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