When the sun comes out

Stunning sunshine for much of this morning's walk round Musselburgh. At this time of year, it's not just a great walk for birdwatching, but also wonderful for flowers and insects. As I'm sure to have blogged already in the last couple of weeks, the flowers between the paths along the John Muir Walkway are the best I've ever seen them

and the clovers and tall melilot are wonderfully honey scented

Lots of bees here, though non wanted to be photographed. Unlike this beautiful burnet moth

lovely to watch as it circled round the clover, tilting to show the beautiful red of its underwings.

I was delighted to this week be able to photograph the speckled wood butterfly, which according to my book isn't supposed to be in this area yet, but fairly obviously is in this area (unless I've got my identification wrong, in which case please let me know!)

and the rocks by the side of the walkway were covered in hundreds of red mites - more than I've seen since my childhood (not a brilliant photo but you get the idea!)

And of course there were plenty of birds, including this male eider in eclipse (moult) plumage

and these mute swans floating off towards the weir, where I'd seen one swan just glide over gracefully a couple of minutes earlier.