Wednesday 18th July

Since getting back from Bulgaria, I have been out on a couple of bike rides. Two weeks back Route14 had plenty of speckled wood, meadow brown and ringlet but I couldn't much be bothered with them after the surfeit of species in Bulgaria.  And on a ride to Corbridge, there was a nice example of a comma as the peleton passed by.

I did go to a meeting of the local Butterfly Conservation Group.  It seems the small copper has had a particularly good year here, which is interesting since I've only seen a couple.  There was also a chap who has seen some aberrant colouration on a small heath and small tortoiseshell, whereby normal colouration is partly replaced by white, like a form of albinism. I forgot the precise name for the condition.

Marsh Tit?

I had seen nothing interesting on the birds front until yesterday morning, when what appeared to be a willow or a marsh tit suddenly appeared in the plum tree, trying to get to the peanut feeder. Unfortunately, the one shot I got of it doesn't help a great deal in further identification and it didn't hang around, put off I suspect by other visitors.  I've noted before that willow tits in particular are easily put off by the presence of other birds, even blue tits.

In this case, however, it was more likely to have been a marsh tit as the habitat is predominantly woodland rather than the damp marshy areas that willow tits frequent.