cafe culture vs pond life

Sunday 5th Aug.

I think I managed to sneak my agenda (Saltoun Big Wood pond) into Mary's Sunday bike plans without her noticing. We would hit the Lanterne Rouge in Gifford then return via Saltoun. It was a glorious day - one of the last of the now famous Summer of 2018. 

rising phoenix-like from the ashes

David was motoring

Just through the other side of Tranent and I called out to Mary that we'd have to stop. Immediately in front of the sign saying New Winton was a triangle of roadside grass sown with wildflowers and thistles, not in a regimented manner but that natural look popular with eco-planters and councils aiming to attract wildlife to an otherwise uncared for patch of scrub that previously might have been a neatly trimmed characterless roadside verge. Whoever encouraged this burst-seed-bag-of-mixed-wildflowers deserves a medal. Not only was it a visual treat - a huge splash of vibrant colours - but it had attracted 5 sq miles of butterflies and crammed them into this pocketsized nature reserve. 

We propped our bikes up and spent 15mins admiring and taking photos of the flocks of whites, peacocks, and RAs. I was in danger of tipping over into an ecstatic fit. It was nearly too much. The difficulty of taking pics kept me grounded though. There was a good breeze making the flowerheads (and therefore butterflies) bend, sway and dance in the sunlight, making for more photo-deletes than usual.

The most popular plants with the butterflies were the thistle flower heads. However the other brightly coloured flowers seemed to act as a beacon for them, and the whole place was unbelievably populated with insects. I tiptoed through the flowers, having real problems on what to shoot. It was difficult to get pics that conveyed the whole mass butterfly-ness of the place and it felt more like an art installation than a canny piece of wildlife management. Top marks New Winton. One of the best butterfly highlights of the year.

Peacock

Whites were the dominant species. There had to be hundreds. Mainly Small and Green-veined but a good few Large as well. Handfuls of Peacocks, and then individual Red Admirals.

Large white

Having done the cycle to Gifford a few times recently it seemed shorter and easier to cover the 21 miles there. We cycled past the turn-off to Saltoun Big Wood but I knew we had to do the cafe first, having found it closed after spending too long in the woods on a previous trip. We usually bump into folk we know, such is the popularity of the Lanterne Rouge. Today it was Billy, out for a big cycle with his mates. A great day for it right enough.

We had coffees (incl. free top ups!) and a piece of cake. I very much enjoy the established tradition of a cafe break halfway through a bike ride. Restores the body and soul and inevitably we get chatting to folk. As well as Billy and pals, we got talking to an older couple who sat at our table who had driven to Gifford, but were hoping their cycling days weren't entirely behind them. Then back on the bikes and off to Saltoun in search of dragonflies! YES!

Mary outside, 

but also me reflected in the window and Billy inside!

This leaf was a funny colour so the pic looks better in sepia.
(Common darter or the like.)

With Mary on her new bike we could ride most of the trails round Big Wood. However we never got further than the (man-made) pond a couple of hundred yards into the woods. Although it looked lacking in life when we first arrived a couple of minutes in and you realised there was a proliferation of winged things buzzing about. 

Particularly male Southern Hawkers, large dragonflies that patrolled (never landed by) the edges of the water. Presumably searching out females which they would grab (get your coat you've pulled) and then fly up into the nearby trees with. It was a no-frills operation. There seemed to be a lack of females around the place, although with manners and foreplay like that, it was perhaps unsurprising. I did see one or 2 lurking in the shallows very quickly laying eggs in wet vegetation at the water's edge, but they didn't hang around. I got a hurried photo or 2 but they didn't make the best photos of the day. 

Mary spent a long time trying to shoot the males in flight with generally better results than myself. I gave up after many second rate pics. They would buzz really close by but not allow the camera time to get a close up, so I only got a few crappy distant shots that don't really tell the story. Mary persisted and nearly hurt her back, straining in the frustration of trying to catch these elusive bastards. There was one along every 20~30 seconds and they flew by really closely but just did not hang about or land. 

Southern Hawker (with damselfly next door for scale!)
the nearest I got to a photo

    

emerald damselfly - much better behaviour!

Round the back of the pond, nearer the trail, I found Small Coppers on the ragwort. And they were happy to pose for photos. Or maybe just by comparison to those pesky dragonflies they seemed so very much more cooperative. Anyway they were a blessed relief and as always a total joy to come across. I took far too many pics. As usual.

Mary stubbornly trying to shoot hawkers.

suunto output of pondside wandering
(just over a mile of back-and-forth over 2 hrs!)
(and on this occasion I didn't actually get my feet wet, as the map would suggest)

I had a bit of a hike away from the pond but in the general vicinity. Often you can find more stuff just a bit back from the centre of activity, taking a breather or time out from the action. This was the case and I came across 3 other types of dragonfly, a couple of butterflies and a few interesting odds and ends.

common darter (female)

who laid these? 

maybe her?

pyjama party

female S Hawker laying eggs?

I have seen a load of these on my travels of late. There is only one black dragonfly on my laminated chart which leads me to believe this is a Black Darter (male - the female is not black and I haven't seen one!) They also have patches of olive colour although this one seems to be mostly black. For me they walk the fine line just on the right side of elegant beauty, but are right next door to ugly black fly, until you get close up.

After an hour or more of fighting hawkers Mary had had her fill. I was still high on that refill and buzzing away about small coppers and stuff stuck to the undersides of oak leaves. I asked Mary if she knew the way home herself and she did. On reflection I am thoroughly ashamed of my ungentlemanly behaviour. During the next 45mins extra time I felt a bit guilty and hoped Mary wasn't having a mechanical at the side of the road somewhere. And that a proper friend would have called it a day and been perfectly happy to leave, even if he felt he hadn't found all the available luckies and got pics of them all. Sigh. 

On the upside I got 4 of the best pics of the day in that 45mins which kind of offset the guilt. And Mary got home fine on her own.  I also realised my actions were that of an addict, saying just one more hit. My name is Peter. I have an addiction.

minitoad, deep joy

world of wings

My friend Anna runs photography instructional courses. Helping folk get more out of their cameras. "Get off Auto", that sort of thing. Although I am a big fan of Auto, I am very keen on wildlife trips, so when Anna said there was space on her birds of prey outing, I jumped at the chance.

Eagle Owl

The venue was World of Wings just outside Cumbernauld. Scotland's largest bird of prey centre, which has an extensive collection of amazing creatures. We would be able to take photos of some of them, both tethered and flying, in natural surroundings. We were 5 in number; Anna, three of her students and myself. The 3 other women had taken a couple of Get Off Auto classes with Anna already and had "proper" cameras. Although I took along my G3 (a csc or mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses) I didn't use it. I haven't used it since I got the TZ100 which is a compact camera. The TZ100 covers all of the ground of the G3 and more. I use a compact as I wouldn't easily be able to run with a larger model. And in decent weather it gives very good results that aren't substantially poorer in quality than those out of full size cameras. Occasionally I get an urge to upgrade to a walking only model when I see the results from friends who have them and know how to use them, but I also see a lot of photos from large cameras that are not particularly special.

First thing we had a quick talk from Anna on what we should be focussed on when taking pics, and a reminder of the controls we should be using on our cameras and making sure we knew where to find them. Although mine is a compact it has the same manual options as a DSLR or mirrorless. I have to say I wasn't very quick or competent about finding the likes of exposure compensation and focus modes. (Anna was VERY helpful and filled the gaps in my knowledge/skill, even though she doesn't often instruct folk with compacts.) It was a useful reminder and I really should spend more time flipping through these options because in my experience wildlife is rarely as forgiving as it was on this occasion, sitting on a stump of wood until you choose between single area focus or tracking. 

Red-tailed buzzard

Lanner Falcon

After the chat we went out to a field where 5 birds were tethered to stumps. We were free to wander about and take photos as we liked. The birds were really magnificent and kind of imposing. I would quietly feel obliged to say good morning and well, not quite introduce myself, but it was definitely a case of meeting another sentient being, and would have felt rude not to at least break the ice before putting your camera in the face of these individuals. 

American Kestrel

I mostly took headshots and close ups as the claws with the jesses and anklets spoke too loudly of confinement and gave the game away. Not that I was thinking I could fool anyone into believing I had snuck up on these exotic creatures (with far FAR more acute senses than mine) and got a quick photo in the wild. Ha! Likely! One of the reasons I take photos of butterflies is because, with patience, you can frequently get close to them. Birds in the wild are just too much like hard work to get anything other than a distant outline in the sky, heading south.

I only noticed afterwards this one had some breakfast on his beak. And there is no way I'd have tried to remove it - like trying to remove fluff from the moving blade of a bandsaw.

The American Kestrel is smaller than the UK one.

Back to the Eagle Owl who was an imposing figure - like a large sullen teddy bear with a stanley knife in his pocket, probably the most indifferent (towards us) of the static birds. Looked like he had seen plenty of cameras in his time. I say "he" but I can't remember which birds were which gender, and had to struggle to recall what species was what. Several were from out-of-town which didn't help.  

Red-tailed buzzard

Lanner Falcon

Barn Owl - easier to remember

Stewart (or Stuart) above was our man for the day. He was exceptionally well informed on all aspects of birds and falconry and happy to answer all questions, intelligent or otherwise. He also had a broad base of knowledge about all things eco and bird-related and a more thoughtful and considered opinion about, for instance, grouse farming etc and knock-on effects for the likes of hen harriers than perhaps some who fight their corner with a disregard of the larger picture. I was suitably impressed and it reflected well on the institution that he worked there. (Suggesting it wasn't just a bird circus pimping exotic creatures for tourism dollars.) All the captives looked in burgeoning health. (Though what do I know!)

the weather was overcast and a bit windy to start (note feathers round face)
but brightened as the day went on.

The Barn Owl (I forget it's name - should have been Barnie obvs.) was the first flyer of the day. You can see the quality of the pics nosedives as I struggled to get decent shots, even though the bird flew back and forth loads of times while I scrabbled about trying to change settings; before eventually sneaking back to Auto while Anna wasn't looking. These flying pics are cropped from larger mostly sky pics! The trouble was I would zoom in to get a decent image of the bird at rest on a log or stump, then it would fly from one place to another while I struggled to zoom back out and get more than just a claw or wingtip going past in a blur. The static birds were very similar to my usual butterfly type pics and so pretty straightforward. Flying things though, much tougher!

We had lunch at some point around now. There was a cafe on site but I can't say it was one of the highlights of the place, aiming for fairly cheap and cheerful rather than high end. There is a menu on the website. Family type snacks and meals. I am tempted to say it reflects a proximity to Glasgow, by which I mean white bread and Irn Bru. However the most exciting thing wasn't the menu but Anna getting out a laptop and asking us to hand over our sd cards so we could have a look and see who had taken the worst photos. It could have been a bit trepidatious but for the amount of fun we were having. I think there might have been surprise that my compact had produced results that weren't similarly tiny and cheap. Luckily, and with something that could have been mistaken for foresight, I had deleted the runts of the litter.

Harris Hawk

The Harris Hawk presented a larger area to capture but moved slightly faster. I see out of the dozens of photos taken, only 3 made the cut-off. 

Next up a Bateleur Eagle. This is a spectacular sub-Saharan eagle whose prey includes venomous snakes, so a short tail that doesn't go near the ground is handy. Even if it looks a bit weird and makes flying harder.

coming in to land

Anna gets a close up with a wide angle lens

that's not a bird, it's a peacock!
quick butterfly intermission while the star of the show is brought out

poop comes out that end
No! Stewart is pointing out the new flight feathers on this juvenile peregrine.

after his hood is removed he perks up, has a shakeout then takes off

We were warned this would be our trickiest subject of the day. Difficult to measure his exact mph but it was superfast! Lots more wingbeats per second on those long narrow wings than I would have thought as the bird did large figure 8s round the central point where Stewart zipped a meat and leather lure in tight circles. I was pleased to see I actually released the shutter at the right point on a few occasions, although the video I shot probably does a better job of showing the speed the bird flew past cruising up into a stall turn before descending on the lure again. What a sight!

The thing that surprised me wasn't that the bird could synchronise wings and claws and catch the lure at those speeds but that when it was over and the bird came back for its reward it was panting like a 100meter sprinter. (I will hopefully put the video up soon.)

I got the feeling this was a favourite with Stewart.

hat back on - lights out!

I didn't ask the question that we might all have been considering. Do the birds ever just fly off and not come back? I noticed they wear radio transmitters when flown, although that only tells you where they are and doesn't bring them home. As we returned to the centre we saw a bird in a tree which had absconded from the arena when it got spooked. A Snowy Owl possibly. Once calmed it was coaxed out the tree, presumably with tasty snacks and a bit of coo-ing. Meanwhile we had a look round the other inmates. Not just birds of prey, but an interesting crew of decorative and unexpected sorts including an odd looking crane, parrots, a laughing kookaburra and some wildfowl.

not playing!

I think this might be a buzzard.

This Little Owl was supremely cute but a little bit shy.

Huge thanks to Anna for driving us there, teaching me how to use my camera, and driving us back again. An excellent day out at a great venue. Highly recommend the place, although we were on a specific photography trip that was pre-arranged, so got special treatment. If you want to learn how to get the best out of your camera I'd highly recommend you get in touch with Anna and sign up for her excellent classes. She is an award winning wildlife photographer and really knows her way round your camera. The group I was with were easy going and good company and it was a really fun day out. And the birds were spectacular.