Is November the new October?

I mentioned in my last post that a very late and accordingly feeble sunflower is still trying to grow in the garden. So here it is for all to see:

Sunflower

The point of course is that we would normally have had a substantial frost by now and it looks like we will be into the second half of November before there is one, so it's good to focus in on the flowers we wouldn't normally be seeing.  In fact there are several garden patches where things are continuing to bloom, notably a couple of sweet peas and some survivors from a pack of seed I hopefully spread on one of the borders next to the lawn.

Sweet Pea

Border

Border

There are a couple of hanging baskets still thriving and one or two other bits and pieces.

The trend has continued on my trips out. On Saturday I finished off a cycle run at Wylam on the off chance there might still be ivy bees around.  There weren't but the ivy was certainly still in flower and there were honey bees and a single buff-tailed bumblebee plus an imitator that I haven't so far identified.

Honey Bee

On Sunday I had another trip to Seaton Sluice where I again failed to catch up with the snow buntings.  Here there was a fair quantity of white dead nettle in flower and a few sprigs of what is apparently Valerian (never heard of!)

Valerian

As far as the birds were concerned, there weren't any stonechats this time, but I did find a couple of goldfinch feeding on seed.  Sometimes also you notice something new about a bird that's common - in this case that starlings have some brown wing feathers.

Starlings

Goldfinch

Similarly, what did these sparrows find so interesting about the harbour wall?

Sparrows

Although temperatures will be falling slowly, it looks like the October weather will last for at least another week.

Betwixt and Between

I don't like this time of year, when the butterflies gradually disappear and the bees become scarce.  

There still is the odd butterfly around of course but the last ones I saw were a large white and a speckled wood around 8th October and nothing since.  A week afterwards I thought I'd found some ivy bees next to the cycle track north of Styford but it proved they were all honey bees.  It was the pale version of western honey bee that I was confusing. 

The temperature does however remain mostly above seasonal norms and the birds are still gobbling up the sunflower seeds and hearts with gay abandon - particularly coal and other tits but nuthatch and bullfinch of both genders continue to visit regularly.  A good trick would be to catch one of each species feeding together but they are obviously not friendly so the best I managed was male and female bullfinch together.

Bullfinches

A pleasant surprise was to find a green lacewing on my shed window and, with no frost so far, some flowers are still blooming including a very late and rather pathetic attempt at a sunflower. 

With some reluctance though I decided it was time to concentrate on birds.  I started out a couple of weekends ago at Newbiggin.  It was a Sunday so the golf course was busy but on the coastal path I found a twitchy flock of about thirty birds I thought might be twite.  They weren't settling for long and the only ones I snapped were linnets, though I cursed the hiker who walked straight toward one settled group I was trying to photograph, thinking that linnet and twite often mix.

Linnet

I suppose though that twite tend to turn up a bit later in the year.

One or two snow buntings have been turning up, some apparently on the grass at Seaton Sluice so i set off to find them the Sunday after.

It looked like they'd be easy to find but there are a lot of twisting paths through grassy areas at Seaton Sluice so I didn't find them.  By way of compensation there were several stonechats, which I always like and also a solitary pair of male chaffinches, which I must say I regard almost as a rarity as they are one species that I never see in the garden.

Stonechat

Chaffinch

End of Summer Awards

It's become traditional to post something like "End of Summer" at this time of year when frankly I'm prone to early Autumn depression after the the end of the cricket season, and butterfly and bee sightings also become an increasingly rare occurrence.

I've been trying to avoid taking constant repeat photos of the same species over the summer months.  However this year I decided to reflect on which species have been the star features in my back garden and take photos of them before the buddleia flowers came to an inevitable end.

The overall winners were in no doubt.  In joint first place came red admiral, considerably outnumbering other members of the Nymphalidae family.  It was still being seen in good numbers on 16th September and the following couple of days before I went on on holiday on the 20th.

Red Admiral

In equal first place, and the most numerous species overall was the large white, including a big number of males.

Female Large White

Male Large White

The male large white also carries the distinction of being the last butterfly to be seen, studiously visiting the last sprigs of buddleia on 29th September - shortly after which date a storm moved in and effectively called a halt to proceedings.  

This meant that my annual ambition of seeing a butterfly on Buddleia after the start of October once again went unachieved this year.  There's only one wee sprig left now.  Ironically I have seen one more large white since - in Ashington Town Centre on 2nd October in decidedly overcast conditions.

Honourable mentions also go to small tortoiseshell, which proved to be a regular visitor once it got going at the beginning of August, and comma, which after an absence of about three weeks, turned up to surprise me by joining the admirals and tortoiseshells on the 16th.

Small Tortoiseshell

Meanwhile tits and nuthatches continued to visit the sunflower hearts feeders if somewhat less regularly.  Bullfinches haven't been sighted recently but I did catch a brief glimpse of a marsh tit while sheltering from the reduced temperatures in the summer house. I haven't seen one of those here for over a year.

I managed to lengthen my summer experience by spending five days in Berlin in continuing warm weather.  This wasn't at all a Nature trip but of course one or two things did turn up.

It's sometimes observed that bird species have different behaviour patterns in the British Isles compared to Europe.  The hooded crow for example we would need to look for in craggy seaside areas near the coast, but in Europe can be found strutting their stuff in posh residential areas, like this one I found in Westend district.

Hooded Crow

There were half a dozen of them later on in the day on Onkel-Tom-Straße in Zehlendorf. 

On the other side of the road, was a very red red squirrel bounding around in someone's front garden.

Red Squirrel

Near the Gedenkstätte Plötzensee when I visited there was a nice meadow verge where I saw but couldn't get a decent photo of some common carder bees that had a much more gingery appearance than the ones I see here. There were a few small white butterflies too but, in the whole five days, I interestingly in view of the fine weather, did not see another species of butterfly - just a few dragonflies and a hornet at a cemetery I visited.

Another First

The weather has inevitably started to breakdown and both the buddleia and the butterflies are gradually becoming more scarce.

Speckled Wood

I took a belated walk to Chopwell East Field but as I had feared virtually all the vegetation had turned brown, including one particular area where the flowers had not been out at all on my previous visit this year.  Apart from whites the only species showing was a few speckled wood.  However, as I went round the fringe of the reserve and started to work my way back through Chopwell Woods, it did strike me that I was actually seeing a very large number of them, I'd say somewhere between 50 and 100, virtually all quite small and looking fresh.

One can only conclude that there has been a very successful late hatch.  I wonder how they fared over the succeeding days.

Another pleasant surprise was to spot a single small copper next to the main road on my way back to the village.  I've never seen one so near to home before.

Taking advantage of a tip off from a local naturalist, I took a brief trip to Wylam and quickly found my target - a little colony of ivy bees near the bridge.

Ivy Bee

The ivy bee was only recognised as a distinct species in 1992 and was for a long time only seen in the Channel Islands and the South of England - so a pleasing first sighting for me that I have been keeping an eye out for for some time. They were all males.

My other trip out at the weekend was to Carlisle Gardens at Morpeth.  They looked quite promising with plenty of flowers in bloom but the sun was not to be seen. Apart from a bumblebee giving a wasp a bit of a hiding, the main noteworthy item was the floral clock.

Floral Clock 

Apparently it is one of very few floral clocks that are still working.  Ironically it had stopped before I was there.

Returning to the subject of butterflies, Butterfly Conservation are suggesting that the Big Butterfly Count indicates only a small rise in numbers this year.  My perception is rather more positive.  I have never seen as many small coppers as this year and white and purple hairstreak seem to have done well.  In the garden red admirals and large whites have been prolific this year, with a good late burst of small tortoiseshells. While it hasn't been a painted lady year, there have been a fair few about.  

I sometimes think that the Big Butterfly Count is prone to statistical error, relying as it does on sightings over three weeks at the end of July/beginning of August.  Certainly it's not a good time to count orange tips or green hairstreaks!

More Landmark Sightings

The day after I finished writing the last post, I saw something I'd never seen before - in the dining room.

Apparently this is a moth fly (also known as a drain fly) of the pericomini genus but apparently you'd need to be a serious expert to identify one more closely.  It was tiny and had a wingspan of about 3/8".

Another pleasant surprise occurred on 30th August, when a painted lady was finally spotted in the garden and reappeared several times until the sun clouded over.  With the weather now on the change I doubt if it'll be seen again...

Unlike the bullfinches, which will probably keep turning up while sunflower hearts are available. This time I managed to capture the male.  You can't quite see the sunflower heart in its beak.

Male Bullfinch

Today I took a trip to the Big Waters Reserve, where something interesting has been reported.  I have mainly known it as a fishing and birdwatching venue, but was quite impressed on wandering around that there's quite a fair amount of invertebrate-friendly territory in the form of meadows (now mostly dead) and woodland clearings.

Near the Little Waters area there were a good few speckled wood and a few dragonflies.  I think the ones that actually landed were common darters.

Speckled Wood

Common Darter

There were also some large blue dragonflies - possibly emperor dragonflies.

Moving further around the area, I was pleased to come across some small coppers.

Even more were to turn up when I searched an area by the path near the track to the bird eyes, probably about twenty and also a good number of common blues, both male and female.

Common Blue

Small Copper

I wished I had taken the trouble to get a better photo of the small copper.  There were plenty of opportunities but they didn't land for long.

I was heading back to the car park when I bumped into a chap who said he knew where I could find what I was originally after.  We went back to the same area a bit further along where the farm fields have a good covering of bird's foot trefoil and after a fair bit of messing around (and me starting to head for the car park again) we found it.

Clouded Yellow

I'd never heard of the clouded yellow being observed this far North and had thought it might be rare here.  This isn't so as there have been scattered sightings in the past but it is distinctly scarce locally and I don't think I've seen one elsewhere in the UK.

There was actually a very large amount of farmland with a good covering of bird's foot trefoil, so who knows whether there are more of them at Big Waters?

A Mixed Bag

Keen to take advantage of the supposed heatwave, I set out for Wallington Hall Gardens on Sunday.  In fact the weather was cloudy all day and en route I thought I might do better with bees than butterflies.

On the whole the reverse was the case.  It was certainly warm enough, the winds were low and butterflies were out in abundance.

Particularly pleasurable was to see three painted ladies, to add to the one at Havannah the other week.

Painted Lady with Comma

Apart from commas, there were plenty of red admirals and small tortoiseshells, the former predominant on the several buddleia bushes, the latter more in other areas.  I don't recall having seen a peacock.

Other sightings were speckled wood and wall brown, the latter very briefly before being scared off, partly by a deranged young willow warbler that was going through the vegetation just a of couple yards away from me and appeared at times to be actually chasing the butterflies.

Deranged Willow Warbler

Not a well bird I suspect.

However it was the bees that produced the single business turn-up as I found several specimens of what I'm fairly certain were broken-belted bumblebees.

Broken-belted Bumblebee

Here's a second photo:

As a moorland species of Scotland and the Pennines, you'd have to ask what they were doing in a walled garden.  The yellow facial hair and legs are probably due to pollen.

The only other pollinators I noticed were honey bees, one with an orange tip to its tail and a plain-faced dronefly.

I decided to spend a good part of Bank Holiday Monday in the garden, just really to see if anything interesting would turn up. It was sunnier weather, but with a fair breeze most of the time.

Meanwhile I did a bit of counting of the most frequent butterflies.  Notably several commas turned up in the morning, but I did not see any after about 1.00 pm.  By contrast, small tortoiseshells were much more in evidence after about 3.30 pm.

Large whites, which have been very frequent this year, predominated but all three main variations of white were present.  On a very unscientific count, I reckoned that again the most numerous visitor, red admiral, outnumbered peacocks by a good bit over 10 - 1.  Perhaps it hasn't been a great year for peacocks.  My memory suggests that in past years, there have sometimes been more of them than red admirals.  Still no painted lady however.

As often on these occasions, a couple of things happened within a few minutes of each other.  An unfamiliar moth turned up on the buddleia.  It showed up orange in flight but looked a good deal different when settled.

New Moth

I assumed orange underwing but they don't settle with their wings tightly together.  A helpful suggestion on facebook is broad-bordered yellow underwing as orange underwing is in any case no longer on the wing in August.  Sure enough, internet photos show its colour is more orange than yellow.

Then up in the trees a blueish shape passed by.  It was a slightly less fleeting view than the one at Bradley Hall Gardens.  I'm pretty confident that it was the holly blue.

Meanwhile, the bullfinches kept sneaking up on the birdfeeders three or four yards in front of me.

Female Bullfinch

The male was rather more elusive.

In the evening I spent an hour or so at Marden Quarry hoping the night heron would turn up.  It didn't.  There were however a good number of gadwall to keep the mallards and coots company.

Gadwall

Win some, lose some

A minor furore of activity last Sunday, hoping to beat the declining weather.

I finally got to take a good look around the Cambois area for the grayling - but didn't see one!  The nearest I got was mistaking a meadow brown with a broader than usual white underwing patch as a possible.

Meadow Brown

This was disappointing as my two previous attempts were successful and so I found myself pondering the reasons.

In my head the best time for the grayling at Cambois is mid-July but I held off until August because the Butterfly Conservation website says that is when they are most on the wing.  But I noticed that most of the vegetation was dead and even meadow browns were scarce in comparison to my first visit, and there are news stories about Autumn arriving early because of the dry conditions...

Anyway there were a couple of minor consolations.  I visited a sunny overgrown bridge just past the plant hire company and found the first female common blue I have seen summer - which was also by far the tiniest one I've ever seen - as well as my first wall brown of the year.

Tiny Common Blue

Wall Brown

Afterwards I headed for the hills - the Havannah Three Hills Reserve near Hazlerigg to be precise. I wouldn't have done, having roundly criticised the deterioration of the area when I went last year.  However, there have been reports of a late dingy skipper and a silver-washed fritillary, which is almost non-existent this far North.

I started scouring the supposed butterfly hot spot, which has now been more or less completely overgrown by heather. Apart from a few whites and a red-tailed bumblebee, I did find one butterfly, a small heath.

Small Heath

However a more fortunate encounter was with another naturalist who reported seeing the dingy skipper, being chased around by male common blues in an area the other side of the rough path to the lake.

Obviously I took a look and did indeed come across said common blues (about 6 overall) and eventually the dingy skipper.  Seek and thou shalt find!

Common Blue

Dingy Skipper

The skipper struck me as being slightly small and rather more brown than ones I've seen before. But bearing the repeated trouble I had trying to see one earlier in the summer in mind, I was well satisfied.

Not knowing its exact location, I didn't realistically expect to see the fritillary, which was probably a bit of a one off.  However there was a nice surprise when I foraged around a bit on my way back to the main track:

Painted Lady

While there hasn't been a major irruption, there have been a few painted ladies around this summer and I still have hope that one may climb the 500' up to the buddleia in my garden.

Talking of which, butterfly sightings of previously mentioned species have continued in increased numbers.  Red admiral is still the most frequent and there has been one addition I was half expecting:

Hummingbird Hawk Moth

The tits continue to go nuts for the sunflower hearts I've been putting out and male and female bullfinches and nuthatches regularly visit the feeder as pairs.

Nuthatch

Lastly, I don't know what it is about the tailgate of my new car but pollinators seem to like it.  The latest visitor was a queen...

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen

It was obviously struggling, caught out by the disappearance of the sun on a cool day.  So I performed the old trick of bringing it in the house to warm up for forty minutes, after which it happily flew off.