Saturday 29th June

Ringlet

The week just gone has been very rewarding in terms of nature spotting.

On Wednesday I took advantage of being in Northumberland to make a late afternoon diversion to Cresswell Pond.  Striking out along a path I erroneously thought would lead to the bird hide, I was soon seeing painted ladies and red admirals, together with a few speckled wood and a single ringlet, the first I have seen this summer.

Eventually finding the right way to the hide, the sightings continued and there was briefly half a dozen painted ladies visible at the same time.  Maybe it's going to be a painted lady year?

Faded Lady

I noticed that one or two of them had much lighter colouring on the upper forewing and vaguely wondered about an obscure variation but I think in fact it was just the result of wear. They were all of a large size.  In the end the totals were 25 painted ladies and 13 red admirals but zero peacocks.

Quite a lot of bird life was visible around the pond but the main thing that caught my eye was a couple of avocets preening themselves amongst a distant group of gulls.  They have recently worked their way up the East coast and have been seen a few locations recently.  I was also pleased to identify a few sedge warblers buzzing around the bushes as well as a few singing reed buntings.

Avocets (2) on left of sand bank

Walking back to the car along the dunes, I noticed that there were some static brown birds I couldn't readily

Linnet

decide on.  It turned out they were female linnets as was confirmed when a male posed nicely on the fence at the end of the field.

Yestreday I decided to go along on the U3A walk to the Spetchells, hoping to see some common blues. There were a couple of bonuses when I saw a grey wagtail cycling to the meeting place and my first meadow brown of the year as we ambled along the banks of the river.

There were good numbers of ringlet but once up the chalk hills, it took a while before some common blues turned up on bank of scrub sloping down into the sunshine.  There were also some small skippers, a couple more meadow browns and also a number of burnet moths.

Meadow Brown

Common Blue

Small Skipper

Here issues of identification started to creep in as the markings on the skipper were quite similar to that of a large skipper.  I don't think anyone was clued in about the differences between the six spot and five spot burnet moths. I checked one at close quarters and to my eye it had four wing spots.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo that was clear enough to settle the matter.

We also found quite a nice cluster of  spotted purple orchids. On the way back down speckled wood were about, including one couple that were mating.

Orchids

Saturday 22nd June

Baby blue tits and some baby great tits have been dominating the scene in the garden, with occasional visits from woodpeckers of either gender and a greenfinch again visiting the niger seed feeder.

There hasn't been a reappearance of the marsh tits since the heavy rain last week.  I coudn't replace the fatballs they seem to like and the ones I did use were of superior quality, attracting bigger numbers.  I sense

Red Admiral on horse dung

that one or both of these factors have put the marsh tits off for the time being.

On Monday I took a long bike ride to Fenwick Pit via Ponteland and back via Percy Main.  Red admirals appeared at various points on the route, though never more than two at once.  There were no peacocks though, reinforcing my developing idea that a good year for one might be less good for the other.

At Fenwick Pit itself there was a very large painted lady and five more to my surprise by the track just North of the Shiremoor bypass.

Painted Lady at Fenwick Pit

Yesterday I took my first trip to the Havannah Nature Reserve since visiting the former drift mine there in 1974.  I immediately took to it, liking the variety of paths it is possible to follow through woods and undergrowth and the level of management which ensured both tidiness and strong vegetation. 

I don't know if it is something to do with the proximity to the airport but birds there seem to be quite tame.  Even though there are no feeders I spotted two willow (presumably) tits moving through the bushes, as well as a blackcap, a couple of willow warblers, a pair of bullfinches and a few long-tailed tits.

My main purpose in visiting was to see where reports of purple hairstreak sightings last year may exactly have come from.  Although there were relatively few mature oak trees, there are a number of immature ones so I still wasn't sure where to look when I come back.

There were however a couple of great areas for butterflies and I saw 15 speckled wood, 10 small heath and, interestingly, another seven painted ladies that were equally as large as the ones I saw on Monday.  I suppose that the size - positively massive compared to the ones I saw in Cyprus in April - suggests that they have overwintered but maybe it will be a painted lady summer. Also spotted were two large whites, one green-veined white and a single red admiral.

Small Heath

Speckled Wood

Although I scanned the heathland area quite carefully, meadow brown and dingy skipper were not seen.  Neither was common blue, in spite of an abundance of bird's foot trefoil.

One nice surprise near a ditch was a large brown dragonfly, which I have proudly identified as a male four-spotted chaser.

Four-spotted Chaser

Friday 14th June

Large White

Last Sunday I decided on an ultra slow bike ride along the Tyne focussing on a bit of grassland heath near Newburn.  The idea was hopefully to see some small heaths and small coppers before the fine weather disappeared. It was a total failure as, apart from a quick flash of a speckled wood while careering downhill from Greenside, no brown butterfly was seen.  This is a bit concerning as over 100 small heaths were seen in the area at the same time last year, and seems to indicate that the wet and cool weather this summer so far is
going to mean a bad year for butterflies.

All I saw by the river was a few isolated whites and the only pleasing thing was that one of them settled and could be identified as a large white.  This time there were no orange
tips.

Things have been much more interesting in the garden and, after a few fleeting sightings, marsh tits have started to visit the feeders in groups. One one occasion I was able to watch them from about three yards away while pulling twitch grass out of the lawn..  This more than confirms the confident but brief sightings I reported last year.

Marsh Tits

It is also the season for baby birds.  Blue tits and on one occasion great tits have chosen my plum tree as a feeding station for their young. There seems to be a very healthy hatch of blue tits. Some have learned to take from the peanut feeder but one in particular found it hard to hang on to and fell straight off.

Baby Blue Tits

The jackdaws I thought were nesting next door have clearly been successful and there is now the interesting spectacle of a couple of juvenile jackdaws playing games around the decking.  Apart from chasing each other round in a form of musical patio furniture, they are compulsively trying to pick things up and wonder off with them.  A particular favourite is a fallen foxglove flower, which then gets dragged around to no evident purpose.

Juvenile Jackdaws

Thursday 6th June

A recent run of mixed weather has somewhat curtailed nature activities over the past couple of weeks.

Meadow Pipit

Typical was last Friday's Naturewatch trip to Trow Point and Marsden Rock, when the last leg at the local quarry was cancelled after continuous drizzle meant that there was little chance of seeing butterflies or many flowers.  The main part at Trow Point was a geology session, though I did get a nice photo of a meadow pipit advertising the area.

At Marsden Rock there was a large colony of seabirds, from which we managed to pick out a number of razorbills.  I don't think we quite answered the question whether there were any guillemots among them.  My guess was that there had to be.

Yesterday I took the train to Haltwhistle and rode back along cycle track 72, passing Vindolanda then following the Stanegate road down from the hills south of the military
road.  I had hoped there might have been some interesting butterflies around but again it turned out duller than forecast and there was just a few isolated whites.

A view from the Stanegate road

There were several curlews and a couple of grey wagtails in flight and a lot of skylarks to be heard.  To be honest, I was a bit surprised that the scenery was not as wild as I was expecting.

I saw a yellowhammer by the Northumberland showground then, just after passing Bywell was wondering while looking for somewhere to rest why I hadn't seen any orange tips. When I did stop, the sun came out and I soon saw four one after the other.