering up the stuff I put on the fallen trunks 4m away. It was reluctant to steal this food right under my nose, but eventually could not help itself and against better judgement crept down the (nearly horizontal) trunk, grabbed a load of booty (just bread and peanuts) and then flew off hastily. Having done a smash and grab without incurring my wrath once, it returned at a more leisurely pace, and started to get fussy about peanuts, inspecting them before adding them to the ones already onboard.

The ideal number of beaknuts was 6. It could load up 4 no problem but after that the beak had to be stabbed down onto the desired peanut to add it to the shopping list without the risk of losing those already in-beak. Same for number 6. (Hazelnuts being more spherical posed different problems and three was about the maximum portable at one visit.)

I remember visits to Cammo where over a dozen squirrels gathered to watch me photograph jays. Even though arboreal in nature they are more than happy to scamper around underneath the baited boughs where much of the swag ends up. Today maybe 2 or 3 squirrels. And there was so little traffic on the bait branches they'd just sit on one shelling sunflower seeds.

eventually the magpie came in for the nearest stash

magpie clips
soundtrack: Alone Together by Rizik

An hour 20 after I got off the bus a jay arrived for a look at the situation. I had long given up getting any photos today that weren't magpie or squirrel-based portraits so this was an unexpected treat. I heard one several times but they are very cautious birds and will spend a while examining the set-up with great suspicion before engaging with it. Sometimes they don't even take the food but just fly off again.

This one did quite a bit of watching before descending to examine what was on offer. Not very much. All the peanuts and most of the bread were gone. Well that's what happens when you arrive late to the party. Actually it could probably find the majority of the snacks if it looked under recently disturbed leaves. I was pleased to catch it squawking (at 24s in the video below) and suspect it is saying Where's mine?!

jay walking
soundtrack: It's Only Rain by Brian Stiroh

It didn't eat much and flew off a bit disgruntled. In order to lure it back I got the hazlenuts out. I had been reluctant to give the magpie Tesco's hazelnuts at £3.25 for 250g. But now a jay was at large locally it was time to get the big guns out. I put them around the same horizontal platforms. The magpie watched me doing this then swooped in and went round all the branches eating the lot. The jay never returned. I did not bother to reload the trees with a second round of hazelnuts.

only three in the gob possible at one time

I think word had been getting about that there was free food on the go in exchange for very light modelling work. There weren't that many takers today compared with midwinter when 5 or 6 species (and up to ten of each, except for robins) will turn up and literally fight over the same food, even sans the hazelnut spread. It's nutella!

blue tit - not bothered

magpie - today's most enthusiastic customer

great tits - keen on the piles of sunflower seeds

but much more nervous/reluctant than in the Winter

And that was about that. After 2hrs I was out of there. A bit bored by standing in poor light waiting for well fed birds to snuggle up for a photo. They were probably holding out for the second round of hazelnuts. And where were the nuthatches? All on holiday? Maybe there is a feeder nearby in someone's garden. I checked out the other feeder I know of at the top of the hill but it was empty. I wandered about a bit hoping for owls and woodpeckers but it was not a day for unrealistic optimism. Instead I took an exit out to the North and ducked between houses onto the River Almond trails. Bound to be dippers, kingfishers, goosanders, herons and buzzards.

ponies at Dowie's Mill Lane

The only thing along the Almond that really pleased me (not one dipper, not even a flippin' heron!) were the newly opened Salvesen Steps. They were closed maybe a year ago and I think work began in March to replace them. The new steps were opened in August. Since they are the only way along that section other than swinging through the trees or swimming the river, it was a total pain in the arse to go for a walk there, and find them closed. Sort of thing you only do once.

The best thing to be said about the new steps is that they are now open. Actually they are fairly impressive and while looking very similar to the previous temporary ones they have more substantial foundations and look like they will be robust enough to withstand earthquakes and floods.

They look from a distance like metal but are actually FRP (Fibre Reinforced Polymer) and are held together in part with rivets. If there is a photo series of "how we built this" I'd really like to see it as everything had to arrive at the site in fairly small parts as access is limited to a flat bed pick-up size vehicle I'd imagine.

Ha! Just found one on youTube by the firm who handled the work: Covanburn. Link HERE. Not a very sophisticated video and doesn't cover the whole job bit by bit as it came together, but hey, what do you expect from a company that misspelled Regeneration on their youTube banner. Anyway they're not a video company they are a company specialising in Civil Engineering, Restoration and Refeneration. (I did check to see if that's a kind of window restoration, but it's not.)(F is right beside G on qwerty.)

There is a halfway point platform and dogleg and there is also a channel for rolling a bike down (or pushing one up) for those who can't carry their e-bikes easily on a shoulder. I'm glad they haven't included flappy gates like the ones on the previous steps. Presumably to stop stunt men riding the whole flight on a bike or motorbike. Those gates were a total pain for negotiating with a bike on your shoulder. And now they've not got gates I'll be riding my bike down there regularly. 😄

best not look too closely

Anyway I had the long lens on which meant if I was within 80 yards of the steps I couldn't get teh whole lot in, so you'll have to visit it yourself. I couldn't be bothered changing to the street lens. After the disappointment of seeing no wildlife whatsoever on the river (apart from mallards) not having to go back to the last exit point but instead walking easily up and over and down to Cramond was a great pleasure. Thank you to everyone who put their council tax in the hat for Covanburn and for them to only take 6 months constructing this.

At the weir I tried to take photos and video knowing it would all be a bit dull and grey. It wasn't as good as a sunny day would have been, but it was okay and ultimately good enough to make a short video of offcuts and bits that didn't make it on their own merit. A nice little bit of mindfulness and nearly dreamy abstract. More than I could really have hoped for.