Win some, lose some...

The siskins have continued to visit the garden.  I thought it was just a pair and so was quite surprised this week to see four of them on a feeder.  One couple however fled before my attempt to record the moment.

Also visiting, apart from a few two- and seven-spot ladybirds, have been a number of buff-tailed bumblebee queens prospecting the garden for possible nesting sights.  They were really tricky to photograph as they were either on the move or ferreting around in the undergrowth.  I thought I was about to nail it when one of them disappeared down a crevice in the decking.  I must have waited three or four minutes for it to come back into shot, which it never did.  So either it escaped by another route without me noticing or hearing, or I can expect a bumblebee nest in my decking...

In the end I had to make do with a brief video of one visitor:

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen

Also heard but not seen in the garden and nearby have been a few chiffchaff.

Yesterday I was out for a walk at Geltsdale with V&A together with recent arrival E, who managed to sleep through the proceedings uninterrupted.

I soon saw a curlew on approaching the car park and found a couple of stonechat on arrival.  Eventually we headed South nominally hoping to happen upon a whinchat but without much conviction.  Instead we came across numerous chaffinches and a reed bunting pair.

Stonechat

Reed Bunting

Further sightings overhead were a couple of kestrel mobbing a buzzard and a possible pink-footed goose.

The weather was quite warm so there were also a couple of butterfly sightings - both peacocks.

Having covered the likely whinchat area, we set off back via the former quarry where short-eared owls have been turning up.  We were probably an hour or two too early to be successful.  Instead there were several lapwing and on the way a very distant roe deer

Lapwing

Roe Deer

The lapwing seemed to be on the verge of proving a display flight but never quite went through with it. 

I always think the rockier sides of the quarry area look good for peregrine falcon, who would be due to nest about now, but none were seen.

On the way back we did however meet up with a decent flock of fieldfare.  They saw us and kept on the move.  Distracted by another bumblebee queen, I missed the best chance of a photo. They can't be with us for much longer this year.

Yesterday I had planned to head West to Parkhead on the bike, but the cycle path was closed and I didn't fancy the proposed hilly detour.  Instead I took a more casual trundle along the banks of the Derwent, which did produce a couple of active goosander. 

Goosander

Returning by the Tyne was less productive apart from a couple of cormorants and a brief check at the hide at Clara Vale produced nothing of note at all.

"Win some, lose some..."

Mixed Pickings 2

Last Sunday I was out on a walk in the Durisdeer Hills with V&A.

In reasonable weather there were quite a few butterflies around, the predominant species being the green-veined white.

Green-veined White

Even more predominant were large numbers of red kite, which have clearly spread from Loch Ken and a fair few buzzards.

We were really hoping to see a pair of hen harriers that appeared to have mated in the area and merlin, which are known to be present here too.  In fact we saw neither and speculated that the large number of other birds of prey may have discouraged the harriers.

There were however numerous other birds to see, notably meadow pipits as one would expect, wheatear and a few red-legged partridge - hardly surprising as they are bred widely as a gamebird. 

Wheatear

Red-legged Partridge

The wheatear looks to me like a young female. I also noticed that the pipit appears to have some sort of head or eye stripe, so that I briefly wondered about tree pipit but discounted the possibility.

Meadow Pipit

About two thirds of the way along the trail there was some cotton grass and a large expanse of bilberry and I started to wonder what else might be seen here.  However, the bilberry was only just coming into flower.

On the way back through this area, there was a chance sighting of a small heath butterfly, which pleased me considerably.  There was also a single bird's egg on the path - probably that of a dove or pigeon - which we decided to leave alone.

Small Heath

Towards the end a couple of moths appeared.  One I couldn't identify but the other appears to be a brown silverline.

Brown Silverline

A couple of days ago on the way to the doctor's, I did a reccy of Chopwell East Field, a recently declared reserve to see if it is suitable for a Naturewatch Walk.  

It actually proved quite promising.  Quite a lot of flora is springing up.  At one point there are signs of bird's foot trefoil establishing itself, though I suspect it may get overwhelmed by surrounding grasses.  A shetland pony staring at me from a neighbouring horses' field possibly was showing some interest in addressing this issue.

In an area described as wetland, which was actually pretty dry, I was lucky enough to come across one or two small copper butterflies.  Turning to retrace my steps a pair of linnets started singing from nearby trees and bushes.  It looks like they are both male.

Small Copper

Linnets

Meanwhile back in the garden, I've twice been visited by a pair of bullfinches, anxious to hoover up some seeds from the now over-abundant forget-me-nots.

Mr Bullfinch

Mrs Bullfinch

A bit rude of Mr Bullfinch to have his back turned on us.

There's no more news on the mystery black bee, but I did manage to capture this early bumblebee worker.

Early Bumblebee

No more signs of red mason or nomad bees, perhaps down to poorish weather.

On the "Is it a fly or is it a bee" debate, I think I may have missed out when I found a very small item wondering along the kitchen windowsill while cooking.  I didn't take it too seriously thinking it was probably a fly and only got a couple of poor images.

A pity as I think now that it may have been a wee furrow bee and it hung around for ages!

Exciting Springtime Sightings

 Starting with a bit of bad news, I found this dead great tit in the garden last week.  

Great Tit

I sort of assumed that it had crashed into the summerhouse, but on inspection it seemed to have a wound on its upper breast so maybe got nobbled by something.

Yesterday, I went on the first big trip of the year with son and fiancee to Leighton Moss, which provided a sufficient parade of sightings to justify even the £9 entry fee for non-RSPB members.

We saw a good number of marsh harriers flying at considerable height, which surprised me a bit.  On previous occasions in the Netherlands and at Leighton Moss before, I'd been used to seeing them flying low looking for prey.  Often they were in groups of two or more so I supposed that it was some sort of pre-mating routine, disturbed by occasional buzzards.  Anyway, I was delighted to get a photo of one in flight with my pocket camera, even though it wasn't brilliant.

Although we didn't manage to see one, we did hear numerous bitterns booming, which was a first time for me.  I must say 'booming' is a bit of a misnomer.  As one of the signs pointed out, it sounds much more like someone blowing over the top of an old-fashioned glass milk bottle.

Also not seen was the bearded tit.  We hadn't really expected them to show at this time of year although apparently they are still around.

One bird that is present is the ring-necked duck and I thought I might have seen one at distance from the tower.  In fact it proved to be just another tufted duck.

Shortly afterwards, heading for lunch I spotted some small red fungi next to the path.  I think they are called scarlet elf cups.

At the last hide we visited there was a view over several bits of land sticking out into the water, surrounded by various ducks.  A group of twitchers reckoned there was a water pipit working its way along one of them.  Unfortunately, try as we might, we couldn't confirm or deny it as a sighting as the photos we took of the wee bird were all too blurry.  Apparently it had been identified earlier by someone using a powerful telescope, so presumably correctly.

Overall, there were just too many photos to post individually, so I've amalgamated them together in  brief video.  Unfortunately there is no background music as that now costs extra from Microsoft!

Onshore and Inland

Having survived a cold snap over the past week, I decided on a trip to the coast on Thursday after dropping my ebike off for a service.  I'd thought about concentrating on birdwatching but decided to meet a friend instead, and actually saw a couple of things anyway.

Walking into Cullercoats there was a stonechat on the promenade railing and a woman drew my attention to a kestrel hovering for long periods over the foreshore.

Kestrel

I've never had the chance to capture a hovering kestrel with my wee camera before so it was a pleasing result.

Having collected my bike again, I saw what I initially thought was a woodpecker of some kind crossing my path at the top of the Byker Link track, where there is a bit of a flytipper's paradise.  It had a stripey appearance that put me in mind of illustrations I had seen of a three-toed woodpecker.  Knowing it couldn't really be that I stopped and approached with camera in hand.  The bird took fright at my high vis jacket and made itself scarce but I saw it long enough to note that it was a leucistic blackbird.

The day after I was on a Naturewatch walk to Letah Wood near Hexham.  The main idea was to see the wild daffodils that grow there, which should have been showing well.  However the cold weather over the previous few days has held them back and it was hard to find a decent batch.

Wild Daffodils

There were plenty of birds singing but high up in the canopy and I only actually saw a robin and some woodpigeons.  

However, there was a very healthy tree fungus, probably a shelf fungus and a healthy colony of wood ants.

Shelf Fungus

Wood Ants

The day after I was out again after visiting my son's new house in Crawford when we went along a nice track near Leadhills.  Before we got soaked in a sudden downpour we had managed to see all of curlew, lapwing, buzzard, red kite, meadow pipit, pied wagtail, and raven.

However most sightings were at distance above the horizon.  At one point a lapwing was mobbing a buzzard.  It must be because nesting time is near.

Today I briefly saw the first bumble bee of the year in the garden and at the tennis courts there were several honey bees struggling across the surface. They must have come out too early.

Variety is the Spice...

By chance I managed two trips out in two days.

Last Sunday I was at Geltsdale with my son and his fiancee.  Unfortunately there was only a light breeze but we did manage to see a few birds of prey, notably several kestrel, one of which I thought might have been a sparrow hawk and a single buzzard as well as canada geese, lapwing, curlew and a stonechat.  Snowdrops are now out and there was a nice wee bunch near the RSPB Visitor Centre.

Snowdrops

The day after I was on a Naturewatch trip to Big Waters, which produced a pleasing variety of species, without turning up any major rarities.

As well as tufted duck and a couple of great crested grebe debating whether the mating season has started, there was a good head of lapwing on the stony island.

Lapwing

There were several teal around and one showed nicely on a sail past.

Teal

Further round we also caught up with wigeon, pochard and goldeneye.

Goldeneye

Wigeon

Pochard

Around the Western hide there were no snipe or water rail this time but several finches on the feeders and a pair of reed buntings, the female of which had a brownish head that kept us guessing for a while.

Reed Bunting

On the way to tennis today, I had a little time to spare at the weir on the Derwent and noticed some more teal that were standing and sliding around in the fast water by the fish run.  They appeared to be feeding on grubs in the newly-formed streamer weed.

On the way back there was also a pair of goosander diving away.  Usually all you see there is  couple of mallard and maybe a heron.

Mystery Bees and Disappearing Butterflies, Fish and Birds

 Last week I spotted a couple of bumblebees in the garden that I felt I really couldn't identify.  I have sent photos to the Natural History Society to see if they can tell me what they are.

Bee 1

Bee 2

What caught my attention with Bee 1 was the lack of a buff or white tail.  Instead, as can be seen from a second photo, there is the merest tip of white at the very end of the tail.

Bee 1 - side view

After I took the photos I thought I noticed a slight interruption to the abdominal band and so wondered about broken-belted bumblebee.  This seems highly likely however in terms of other factors and it would have to have been far away from its normal local habitat.

Afterwards I did come across some information that Bee 2 might possibly be a late-flying hairy-footed flower bee worker, and not a bumblebee at all.  However I haven't seen one before so it would be interesting to know.

Last Thursday I squeezed in a fishing trip to Horton Grange.  Looking for bream or tench on the swim feeder, I caught just three small roach on worm near in and nothing on corn further out.  The worm bites were fairly consistent if cautious but tackle trouble emerged as the bale arm on the reel started to fly open when striking, thus preventing me catching more.

On Saturday, Alex and I set out to Finglandrigg Wood in Cumbria on a planned mission to track down the marsh fritillary.  In spite of two tours through the suspect area, we were unable to manage a single sighting.  Apart from various speckled wood, ringlet, small skipper, red admiral and meadow brown, the only out of the ordinary sighting was of a small tortoiseshell in pursuit of its mate (presumably).  First seen on a mossy rock in the early afternoon, they were still at it on the nearby boardwalk when we re-visited the area a couple of hours earlier.

Small Tortoiseshells

As when we visited the Campfield Moss a year ago there were some carder bees nectaring on foxgloves.  Last year I thought they were moss carder bees.  On further research I'm more doubtful but they were certainly of a lighter hue that the ones I see here.

Moving on to Campfield Moss for a late visit we again found that the birds had mostly absented themselves apart from oyster catchers, a buzzard and a kestrel.

However it was quite nice to see woodpeckers, tree sparrows and greenfinch on the feeders, amongst others.

Greenfinch

Tree Sparrow

Up in The Highlands 1

 After several attempts, I managed to catch up with a male orange tip visiting the garden - actually a notably small specimen, suggesting it hasn't been feeding well.

Orange Tip

This may however be one of the last orange tips to visit as I have started clearing out the garlic mustard, which had become far too dominant and was starting to die off anyway.

Last weekend I was on a nature break in the Highlands with Alex and Vicki.  We started with a full day at a location known for eagles and managed a few sightings, though all were at considerable distance.  Not long after entering the valley I could see an obviously large bird from the car window and did get one good sighting through the binoculars, when I managed to track a bird across the heather and could make out its tail feathers.

The rest of the day we spent trying to work out whether distant flyers were eagles or buzzards, mostly the latter, some of which may also have been kestrels but mainly to my eye buzzards that managed to hover against the breeze.  I was a bit surprised to find that the commonest bird otherwise was house martin, swooping around in large numbers in the afternoon.  Oystercatchers and gulls were also present in good numbers, as well as occasional lapwing and curlew.

It was a reasonably summer day so I undertook a couple of forages in the gorse next to the river and was pleased to find a first sighting - the bilberry bumblebee.  There was also what I think to be a moss carder bee, rather than a common carder bee.  I reckoned I saw one in Cumbria last June, but didn't get close enough to confirm.

Bilberry Bumblebee

Moss Carder Bee?

A slight doubt on the latter is that gorse isn't listed as a favoured flower.

On the second day, we took advantage of the time of year to visit Loch Ruthven during the mating season of the slavonian grebe.  This is one of the few locations for slavonian grebe and we had instant success as it was the first bird we saw.  Several pairs were clearly visible from the hide, passing through the weed. Again there were a lot of house martins swooping over the water and I think some sand martins too.

Slavonian Grebe

Our afternoon walk around the area of Loch Garten was however a disappointment.  Hoping perhaps for crested tit or crossbill variations, all we saw was a couple of siskins and chaffinches, a couple more bilberry bumblebees and lots of pine trees as well as bilberry bushes that had barely started to flower.

Here the seasons probably played to our disadvantage as we learned later that crested tits and crossbills are a good deal harder to find in the nesting season.  Loch Garten itself is known for hosting birds of prey including osprey and goshawk but it seems you're better off viewing the webcam images rather than trying to see them live.

A Frantic Fortnight of Frustrating Photography

The Covid thing left me with an ongoing chestiness and I decided on a concerted activity campaign during last week's good weather involving several bike rides, tennis and walking cricket.

One of the many bike rides was to Prestwick Carr to see what was on the feeders and looking out for any activity en route, having seen a few peacock butterflies (about 6) and a few bumblebee queens on my other travels as well as hearing several chiffchaffs.

Not much turned up until I came to the end of the track out of Ponteland Park, when I was quite pleased to get a shot of a greenfinch up on a telegraph wire after several attempts.

Greenfinch

Both chiffchaffs and greenfinches have been turning up near the garden and hereabouts, usually heard rather than seen.

It was too early in the day for the short-eared owl at Prestwick Carr, but there was a single tree sparrow on the approach to the area and as usual several small birds near the feeders - notably reed buntings and willow tits as well as more greenfinches, other tits and the odd chaffinch.  Annoyingly, the sun was in such a position that it was impossible to focus on them without scaring them off and the best I could manage was a brief video of a willow tit in the hedgerow.

Willow Tit

There was another peacock and a small tortoiseshell, a large white (probable), a kestrel and a buzzard.

On Sunday, the last day of the really warm sunshine, Alex and I took a walk up to the the Gairs Viewpoint at RSPB Geltsdale in the hope we might see something interesting, which I said for me would be a grouse and either a peregrine or a merlin.

There were a few curlew near the car park.  Afterwards sightings tended once again to be fleeting but we continued well with a redpoll, a greenfinch and a stonechat as we advanced through the tree scrub, having seen a few lapwing in semi-display mode.

Once we reached the moorland, Alex spotted what appeared to be a merlin harassing some passing crows.  It looked like it had settled on a distant fencepost with a crow on another post nearby.  The trouble was that neither of the photos I took clearly showed a merlin so it was a bit of a conundrum.

Further on we started to hear grouse in the heather and a pair or red grouse flew right over our heads - naturally without posing for the camera.

On the way back more and more meadow pipits lifted off in front of us and more peacocks started to appear along with a single buff-tailed bumblebee.  A few buzzards were around and we spent some time working out that another distant bird on a wire was nothing more than a kestrel.  There was no sign of a peregrine.

In all of this the best photos I got were a robin and a stonechat!

Robin

Stonechat

Yesterday I took a quick walk in Chopwell Woods in the hope of seeing a few bumblebees.  One almost flew into me as I went out the door but there wasn't much doing in the Woods apart from another surprise small tortoiseshell at 10C.  As I turned for home more bumblebee queens did start to appear.  Several buff-tailed queens were not keen to settle and a suspected early bumblebee queen on some carnations and a possible garden bumblebee couldn't be confirmed.

Strangely the one butterfly that did linger was a lone tree bumblebee that looked a little small to be a queen but presumably was one.

Small Tortoiseshell

Tree Bumblebee

New Sightings

Not a bad past ten days even if the bird rarities aren't showing up in the numbers they were last year.

A week ago on Monday I decided to finally walk a stretch near Gosforth Golf Course, where I knew ring-necked parakeets had once been seen.

A few hundred metres after the start, an old chap with a crutch stopped to chat and told me that parakeets are often in the trees in the area where we were standing, but weren't there today as he would have heard them squawking.

I can't have gone on fifty yards before I did hear squawking and could make them out in the trees overhead, about four in total I reckoned This was a fair slice of luck as hardly anyone else I encountered muttered even hallo unlike most areas I visit.

For the rest of the walk I didn't see anything much beyond a few goldfinches even though I ventured into a North Tyneside designated ecozone, which was actually a rather unpromising strip of land sandwiched between the North end of Longbenton and an industrial estate.

On the way back I was wondering what else I had hoped to see and came to the conclusion it was redpolls, which turned up in some number at the end of last January.

Anyway, the parakeets were still in situ in the same couple of trees when I ended the walk and seemed to be pretty static, not crashing around all over the place like when I saw them in Brussels.

Ring-necked Parakeet

This was the first time I have seen a parakeet in this country.  They are in the region but not in anything like the numbers in the South East.

The day after was a bike ride to Belsay, when I heard skylarks for the first time in a while and spotted a yellowhammer in a hedgerow.  There were also a couple of buzzards, a kestrel and a probable sparrowhawk.

I tried a walk round Shibdon Pond at the weekend, an area that always strikes me as attractive but doesn't produce much of interest.  Apart from large numbers of barnacle goose, I did manage to spot some shelduck and tufted duck on the pond itself.

Shelduck

Tufted Duck

The other thing I have noticed in the past few days is that a robin has started visiting the peanut feeders, not something that I've ever seen before as far as I can recall.  I'm wondering if it's something they've learned from the numerous tits..  The winter has so far been mild so you wouldn't think food was in especially short supply.

Quiet Days

It may be my imagination but there seems to be much less going on in the way of rare bird sightings compared to previous years.  November was mild and waxwings haven't irrupted in any numbers.  Only the odd hawfinch has appeared at Morpeth.  Apart from that most twitchers are reporting gulls and other sea birds that don't excite me that much.

You may have observed that I have posted several photos of long-tailed tits tucking into suet nuggets.  About three weeks ago, I finally managed to get the shot I was really after - six of them having a go at the same time.  Unfortunately, on the last trip to the supermarket in question, the suet nugget shelf was totally empty so maybe other customers have had the same positive results.  The high energy fatballs I've replaced them with don't exercise the same magic, so no more long-tailed tit invasions as yet.

Long-tailed tits

In slightly murky conditions more recently two male bullfinches turned up on the forsythia bush, which I remember attracted bullfinch interest last winter.  I've often noticed bullfinches feeding on fresh shoots at this time of year but it isn't so common to see two males together.

Bullfinches

Perhaps they have a particular liking for forsythia.

Over Christmas I was at my son's in Moffat and we did a walk at Carriefran near the Grey Mare's Tale.  Although the scenery was pretty impressive we didn't see much in the way of wildlife - a single buzzard, a volley of pipits and a few tits and not a single mammal.  This is a new walk and, like Chopwell Woods, they've signposted a lot of trees to show what kind they are.  I'd no idea there were so many varieties of willow

Carriefan

On the way back into Moffat we drove past the Hammerlands Centre, now developed into a serious resort. There used to be a stew pond where it was dead easy to catch a few trout on baits.  The fly fishing seems to have expanded now and is reasonably priced.  I've often told myself I wanted to try some trout fishing again.  I think what I would like to do is catch a trout on my late dad's vintage fly fishing gear.  Perhaps it doesn't extend further than that: I'm not sure I'm up for clambering up and down river banks any more.

Yesterday, I met up with Malcolm to do a dog walk round the QE II lake near Ashington, the one WACAC venue I hadn't sussed out yet.  There wasn't much bird life about apart from common items - swans, cormorants, canada geese and standard ducks.

However I was impressed with the look of it as a fishing venue.  It mainly gets reported as a specimen venue for quality carp and pike but all the main other coarse species are present and it didn't seem as exposed as I had imagined.

Although we didn't see anything much, Malcolm's dog certainly did, showing a great deal of interest in the reedy areas and at one point plunging into a boggy bit of water in full attack mode.  We wondered if it might have been a water vole as there are some in the vicinity.

Vole Hunter

Another advantage of the QE II was the real ale in the (rather plasticy) pub near the car park.

Today I was out on a long bike ride and noticed that there were a lot of chaffinches about.