A Minor Breakthrough

Things have been pretty quiet still - until yesterday.

Last week I had some time on the way back from Matfen on a bike ride, so I did a diversion via Whittle Dene Reservoir in the hope of seeing a little owl, though the few minutes I spent there meant there was little realistic chance of success.  I spent longer at Wylam to check for early run salmon at the fish pass but the river was full and the current possibly too strong for them to take it on.

Then yesterday i took advantage of the next spell of reasonable weather to follow up reported sightings of a slavonian grebe at Killingworth Lake.  As ever there was plenty of activity at the car park end where the ducks get fed and as I moved round anticlockwise I got good sightings of tufted duck (always a favourite) and goldeneye (one single male and a pair) and eventually a great-crested grebe.

Tufted Duck

Great Crested Grebe

Male and female Goldeneye

Eventually, I got to the far end of the lake where the slavonian grebe was said to be, only to be told by a twitcher that I'd missed it by about two minutes...

So I started foraging along the bankside, only to find a couple of greylag geese sailing along.

Greylag Goose

Then, on doubling back to where it had been first seen, there it was again! It seemed perfectly at ease and at times came within a few yards of the bank where we were taking repeated photos, paddling strongly and diving now and again for tiddlers.  It wasn't a first sighting as we encountered several breeding on a loch near Findhorn when I was there with V&A - but I certainly would not have expected to see one at Killingworth Lake. I was also surprised that there was only one of them and still in winter plumage.

Slavonian Grebe...

...in close-up

The above shots were taken when it got close to.  You can even see the drops of water on its back from diving.

Buoyed by success, I decided to try my luck at Clara Vale hide, where a green woodpecker had been seen a few days back.  A young lad was there already and said that though he had occasionally seen the green woodpecker, it had been an extremely quiet day with no notable sightings.

But as he was speaking, he caught a partial view of a little egret the other side of the island. Sure enough, it emerged briefly to allow a few photos before being frightened off, probably by some playing squirrels.

Little Egret

I think you can just about still see a fish in its beak.

Then it began to rain and we downed tools.

Meanwhile, there have been sightings of a white-tailed eagle at East Chevington. I ignored them at first, thinking it was probably a juvenile seeking territory and would move on quickly.  However it seems it has stayed on for at least a few days...

All Quiet

It's noticeable that I haven't posted much recently, for the very good reason that not much has been happening.  Continuing wet weather spells have made going out looking for birds on spec unattractive. Usually there are one or two winter rarities turning up in the North East and staying around, but this year not very much at all is getting reported - a couple of fleeting appearances of little auk flocks at least capturing my interest briefly.

I had hoped to see a few waxwings sometime but it's clear there hasn't been a major irruption this year and for the most only single birds have been reported.  Apparently there haven't been any hawfinches either, except a good deal further South.

Anyway I participated in the Big Garden Birdwatch again this year. The scores were:  Blue tit 5, long-tailed tit 5, 3 each for jackdaw, wood pigeon and collar dove, 2 for coal tit, great tit, nuthatch and bullfinch and just 1 for robin, blackbird and dunnock.  There were no sparrows or starlings, which is mostly the case.

I was pleased with the five long-tailed tits, as they've only appeared sporadically this year and a bit surprised that coal tit didn't outnumber great tit, which it might have done on any other day.  An odd number of collar doves was interesting, since I invariably see them in pairs. 

This was probably the most successful Big Garden Birdwatch I've had here, as in the past they've produced few simultaneous sightings.

Today I got out for only the second lengthy bike ride this year, as the rainy day forecast did not materialise.  As a first sign of better times, I saw my first few clumps of snowdrops this year and later a whole bank of them - as well catching a rare hour of sunshine.

Snowdrops

A One Off...

The weather since New Year has discouraged excursions and cycle trips except for the most hardy.

With some reluctance and in need of exercise, I decided to take a walk in Chopwell Woods on Monday afternoon in freezing but sunny conditions.  I always expect the most common form of animal to be seen in Chopwell Woods is the domesticated wolf, and fear that I won't see anything like the amount of things I would see in the garden anyway.  On Monday, this comprised blue tit, great tit, coal tit, long-tailed tit, sparrow, chaffinch, bullfinch (3) and nuthatch as well as robin and blackbird.

This fear was largely fulfilled - just a few robins and tits around until I noticed an area near Victoria Garesfield where some birds were advancing from a patch of evergreens to drink in a small stream that hadn't frozen.

Some distance away using a lot of zoom, it turned out that one of the birds showing flashes of red turned out not to be a robin, but a redwing.

Redwing

Now this wasn't really a one-off as it's clear from what others have been posting that there is an influx of redwing in the area just now.

However, for me it was the first redwing I have seen since I relocated to the North East nearly eight years ago, so for me a definite landmark that made the whole walk worthwhile.

If I'd actually been looking for Redwing, Chopwell Woods isn't where I would have started.

A Matter of Luck

So here we are dhortly before the solstice and there are still one or two flowers just about in bloom in the garden.

Snapdragon...

... or antirrinhum?

Around the corner a couple of other plants are growing new leaves as if it was already Spring in spite of a sudden frost early this morning.

Rumours of a growing colony of snow buntings on The Links at Whitley Bay proved to much for me to resist and today I headed for the suspect area, barely 300 yards from the student flat I was in at 2 Davison Avenue 50 years ago.  As many as 20 had been showing up consistently for over a week, presumably feeding on grass seed.

I moved down from Briardene Car Park in observation mode but at first it looked like oystercatcher and redshanks were the ones harvesting the seeds.

Oystercatchers

Redshanks

In the end it was an easy job to find the snow buntings, as there was a couple of people I know who were already watching them.

Snow Buntings en groupe

Snow Bunting close-up

Overall we counted around 15.

Of course this wasn't really great luck.  Now settled it is quite likely they will stay in the area until early

Spring, as happened a few years back when some stayed over at St Mary's Island.  But having missed them twice at Seaton Sluice a couple of months back, it felt like a success.

The whole process can't have taken more than about 30 minutes so I decided to go for broke and check out reports of a lone black redstart down the road at Cullercoats.

This was a bit more of a 'needle in a haystack' task as I didn't have a precise idea of their location. I decided to investigate the bay south of the Lifeboat Station, hoping that it wouldn't be put off by the local restrictions:

You have been warned!

This tactic however proved fruitless and I was starting to feel cold and in need of coffee when, coming off a breakwater and stopping to watch a pied wagtail, I noticed another plausible area to the North of the prohibited worms and thought I made out the shape of a bloke clambering over the rocks with a camera.

A quick view through the telephoto lens confirmed this to be correct - so obviously I had to take a walk along.  The bloke had set up his camera to focus on a nearby rock, obviously hoping the bird would come and pose.  It didn't but I thought I momentarily saw a black redstart moving to his right. Shortly afterwards, another chap turned up and said "Have you seen it?" then confirmed this was the right place.

Ultimately the guy with the camera pointed it out on a small rock, pleasing the non-bird watchers who had turned up to ask what we were looking at.  I think it was a female, like the one I saw at Tynemouth in 2020.

Black Redstart

Obviously this was the result of sheer luck of the kind I had a run of a while back but seems to have deserted me lately.  Hopefully it has changed.  It also goes to prove the maxim I share with one of the lady spectators today - don't look for the bird, look for men (and sometimes women) with huge cameras!

A Quiet Period

I haven't posted for some time for the simple reason that I haven't been seeing anything I felt worth reporting.

Partly I haven't made the effort.  There have been a few potential sightings at the coast. Having missed them at Seaton Sluice, an increasing number of snow buntings have appeared on the links at Whitley Bay near where I once lived, as have couple of black redstarts at Cullercoats.  But I have seen both species before and the supposed 'rarities' that occasionally turn up were restricted to known occasional visitors (green-winged teal, American wigeon) and for me unexciting seabirds, though I was briefly tempted by a report of some little auk somewhere.

I was keeping an eye out for any waxwings appearing and there were a small number at North Shields last week that were not expected to linger.  It seems too late and too warm to expect a major irruption.

On my travels the most interesting thing I saw was a pair of goosander on the Derwent near Swalwell.

I was however pleased to note last week the return of long-tailed tits on the suet balls I started to put out when the first minor frost appeared.

Some long-tailed tits

More long-tailed tits

It's possible to get seven or so visiting the same feeder.

Today though, they were outdone by an invasion of the more common members of the tit family, which actually continued for perhaps 15 minutes:

Blue, great and coal tits

Tits are almost always the most common visitors to the garden. This seemed to a case of taking advantage of the lull before the latest forecast storm moves in. 

It'll be interesting to see if there are any more rare visitors to the garden over the coming weeks.

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