The long-tailed tits have continued their massed attacks on the relatively few suet balls still in the garden feeder. I reckon the maximum number seen at the same time was eight, though things can change pretty quickly as this video shows:
Long-tailed Tits
Elsewhere my third attempt at the grey-headed lapwing at East Chevington drew another blank. The trouble with this bird is it doesn't keep its appointments. Like an unreliable employee, it turns up three of four days in a row then throws a sickie and wasn't sighted at all on Friday. All the signs were good with a healthy clutch of twitchers peering over the suspect field but an hour later all had left bar me. All I got was a couple more distant fieldfare sightings and a suspected redwing that turned out (I think) to be a song thrush.
Fieldfare
Song Thrush?
It was bit hard to tell as the low sun was casting a lot of shadow and focusing was quite tricky.
In complete contrast to the absent lapwing the equally rare white-billed diver at Druridge Country Park proved highly reliable. Also one you will not find in your Book of British Birds, it has been described as the most photographed bird in Northumberland and ended up performing its stunts pretty much in front of the touristy cafe.
White-billed Diver
It's also a bird that generally does not favour fresh water lakes.
Apparently it doesn't get on well with cormorants and I noted that the male tufted ducks were going round together in solidarity.
On the whole you could say not much has happened over the past couple of weeks but just occasionally something did happen that I wasn't expecting.
Last Sunday, I returned to the QEII as a female smew had been reported for two days in succession. I couldn't find it over a two hour session but did spot a juvenile red-throated diver at considerable distance, and there have been no reports of them for a while.
Juvenile Red-throated Diver
Numerous gulls and tufted ducks turned up and I wasn't surprised to spot a couple of great crested grebes near the bank. But another distance shot of a mystery item hanging around with the mallards had me scratching my bird brain for answers.
Great Crested Grebes
Mystery Item
Hungry Mute Swan
It was probably some sort of hybrid.
Similarly I didn't see the apparently injured whooper swan, which hopefully wasn't accepting bread offerings from the irresponsible tourists at the motel complex.
But while I was checking a reed bed for the smew, this mute swan decided to get up close and personal. It was clearly begging for food and I could easily have reached out and stroked it.
Thinking of another mute swan I had seen earlier that was sitting motionless by the path and looked in poor condition, I decided it was best not to lay hands on the King's property and moved on.
In any case the last time I got anywhere near as close to a swan while fishing as a kid, it was hissing at me and threatening violence.
The trend to slightly unexpected but not monumental sightings in the garden has also continued.
Last time I mentioned the occasional visits by nuthatch, woodpecker and blackcap and the set was complete when a marsh tit visited the nuts last week, albeit briefly.
Nice surprises also were the appearance of a song thrush, which doesn't happen often and the fact that a pair of bullfinches, which usually lurk shyly around the back fence picked up enough courage to come and visit the peanut feeder.
Just I was starting to relax a little bit I got Covid and annoyingly could not accompany Alex and Vicki on their visit to Leighton Moss where they got good sightings of marsh harriers and booming bitterns.
I had to put up with more modest fare in the back garden.
Quite amusing was the antics of this squirrel, which attempted to shin up the plum tree but was put off several times when the chicken carcass that was on offer started to flap around in a threatening manner. Then followed a period of unsure meanderings on the decking before it managed to pluck up courage again.
Squirrel chickens out
Almost immediately afterwards, a male blackcap turned up in the tree but I failed to let it settle before getting excited and it was off again straight away.
A couple of days before this had happened two male nuthatches visited the feeders together, which struck me as slightly odd but they also departed sharply, as did the jay that briefly landed on the back fence.
One more consistent visitor has been a thrush who has been showing some interest in the results of my garden tidy up.
Thrush
I'm thinking it's a song thrush.
So far there has been no sign of any bees or butterflies.
I should get out more but of course it's not advised.
A variety of bits and bobs have caught my attention over the past week or so.
A bike trip to Stamfordham didn't reveal much except for a few long-tailed tits and a fleeting sighting of a reed bunting.
A considerable surprise this week was to see a couple of pigeons getting fruity with each other in the birches behind the garden. Surely they didn't think Spring had already arrived? It's been pretty mild.
I often wonder where all the food on the bird table goes to. Usually it disappears when as soon as I turn my back and I tend to blame the jackdaws. The other day I got a pleasant surprise when I witnessed eight or ten coal tits visiting in quick succession and departing each time with a few seeds. At one point there was half a dozen strung out between the clothes on the washing line. Usually it's just the odd one or two. Maybe I'm too hasty in blaming the jackdaws.
Last weekend I was in Dumfries and went with the family to RSPB Mersehead. The weather was questionable and sightings limited as a result. My son wanted to see the barnacle geese, which was as ever not a problem to arrange.
Barnacle Geese
From Bruaich Hide we could see a few teal and wigeon and one of the former was preening itself to reveal the green underwing patch. Unfortunately we had to wear masks which steamed up my glasses and when the young ones went outside for a clearer view, everything took flight.
We moved on to Meida Hide where there was just a few greylags but in time for the starling murmuration, which was pretty impressive and lasted for a good half hour.
Murmuration
I knew there was a murmuration at Mersehead but I thought it was considerably smaller. Comparing it to the one at Gretna/Rockcliffe, I noticed that the birds flew in a broader formation. It was almost as if they were hoovering up smaller groups of starlings. At Gretna, the formation was higher and did not cover such a wide area.
On the Monday I checked out St Michael's Churchyard for waxwings. As suspected, there weren't any yet though the yewberries have started to ripen and blackbirds were eating them. I was interested to see an unexpected nuthatch climbing up one of the walls, and later a song thrush.
On Thursday I took a bike ride from Kirkley to Abbey Mill near Morpeth, where hawfinches had been sighted several days in succession. I was very conscious of the sod's law of binoculars, which postulates that if you don't take binoculars, you will see something of interest in the distance. Sure enough approaching Saltwick, I reckoned I could see some visiting throstles feeding in the fields at about 300m range. Depending only on my camera, I took a few shots to see if I could identify them later - only to then find I'd picked out a group of starlings! From what I could make out from views in flight, I reckoned that the winter visitors were pretty much entirely fieldfares. Probably most redwings are still feasting on berries.
As to the hawfinches, my main aim was to establish precisely where they had been seen. After a bit of a wander I managed to find the twitchers who were looking for them. They reported that there had been no sightings so far. My immediate instinct was that the hawfinches had moved on and, sure enough, no further sightings have resulted. I hope it wasn't my high-vis cycling jacket that scared them... or maybe it was the high-vis leggings of the lady joggers who also passed through.
On Friday I did a walk at East Cramlington Nature Reserve with a friend in the hope of finding some crossbills. In the event it turned out to be more of a survival exercise as we ended up on a muddy track next to a drain. Afterwards we took a look at the well-stocked bird feeders nearing dusk, when I was surprised to see an unexpected bird coyly visiting the feeders. At first I thought it was a linnet but expert advice suggests it is a female reed bunting.
Reed Bunting
I've never seen either species on a feeder before.
Finally a bit more success in the hairstreak hunt in spite of still indifferent weather.
I managed four brief sightings in different wych elms around Bywell Bridge. One struck me as being too dark but the other three answered the broad description and probably were white-letter hairstreaks. The only trouble was I couldn't prove it as none of them settled and so could theoretically have been something else.
It was a similar story later in the week when I took advantage of a couple of partially summer evenings to look for purple hairstreaks in the tops of the oaks from the old railway bridges just past Hamsterley Mill. Although not around in the same numbers as my first visit last year, I was able to identify around 10 suspects flying around different trees, discounting a couple of others as moths. The greyish hue in flight makes me fairly certain on identification and in one case there was a momentary flash of light blue that I regard as conclusive but again none settled anywhere visited.
Spotting these species isn't an easy task. My conclusion based on this year's attempts is that the purple hairstreak is the easier option. My last visit to Bywell on Sunday produced nothing at all but one compensation was spotting this rather dozy looking young tawny owl on a brief woodland walk.
Tawny Owl
Similarly the trips to Hamsterley revealed a jay and some rising trout viewed from above and, on the windier day, about a dozen red kites cruising around.
A week or so after they first bloomed, the buddlieae attracted their first butterfly, a green-veined white. Since then three small tortoiseshells have followed suit, but this one needed to warm up on the path first.
Small Tortoiseshell
Woodpeckers have been visiting daily - a female and a juvenile - and a song thrush has been around a couple of times looking for worms. But by far the commonest small bird is the blue tit, which has clearly had an excellent breeding season.
I went to Holy Island last Friday in the hope of seeing some of the passage birds that had been turning up over the previous few days. In fact there wasn't much about. The first and the commonest bird I saw on the island was the starling.
Turnstone
In pleasantly bright weather but a strong wind, I did manage to identify a couple of rock pipits on the stoney beach as well as some oystercatchers and turnstone. On the pond near the wildlife centre, all the birds were sheltering under their wings but one may have been a whooper swan.
Two whites sighted during the day remain my latest butterfly sightings to date.
I spent quite a lot of time foraging in the dunes at the North of the island, which proved completely unproductive though I did see this rather large caterpillar. Referring to a suggested expert indicates it will one day become a fox moth.
Fox Moth Caterpillar
On the way back to the castle, there were some teal visible, sheltering against the weeds on the far side of the other pond.
Wheatear
It's strange how the most interesting sighting often occurs when you have given up looking. I had decided to visit the priory when I spotted an interesting little bird feeding by the wall on the main road. At first I thought it was a water pipit in summer plumage but the general consensus is that it is a wheatear. All I can say is that the wheatears I have seen were much more strongly marked but there are photographs of them online that look similar. It certainly wasn't shy as a water pipit is supposed to be.
Yesterday the Naturewatch Group visited Belsay Gardens, where again the birdlife was a little furtive. Over time I did manage to identify three nuthatch, several coal tits and blue tits and a song thrush. The best sighting was a couple of goldcrests working their way through a hazel bush that so fascinated me that I left my waterproof trousers behind. I also got a glimpse of a disappearing red squirrel.
Obviously it was a cultivated rather than wild environment but I was rather impressed with this particular variety of rhodedendron barbarus, which apparently comes from Northern Asia.
A sudden rise in temperature to maximum 12C encouraged me to take a walk along the Nith south of Kingholm Quay on Monday, where I saw the sedge warblers and the redstart last summer.
Conditions were pretty boggy and the main things that made themselves noticeable were an immense number of oystercatchers, mainly in the fields on either bank. There must have been several hundred of them, far more than I have seen together at any one time before.
Further down there was another submerged field where there were a few whooper swans taking the air. On looking more closely at some corbids in front of them, I also noticed that there were a couple of shelduck too. I did not know they could be found on agricultural land but the RSPB handbook does say "visits farmland near the coast."
Whooper swans with preening shelduck
There were a few mallard, a couple of pipits and some barnacle geese in the distance near Glencaple before I got fed up with the flood debris on the path and turned back with a single whooper swimming up and down the tide flow.
Shelduck
The main group of whoopers took off from the field as did the shelduck pair, the latter turning up again further upstream.
Two days later temperatures were falling but the sun was still bright, so I chanced the bike ride to Loch Arthur over Troston. There were a couple of song thrushes and a few redwing mixed in with a flock of starlings. Also a couple more whoopers and a small group of goldeneye (again!) on Loch Arthur itself. Three woodpeckers could be heard drumming but not seen.
I went back via Kirkgunzeon in the hope of yellowhammers but didn't see any and narrowly missed a flight of geese coming in from the west.
Later, there were also a couple of bullfinch pairs, one male showing well next to road up from the Lochfoot roundabout.
But the main thing about this trip was the tremendous effect the bright, low sun had on my new tinted lenses on the way out. The sky in the West looked turqoise instead of light blue and Loch Arthur looked blue rather than grey. The colouration of the trees was also much richer.
There were however some negative results as it was often harder to identify the birds - as well as the existence of potholes in shaded areas! It even had me wondering if I should leave the glasses off in similar conditions.
Half of June gone and the promising weather of late May has not continued.
On Tuesday I decided that the aubretia's attempt to invade the edge of the lawn had ended in a stalemate of World War 1 proportions and so was pushing it back and cutting the resulting long grass away when a large green frog emerged from where it had been. This was ironic as I'm sure I had been telling someone I never get frogs in my garden any more. It hopped off sharpish but no idea where it ended up as I'm sure it couldn't have leapt the wall.
I interrupted the Wednesday bike ride to do a little foray along the Nith south of Kingholm Quay, as one of the butterfly group told me it was quite good for birdlife.
Peek a boo! Baby Whitethroat
It was indeed a most pleasant short stroll. I got
a good view of a willow warbler, though not a photo. Then there were some grating noises from some birds from an area of elder bushes and dog roses. The culprits were pretty elusive too, but I finally got a shot that suggests to me they were juvenile whitethroats. That was one of the species my butterfly contact had indicated (forgot the other one!) and it was sort of confirmed when a senior whitethroat appeared a few yards down the track.
I also got a good snap of a song thrush, a poorish one of a goldfinch and a fleeting glimpse of what I took to be a rather pale looking painted lady - can it still have been one that overwintered?
Continuing the bike ride, I took a detour on the way back to go down to the entrance of Caerlaverock Wildlife and Wetlands Trust. This only produced a nice sighting of a yellowhammer plus one of an otter constructed in lego before I retreated back to the high road in the grips of a major hayfever attack.
Took advantage of some briefly favourable weather to take a trip to Mersehead RSPB Reserve on Sunday morning, although the sun had pretty much disappeared by the time I got there.
The volunteer at reception spoke of some twites having been seen in the treetops near Meida Hide, which immediately caught my attention. But first I took a quick look at the feeders and bird table behind the office to see what was going on.
On the bird table - greenfinch, sparrow, yellowhammer, chaffinch
There were a few greenfinches around and a female yellowhammer that had me thinking how hard she would be to distinguish from other species on a fleeting sighting. No sign of a tree sparrow though.
So I decided to head for the narrow wooded area near Meida Hide. However, scanning the trees revealed nothing but tits and chaffinches apart from one single treecreeper quietly going about his business. Nearer the hide there was a rookery that was far from quiet as the occupants circled around the place. The only other thing to catch my attention was a greyish roe deer casually wandering along the woodland edge thirty yards away but it must have picked my scent and moved off more sharply.
There wasn't much to see from the hide either. I did pick out a couple of tufted duck (a few of those around just now) and someone else saw a pintail.
Then, heading towards the shoreline, I thought I might have seen what I was looking for as there was a dead tree to the left of the path that had several finch-like birds sitting in its bald crown. The only thing was that they looked to me more like linnets. It wasn't too easy to tell as it was becoming misty but I was fairly confident I had got it right. One or two birds had some slight reddish colouration and all the ones i checked had grey beaks and grey heads.
The wind was also getting up so I decided against a walk along the beach in the hope of spotting a little egret and doubled back. The tide was out anyway, which I always think diminishes the number of birds about. I couldn't contact the linnets again but did see a song thrush on the edge of the wood and a couple of reed buntings in the hedgerow.
Last Wednesday's bike ride turned into a time trial rather than a nature watch but a visit from Malcolm gave the opportunity to make a couple of excursions into birdland.
On Friday we decided on an evening trip to the Ken Dee Marshes Reserve, my personal agenda being the continuing pursuit of summer visitors as well as the chance for Malcolm to see things he hasn't encountered before. I was also hoping that an evening visit might be more productive than the last couple of late morning sessions.
Frankly, the reserve proved somewhat frugal in revealing its potential. A possible explanation was the large colony of nesting black-headed gulls that have colonised the islands between the two main hides. Noticeably there was not much non-gull life out on the lagoon apart from a couple of sunbathing tourists on the far bank of Loch Ken. Remarks in the logbook suggested that other species are not best mates with black-headed gulls.
The feeders did at least attract male and female woodpeckers, a great tit and eventually a rather pale looking nuthatch, presumably a female.
On the way to and back from the second hide, I did at least manage to identify a spotted flycatcher emerging from the nesting boxes. Of redstart there was (as ever at this location) no visible sign and we did not hear the wood warbler singing, though we did both have the experience of thinking that birds emerging from nesting boxes looked too yellow to be flycatchers. Surely not?.. More likely to have been blue tits.
As last year even pied flycatcher seemed to be a bit of an isolated experience rather than the frequent one encountered in past years. ON the feeder at the now somewhat dilapidated hide, woodpecker and nuthatch duly reappeared.
There wasn't anything else on the way back to the car park, where a singing song thrush displaying clearly at the top of a nearby tree kind of ironised the whole experience.
Last night went to the cinema, so not a planned nature trip at all.
You can't see the otter - it's under the water
On the way out happened to notice that the Devorgilla Bridge was looking quite picturesque ans decided to attempt a photo. As I made ready there was quite a large splash just by the near upstream bank - I assumed it was a decent-sized trout.
Walking further up the bank, I noticed two further spashes, after which an otter poked it's head above the surface and swam along for a bit, just allowing a view of it's white front.
This isn't by any means the first time otters have appeareared in the Nith in Dumfries. One of the more amusing times was when an Australian lad, over here to play cricket, was out fishing in the river and reported that he had seen a seal!
Today went to pick up new trekking bike from Castle Douglas. Riding it home my thoughts were mainly devoted towards testing its speed and climbing ability, but still found time to spot a couple of red kites and a song thrush.
Bike ride to Loch Arthur. Again suspected linnets on the way out to Mavis Drive but can prove nothing. Definite song thrush in same area, singing from tree. A few redwing showing in trees near Kinharvie and one tufted duck with chicks on Loch Arthur itself.
No observations on return as went with the peleton.
Visit to Edinburgh and Balloch to see Jennifer and boyfriend Joe. On Saturday got distracted from my intention of visiting art galleries into a charming walk along Bells' Brae in the old town, where a song thrush was holding forth full pelt from high in a tree. I really can't recall the last time I saw one.
On Sunday took a walk up Callendar Crags and to Bracklinn Falls. Joe was disappointed not to see red squirrel but we did see amongst others a pair of ravens, a grrenfinch (increasingly seldom to see them since the bad winters) of 2009-2010 and another volley of siskins on the feeders near the town. Joe heard an owl, but I didn't.
One absentee on walks in the Loch Lomond area so far has been the crossbill in spite of abundance of scots pine. We also have not seen any mammals, although there was a lot of evidence of deer (or similar) gnawing the trees on the Crag today.
I should have started writing a nature diary ages ago!
On a walk at Colvend Coast got superb view of peregrine falcon. Saw it from afar as I went behind a hill. Lucky to see what I though I was a buzzard sitting on the drystone wall just West of Port o' Warren. In the binoculars it was clearly a peregrine, cheek stripes clearly visible. Then it went up and flew right over me, slate grey male. Probably a young bird?
Also jackdaws doing acrobatics over the cliffs, great tit giving exhibition of alarm call and a couple of meadow pipits.
There has also been a song thrush in garden - have seen it two or three times.
