Bees And Not-to-bes

A few further identification issues have cropped up as as improving weather has brought more species into play.

Honey Bee (dark version)

Noting the presence of nomad bees and bee flies quite frequently, I started to wonder when I would see a red mason bee or any of the host mining bees in the garden.

Last Friday I thought I might have managed it but appearance approved to be deceptive as, on closer look it proved to be the darker version of the western honey bee when I finally captured it a a bug box.

The giveaway here is the cylindrical shape of the abdomen, where as it would be more rounded on a mining or red mason bee.

Not so many complications occur with butterflies in the North, although the whites can be a bit confusing if you don't see them close up. It took me a few years to get the female orange tip right because it is so different from the male.

However I did initially misidentify the first green-veined white to turn up in the garden as it arrived so soon after I'd managed to photograph the first male orange tip and visited the same area of forget-me-nots.

Orange Tip

Green-veined White

In this case of course the ideal way of separating then is to get a look at the underwing as they are completely different.  But you forget these things sometimes.

I also spent a good deal of time taking photos of this rather large carder bee (possibly a queen) as I wasn't altogether sure that it wasn't a tree bumblebee and every time it settled, you couldn't get a clear view of the abdomen.  This was the eventual decisive shot:

Carder Bee

I got into even deeper water when I captured another nomad bee and realised it didn't look quite like the Gooden's nomad bee I was anticipating.

Mystery Nomad Bee

Well I was right.  Experts on facebook, having spotted a tinge of red at the top of the abdomen which totally eluded me, confirmed it's not Gooden's and there was one suggestion that it might be a species that I did have under suspicion on the basis of the stripe pattern - the broad-banded nomad bee.  

However the broad banded nomad bee is rare and there have been no confirmed sightings in the North of England. So it has to go down as a mystery - one of several tricoloured nomad bees that are very similar and also very variable in appearance.

Anyway two days later I did finally manage to catch up with at least the red mason bee, if in a somewhat unusual fashion.

I was taking a look at the bug hotel on the summer house when I noticed that there was something struggling ing in a bucket of water directly beneath.  I fished it out and discovered that it was in fact two bees trapped in flagrante delicto, which I transferred onto a stray forget-me-not in a plant pot.  

Identification wasn't easy as a drenched bee looks completely different from a dry one.  They stayed like that for a while until, suspecting it was dead, I touched the male and it flew off.  The female eventually disappeared too.  I was convinced they were red mason bees and, sure enough, ones and twos started to appear on the bug hotel.

Double Red Mason Bees

Single Red Mason Bee (l)

Many A Slip...

 In a period of unsettled weather, yesterday looked to be the best opportunity to look for some invertebrates, so I set out for a slow ride to take in Path Head Nature Reserve, Ryton Meadows and the Spetchells.  Unfortunately some photography issues limited the possibility of confirming some sightings.

Path Head is a reclaimed recycling site and looks promising for future months and years.  During a brief outburst of sunshine, I quickly spotted a peacock, a red-tailed bumblebee queen and a carder bee.  Quite a few dandelions were out and I was looking out for mining bees but the result was a number of mini miners, as usual hard and somewhat controversial to identify.  However I captured one in my bug box and am fairly confident it was a common mini-mining bee.

Another capture I made later showed a very small bee with a lot of red on the thorax and reddish legs.  The photo however was unhelpful. Following a tip that it might be a small nomad bee, I reckon a long shot might be little nomad bee, which preys on the common mini-miner though more prevalent in the South.

Little Nomad Bee?

Later there was an opportunity to see a heron admiring the flora.

Heron

In fairness there was a drainage trench nearby.

I then headed to Ryton Meadows, in the hope of perhaps seeing an early small copper.  It wasn't entirely unexpected when that hope proved forlorn (a bit early yet) but I did find another interesting bee on another dandelion.  It looked like a small nomad bee but notably had a yellow face.  I can't see any potential matches.  Maybe it was a wasp.

It was at this point that the technical problems really began to take over as a series of images I'm certain I took between arriving at Ryton and climbing up the Spetchells have simply disappeared from my little travelling camera.  As I actually had it round my neck while riding I can only assume that the delete button got pressed a few times accidentally, which seems most unlikely..

So as well as unable to get any further with the possible nomad I lost photos of a peacock and several of orange tips including females and some of suspected chocolate mining bees that I wanted to double check.

Approaching the Spetchells with the camera now back in my rucksack, I noticed a number of small nomad bees patrolling a wee area of grassland next the cycle track. They looked rather like Gooden's Mining Bee but a good deal smaller than the ones up on the chalk. Again having referred to experts for an identification, the suggestion is that it might be a male Gooden's though I must admit I'm surprised it was that much smaller. This time I got a reasonable pic.

Gooden's Nomad Bee (m)

There was about 10-20 of them flying around low and seldom settling for more than a few sedonds.

Before going up to the Spetchells I noticed another bee on a dandelion right next to where I parked my bike.  I was fairly confident it was an orange-tailed mining bee but in this case the photo was too poor to say.

The reason for heading to the Spetchells was to see if the buffish mining bees are in action yet.  Indeed they are - in their many thousands.  It looked to me that they were all males but activity was particularly intense in one small area, I suspect because of the presence of an early female (at the top of the frame in the video):

One Buffish Mining Bee

Many Buffish Mining Bees

As a bonus, I also managed to find the first  - excepting my trip to Spain - small tortoiseshell and the first speckled wood (what on earth's happening with them?)  I've seen this year, as well as a not so great photo of the last female orange tip of the day.

Small Tortoiseshell

Speckled Wood

Female Orange Tip

Rare birds in my garden?

My activities have been somewhat constrained over the past three weeks for various reasons.  Principally I took a tumble from the bike and jarred my shoulder badly but other matters have intruded - shopping for a new car, sorting a minor emergency with the front door, birthday celebration arrangements and getting more involved with the local Amnesty group. 

As a result any sightings during the fine weather were restricted to the garden.

I don't know if it made the difference but I changed the contents of one of the feeders so it contains a mixture of suet pellets and peanuts, but recently a couple of rare birds have turned up regularly over the past few days.

Here I am referring to the house sparrow and the common starling:

Sparrow

Starling

Now of course you immediately think that these birds are not rare at all but, as I have surely mentioned before, they rarely turn up in my garden, and now visit repeatedly.

One can only speculate why...

The starling looks on inspection to be a young bird and maybe doesn't know any better.  However they frequently appear on the rooftops, including mine, without actually visiting. Sparrows can be seen on a daily basis less than fifty yards from my front door but until now have been totally outnumbered by dunnocks. Perhaps both have been intimidated by the number of jackdaws that turn up and the latter turn up less often as I tend to chase them off.  Both species can appear in twos and threes as well as one-offs.

There were also some sightings of bees and butterflies but still quite restricted. 

One white that actually settled briefly was a petite male large white, which surprised me a bit as i associate them more with the back end of summer. 

The most common visitor continued to be the dark-edged beefly but there were still not so many bees - the odd buff-tailed bumblebee queen or worker and a tree bumblebee. The one new occurrence was a common carder bee.  The hairy legs and long whiskers indicate that it is a male.

Common Carder Bee

Elsewhere locally there have been sightings of mining bees, a red mason bee and one very early green hairstreak.

Now largely recovered, I need to get out more.

Isn't it good when things just work?

A little bit of movement in the garden after April Fool's Day was the result of rising temperatures as a dry spell went into its second week.  It was a nice contrast to the wet and cool Spring last year, which affected many pollinators adversely.

On the 1st itself a peacock butterfly turned up and settled on the wooden 'path' near the decking but was easily disturbed.  The following day I spotted a bumblebee queen I assumed would be of the buff-tailed variety but turned out to be a tree bumblebee queen, the other sort turning up very shortly afterwards,  Then a beefly turned up and obligingly settled on a leaf.

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen

Dark-edged Beefly

Tree Bumblebee Queen

Interesting to note is that tree queens and a worker have showed up on two further occasions, suggesting they may be making a garden comeback after I stopped them nesting in the wall of the downstairs bedroom a good few years back.. 

Also the beefly has been seen every time I've been in the garden, but there have been no sign of any mining bees which they predate on.

But the most successful session occurred on Sunday...

My son and I have often spoken about the need to see mandarin ducks.  As they have been showing up in the Gateshead area we decided to have a go here.

The plan was to start at the hide near Thornley Woodlands Centre, where there were recent repeated sightings, so V&A drove over and we arrived just in time to see a family and several dogs being loaded into a car and were able to claim one of the limited parking spaces when they finally pulled out.

The hide didn't prove to be the answer but we did see a few other birds, and satisfyingly, the first orange tips I've seen this year.

Nuthatch

Chaffinch

Okay, a chaffinch doesn't seem like a big deal but the fact is I very rarely see them in my garden.

After an hour or so we had a debate whether to head for Saltwell Park, where there had been one sighting or chance our arm a bit by taking a wander along the Derwent.  We decided on the latter.

I had forgotten how long and steep the Riverside Trail down from Thornley Woods actually is, but eventually we made it down to Nine Arches Bridge, and started heading West.

But we had hardly gone two hundred yards when a couple of ducks were sighted scooting away from us and a couple of rowdy dogs.  And sure enough my son, who is eagle-eyed when it comes to bird spotting, confirmed that we had achieved our objective - a male and a female mandarin duck.

However the ducks, having been spooked, decided to hide away in the bushes on the far bank before we could get any more than distant shots of them. It was then a case of stick or twist - whether to sit it out and wait for them to come out again or head further up river after a third duck we had noticed.

We sat it out and eventually the couple ventured back into the water, allowing us to get the photos we were after as they paddled up and down.

Mandarin Ducks

The couple kept returning to an area just downstream where some driftwood and rubbish had accumulated on tree branches and the third bird, another male, turned up again leading to some confrontations as he tried to move in on the first male's territory.

Even better more orange tips and peacocks turned up while we ere waiting for action, for me the first photo opportunities this year..

Orange Tip

Peacock

There was also a comma and I thought I saw a small tortoiseshell - an experience that was confirmed when we made a last stop at Far Pasture on the way back. I was interested to see the peacocks in particular settling on the ears of the reeds and we wondered why they did so.  Probably they were just warming themselves.

I also got shots of some of the typical long-term residents at this location - gadwall and teal.

Gadwall

Teal

All in all, a very satisfying expedition!

A Slow Spring

We are already experiencing summery days but I have so far seen little of much interest.

About a week ago people started reporting occasional buff-tailed bumblebees and the odd butterfly.  I noticed three of the buff-tailed bumblebee queens in the garden on Monday and a couple more since but no sign yet of the red mason bees that live in the bug hotel and so far no butterflies at all.  Interestingly several records of the brimstone have been registered in the Darlington area and one as far North as Sunniside.  It would be great if one of those turned up on my travels

Again I'm regretting the lack of garlic mustard in the garden, once prolific and a food plant for the orange tip and green-veined white until I decided it was getting out of hand and uprooted virtually the whole lot.

Apart from an increase in blackbirds and robins, collar doves have been fairly frequent visitors, fleeing into the trees at the back if they caught my attention.

Collar Dove

I remember being excited when they first turned up as a mystery in our garden in Blyth in the early eighties, having only recently established a presence in the area.

A bike ride to Matfen a fortnight ago produced a sighting of a yellowhammer and hearing my first chiffchaff, which are now singing out all over the place as they do.  On several occasions I have also heard greenfinches in the tree tops but so far haven't seen one.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I did see was crawling around in the summer house rather than in the garden itself.

Green Lacewing

Nothing special and I have had lacewings before in the Spring, but I rather like them and daresay the trout in the Derwent like them too.

A Good Decision

While writing up my sightings in Spain, I had a couple of sightings South of the Derwent.

On my way to the Metrocentre, about half a dozen roe deer crossed the Derwent Walk a hundred yards ahead of me, including two fawns perhaps suggesting that they are becoming more numerous, as I suppose tends to happen with deer.

I couldn't believe my ears after collecting my first hearing aid at Shotley Bridge on Friday, but then I couldn't believe my eyes either when I saw this heron above the road on the way home:

Grey Heron

Now I'd heard of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" but a heron on a wire was total news to me.  I gather the fishing on the B6310 isn't much good these days unfortunately.

Lapwing

My plan on Sunday was to do a long cycle ride to the coast given the forecast of long hours of sunshine.  When the latter had not materialised by 10.30 am I decided to do a few jobs in the garden then spend a couple of hours at Shotton Pools near Northumberlandia, where there have been a few sightings recently.

The whole area was alive with skylarks singing their heads off and there were a good few lapwings around. 

A couple of cheps told me a tundra bean goose had been sighted with some pink-footed geese in the fields.  

I reckoned I managed to see it.  They'd all disappeared briefly and I was quite surprised when they showed up again that I could pick them out at distance with the naked eye, so I had a go at getting a group shot, with the impromptu intervention of a couple of hares. 

Tundra Bean Goose(l), Pink-footed Goose with hares

My bird handbook points out the elongated neck on the bean goose.  It should really show a black tip to the beak but maybe it's not apparent at several hundred yards range.

Avocets have been turning up in Northumberland for a fair while but today I counted six and there were probably a few more, so that was new.

Avocet

A very graceful bird...

On the way back to Northumberlandia, one or two of the lapwings were starting to rehearse their display flight and call.  I didn't manage to capture this example very well, but it was easier than trying to keep up with all the skylarks.

Lapwing rehearsal

One that I didn't catch up with was the white-fronted goose but I saw them once before at Loch Ken.  

All in all I had taken a good decision. 

Spain - Day 7 and Afterthoughts

Typical!  I completely forgot to mention that we ended Day 6 with a visit to the reservoir at Embalse de Calcono de Guarra in another attempt to catch up with the wallcreeper and one was actually spotted by the guides flying over the dam wall before disappearing totally from view as before.  I think only one other person saw it, which definitely wasn't me. Meanwhile a honey bee on a stone bench was looking decidedly unhealthy.

We were back there again early today but again drew a blank in terms of the wall creeper and the honey bee had died. But I did get as a good a view of the many swooping crag martins, which the video unfortunately doesn't do much justice to:

Crag Martins in flight

It was however as close a view of them as I have ever had.

It wasn't too long before we moved on, spotting another another short-toed treecreeper (how do you tell the difference?) near an ancient bridge before settling for lunch at Embalse de Calcono de Guarra.  Afterwards one or two continued to survey the cliffs for the missing wallcreeper while most took a (somewhat hazardous looking path) to see the local cave art, while I mainly foraged in the fields in the expectation of finding a few butterflies.

Actually it was the walkers who found some butterfly action rather than me, even though the crocuses were out.  What I did see was some more grasshoppers and several four-spot ladybirds, apparently common in the area.

Crocus

Grasshopper

Four-spot Ladybird

From there we went to Calle Baye to see the European tree of the year 2021 - a massive holm oak that dates to way back and was too wide to capture in less than three shots.

Part of the Holm Oak

Walking there we did spot a nice clouded yellow that was passing quickly through a field.

But from there it was back to Alquézar for a last ditch attempt on the largely missing wallcreeper.

Unfortunately want we got was more of what we already had, mainly griffon vulture, blue rock thrushes, and a black redstart.  The main excitement was caused by some egyptian vultures flying over the capella, not however for me as I saw them in France. 

Still perpetually surveying the capella and surrounds, I was quietly delighted when a chough landed on the roofing and showed really well:

Red-billed Chough

It was the best view of a chough I've ever had.

As everyone was thinking about packing up, there was a last minute mystery.  I thought I saw another blue rock thrush heading towards a large fissure in the rock face - except that it clearly had russet red underparts.  It settled briefly then flattered around a bit before disappearing into the fissure.

The only possibility I could think of was common rock thrush, which is listed as being a passage bird in the area.  However our guides thought they would all still be in Africa.  With the group already making it's way back to the vans there was no opportunity to wait around for more action.  It'll have to remain as 'unidentified.'

Overall Reflections

I've counted up and reckon I've seen 16 new species of bird, 2 new species of bee and 1 new moth so overall a great success and that excludes Dupont's Lark (heard) - a great experience and the session at the vulture feeding added a sense of theatre.  The holiday held plenty of interest without me feeling overloaded (once I'd got over the jetlag.)  Even though I only saw the wallcreeper at distance, it counts. The general view was the lack of further sightings was just down to rotten luck.

Also I can say that I learned a good deal about using my newish camera, especially for long distant shots.

However the trip confirmed my growing opinion that I'm not a great birdwatcher.  I just don't see things well and in particular found the larks hard to spot. My equipment isn't really up to scratch either but I'm not keen on lugging a scope and a mirrorless camera with a huge lens around with me all of the time.

I think I should probably stick with what I seem to be best at - namely butterflies and bees and save the birds for the winter when there are few insects and for any oddities turning up in the area.