Madeira Day 4

Today I decided to do a walk along the Levada do Norte in the hope of extending my butterfly sightings in the forests North of Cabo Girao.

The trail led me along a narrow path with a mini levada past and through several gardens with some stunning flowers.  It struck me that they were just as interesting as anything I'd seen at the Tropical Gardens yesterday, so here are some examples.  I'm no expert on flowers so no guarantees as to the accuracy of the attempted approximate identifications.

(Rough?) Poppy	Wood Sorrel?
Babiana (genus)	A Hullwort

All improvement suggestions welcome...

Having missed an early red admiral, I joined the Levada do Norte at the point where it goes through a tunnel under the motorway (torch essential!) and set forth slowly in a Northerly direction.  The recommended walk from the hotel was about six miles return but, anxious to reach woodland, I reckon I did about double that.

I certainly saw a greater number of butterflies than on the Butterfly Tour but apart from the inevitable speckled woods, none of them settled for more than a few seconds.  The eventual count was:-

Painted Lady - 1

Red Admiral - 2

Clouded Yellow - 4

Small White - 6

Speckled Wood - 200 (estimated)

Of these only the painted lady was the only one that graced the camera lens.  I must admit that I was pleased to see one so early in the year even if it wasn't a great shot.

Painted Lady

I decided on a change of tactics for this walk and started lining up the targets using the LCD screen rather than the viewfinder.  It then seemed easier to pick out the intended subjects, including the following insects:

Bent-lined Carpet Moth

Indian Milkweed Bug

Again I'm grateful for extra help from iNaturalist on these. There were also three or four larger moths I wasn't able to identify and didn't settle.

Also sighted on the way out near Campanario was a blackcap and on the way back and slightly further North a group of grey wagtails.  I had hoped they'd turn out to be yellow wagtails thinking they would be the local equivalent but apparently not the case.

Grey Wagtail

As for the forests further North towards the picnic area, they produced precisely nothing except more speckled wood.  However they were predominantly pine and palm trees.  You probably would have to go a good deal further to find more Lauressilva forest.

Madeira Day 3

This was the day that I had allocated to visit the Biological Gardens and the Monte Palace Tropical Garden at Monte north of Funchal Centre. In the event, transport complications and lack of time meant I only went to the latter, which a German guy on yesterday's Butterfly Tour suggested would be better for butterflies.

Having failed to find the relevant bus stop and missed the hourly bus connection to the Tropical Garden I decided to take the cable car.  It cost more time and money but I thought well worth it as it offered good views over the whole area.  The cable car passes quite close over the houses whose owners can do nothing about it if a certain overhead distance is observed. Perhaps in protest, one man immediately below was tending his garden completely naked, provoking an ecstatic reaction from an Asian lady in the same car as me.

Arriving at the garden, I headed straight at the Lauressilva trees optimistically hoping for another Cleopatra but the downward path of broken grey stone was quite tricky and so spent most of the time looking at my own feet.

I wasn't overall quite sure what to make of the Tropical Garden.  It's certainly informative and well-resourced with plenty of trees and flowers but I felt overall a bit unnatural and disappointing.  It certainly didn't produce any interesting butterflies as speckled woods were all I saw.

One thing I started to notice on them though is the variation of the depth of background colour of the forewing.  In this example, it is particularly dark:

Speckled Wood

I guess the lighter versions have been on the wing longer.

As throughout the rest of my stay in Madeira, the only bees seen were buff-tailed bumblebees and honey bees.  Perhaps more appropriate to the tropical theme was this oriental darter, doing its best  to imitate a twig.

Oriental Darter

Otherwise it all had a bit of a zoo-like feel.  There was a few ponds in the oriental garden, one with masses of koi carp and another with masses of croaking frogs.

Koi Carp

Croaking Frogs

A big hit with the visitors was this small pond full of flamingos, amusingly tossing their heads almost in synchrony as they expressed apparent verbal displeasure.

Flamingos

Presumably they've had their wings clipped to prevent them from flying away.

More interesting was another small pond containing a couple of ducks I couldn't recognise. These are wood ducks, a rare American migrant to Madeira and perhaps therefore also not entirely there by choice.

Male Wood Duck

Just before leaving I was reminded of reading that robins abroad are much shier than in the UK when this wee one turned up so close I could almost have caught it.

Robin

While waiting 30 minutes for the service bus back to Funchal, I did see a white butterfly at distance.  As the Madeiran Large White is extinct and the African migrant is a rarity, I'm 98% certain it must have been a small white.

As if by habit I made again for the Municipal Garden.  Once again the Monarch was in evidence except at this time there were at least four of them.  From time to time they performed the speckled wood habit of spiralling aggressively upwards, this time flying around to the background noise of a prolonged religious ceremony.

Monarchs

And just to prove they're not always completely elusive, I snapped a buff-tailed bumblebee on a nice flower

Buff-tailed Bumblebee

Madeira Day 2

The next morning was free of firm commitments so I decided with some reluctance to visit the local tourist trap, the Cabo Girao Miradourou  At 589m above sea level, the cliff is reckoned to be the highest in Europe.  As I suspected it is largely a place for taking selfies and admiring the views detailed in the link above though possibly not bad value at five euros a pop given the prices at other tourist hotspots.

However I did manage one interesting sighting.  The wall lizards were already active on a rock just below the glass platform and in there among them were some birds I though might be rock sparrows.  I managed to get a few shots which turned out to be of island canaries, a different species to the atlantic canary seen yesterday and not obvious songsters.

Island Canary (and cactus)

Island Canary - front view

I had the notion that they might be hunting baby lizards as I understand some other small birds do but AI on the subject was not conclusive.

I also thought I might have seen at distance a bee that wasn't a buff-tailed bumblebee or a honey bee but it proved to be an old familiar - the common drone fly.

Common Drone Fly

This species was encountered on a number of subsequent occasions.

In the afternoon I was on a butterfly tour which proved to be a decided mixed bag in that not very much was seen but a couple of key endemic species did turn up.  

I had been previously warned that an untypically cold and wet winter and early spring meant that sightings had for a while been non-existent and were only just starting to pick up.

We headed West from Cabo Girao and the first spot was a riverside site where nothing turned up of note - no expected small whites, just a few more clouded yellow, the ubiquitous speckled woods and the odd red admiral. Plus at one point the tour leader had a mini mining bee on his finger.

He also noted that he thought the local goat had taken a dislike to him, but it seemed friendly enough to me:

Goat

I thought I might have seen a blue in flight but this couldn't be confirmed.

We then moved on to a levada that headed North towards the Fanal Lauressilva Forest, which is where it got interesting.

Here we encountered the Madeiran Speckled Wood, all the others seen up to then being the mainland European version.  The Madeiran Speckled Wood is a larger butterfly with different markings that are less precise on the underwing.  One of them landed in front of us but only briefly and once again I missed the shot, trying to focus through the viewfinder.

We were now in the area where the environment was favourable for the Madeiran Cleopatra.  In Madeira they actually call it Madeiran Brimstone, though my understanding is that the powers that be think brimstone and cleopatra are identifiably separate species. Prospects of seeing one were reckoned to be extremely small this year, although they had been sighted once or twice in the few days before my visit.  My hopes of bettering a brief sighting of a Cleopatra in France were not high.

Well in fact one did flutter down right in front of where I was walking.  It didn't settle but flew away along the treeline of the levada.  Realising that there was no other option, I attempted a speculative video, hoping to catch its path along the trees:-

Clearly that didn't work but if you watch carefully or stop the video around the five - six second mark you can see a butterfly shaped object against the skyline. This is not a UFO!  It is in fact - and you'll have to take my word for it - the Madeiran Brimstone (aka Madeiran Cleopatra.) 

As this was the butterfly I was keenest to see I was in favour of hanging around for a repeat performance, but we were duly ushered back to the van, where ironically the driver, also a Naturalist, had seen another iconic species, the Indian Red Admiral  - which of course the Madeirans call something different i.e. Macaronesian Red Admiral.

All our party got on the way back was more views of the Madeiran firecrests and chaffinches, one of which I did manage get a passable image of.

Madeiran Chaffinch

You can notice the greenish tinges not found on UK chaffinches.  This bird has the reputation of being exceptionally tame to the point of visiting restaurant tables in search of titbits.

We moved on to a nearby woodland site where the Madeiran Speckled Wood apparently breeds. On arrival we did see a few rising up into the trees but on foraging around nothing but a wild pussy cat.  I eventually sat down at a picnic table where it was a firecrest rather than a chaffinch that made bold approaches for possible handouts.

This area used to be home to the Madeiran Large White, recently officially declared to be extinct.

Madeira Day 1

This year's attempt to hasten the arrival of Spring was a holiday in Madeira from 30th March to 6th April. It was fortunate that I planned for the whole week as the original Day 1 turned into Day 0 after heavy winds forced a detour and overnight stay in Fuertaventura (Canary Islands) only arriving at my designated hotel one day late at 4.00 pm. There was just time for a quick walk to find a speckled wood butterfly - which turned to be the first of several hundred during the week.

Fortunately I had nothing planned until a birdwatching tour the next day.

This required getting up at dawn to catch the bus to Funchal.  I don't really do sunrises and scenery but the view over Cabo Girao was quite impressive.

Madeiran Sunrise

After a quick breakfast I had time to take a quick look in the Municipal Park, where I was impressed by the brightly-coloured flowers produced overhead by some of the trees.  There was also a waterfall catching the low sun to show a small rainbow. 

Colourful Tree

Waterfall

The birdwatching took place to the East of Funchal.  On the coast nearby we found several of the noted trocaz pigeons, the nearest of which never fully emerged from the cacti, and a sample of the local kestrels.

Trocaz Pigeon

Kestrel

However the star turn was this Atlantic Canary, singing its heart out:

Atlantic Canary

Just a pity I thought it wasn't going to!.. Apparently this is the forerunner of the domesticated canary.

A brief visit to a levada near Camacha produced a good number of madeiran firecrest sightings as well as some madeiran chaffinches.

Firecrest

On some examples the crest on the Madeiran version is quite spectacular.  Gere you can't see it at all.

Then it was back to a rugged piece of coast near Canico where I was pleased to get my first sighting of a clouded yellow this year.

Clouded Yellow

This was also a known location for spectacled warbler, which I was keen to see as I only heard them on  a previous trip to France in 2015  Unfortunately it proved to be tricky as they were plentiful but weaving in and out of the undergrowth and I was cursing myself for not having brought the lens hood for my camera as it was hard to focus in the bright and windy conditions.  After some patience (others' as well as my own) I did manage to get a fairly acceptable shot.

Spectacled Warbler

You can actually see it has a bit of nesting material in its mouth.

There was also a brief distant sighting of bertholets pipit - another first for me - as well as of a couple of hoopoe.

After the tour I got dropped off at the Parque de Santa Catarina on the promise of a sedge warbler on the island, for which however I had no interest.  By now the wall lizards were out and about and there were a couple of the larger examples quickly apparent as soon as I reached the lake.

Wall Lizards

The slightly smaller one however is technically still a juvenile as it retains a stripe on the upper body.

I was to learn in coming days that the appearance of wall lizards signifies that butterflies may be around.  Just after I saw them I noticed that a monarch butterfly - one of my key targets - was fluttering past the island on the left hand side of the lake.  Anyway I decided (rather coolly, I thought) to snap the lizards and meet the monarch when it reached the other side of the lake.

This duly occurred but it refused to settle until I pursued it into a children's play park, when it did settle high up in a bush. I focused on the exact branch and took the shots, only to find later that they did not show the butterfly.  No idea what happened there.  The only other thing I saw on going round the lake was a bunch of very lazy muscovy ducks snoozing under a tree.

Muscovy Ducks

I then decided to return to the Municipal Garden as I'd noted that the wee restaurant had scabbard fish on the menu.  There was some time to sit around and observe during which I spotted a red admiral and this interesting looking hoverfly - later identified on iNaturalist as an epauletted hoverfly

Epauletted Hoverfly

The even better surprise came when another monarch turned up and posed reliably on a flower bed near some teenage girls.

Monarch - upperwing

Monarch - underwing

Overall, a pretty successful day.

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..."

No surprises

In terms of rarities, you wouldn't say too much has turned up in the North East this year and so it has been with my own sightings.

I was pleased to see that the siskins have continued to appear in the garden so that I managed to get a better picture of the pair.

Siskins

However an instant drop in temperature to -4C the night after the butterfly appeared and a continuing chilly and wet spell has ruled out further butterfly sightings.

Last Sunday I met with J&J at Nosterfield Nature Reserve in North Yorkshire where we saw a number of birds but nothing to get excited about.  Here's a summary of the results, not necessarily in the order seen:

Cormorant et al	Curlew
Shoveler	Lapwing
Teal	Tufted Duck

Wigeon

However it was J who arguably made the best sightings, first discovering a flock of what we worked out were linnets in a tree and then finding a beetle.  Unlike another lady walker, I made nothing of it and didn't get the camera out.  Later I realised I had just seen something quite uncommon :- a bloody-nosed beetle.

Bloody-nosed Beetle Sign

Apparently this was the earliest in the year that one has been seen there...

Stirrings of Spring...

After several weeks of monsoon conditions, there have been several bright and warmer days with even some sunshine.

Not really to do with this has been the appearance of both male and female siskins in the garden.

A siskin and part of a siskin

Not a rare bird and sighted often locally but this is literally the first time I've found them in my garden here, perhaps because there are no conifers in the area apart from a few hedges.  In Dumfries they were regular visitors. Interesting that they've gone for the sunflower hearts and not the peanut feeder nearby.

I was thinking that I hadn't heard a greenfinch singing for ages and they too have started appearing.  There was one singing in a high tree when I set off down Hookergate Lane, then possibly more in a tree by some houses by the old Post Office on Sunday.  I tried to take a photo on my phone but it didn't work.

One thing I didn't expect on the same day was to get a close up of a goldfinch.

Goldfinch

Unfortunately it was dead but didn't appear to have been bitten so maybe flew into something.

However the clearest sign of Spring came yesterday when temperatures approached 15C and I made my first sighting of a butterfly this year.  It was clearly sunning itself.

Peacock

I suspect this may be the first sighting of butterfly in a garden on the facebook pages I visit, although small tortoiseshells have been spotted near Blanchland.  I've yet to see a bumblebee queen though I'm sure they must be about.