Tuesday 31st March

A week ago today I got out for a bike ride from Matfen to Bellingham (or Wark as it turned out) not realising that driving in order to take exercise would shortly be expressly forbidden.

Almost as soon as I left Matfen, there was a nice view of a kestrel.  On the way up to Ryal a few butterflies were settling on some yellow colt's foot type flowers and I managed to identify my first small tortoiseshell of the year.  There were several other butterflies around during the rest of week, even on the cooler days, including in the garden, but all were on the wing and frustratingly impossible to identify positively.

Heading towards the moors it was actually possible to observe rather than just hear some skylarks in action and in the wooded areas chiffchaffs were now established and singing strongly. Somewhere around Throckrington some meadow pipits appeared and I briefly saw a falcon with a red chest and pointed wings in flight.  Not a good sighting, but I reckoned it was probably a male merlin - they like meadow pipits!

I decided to return by a slightly less arduous route but it was nice to see a yellowhammer in the hedgerows on the way back to Matfen - and an incidental buzzard.

A walk round Chopwell Woods a couple of days afterwards produced nothing but a robin begging for scraps and a pair of unidentified spiralling butterflies, so on Saturday I took the bike along the Tyne from Wylam. There were a pair of tufted ducks and a pair of wigeon on Bardley Pond - not bad for a smallish venue.

Going along the river was pleasant if not very eventful, but I did catch sight of some dozen or so ducks heading upstream past Ryton Golf Course.  Unfortunately the path was narrow and there were a lot of people around making it inadvisable to stop at the current time and the view was party obstructed by tree branches and twigs. I reckoned they might be goosanders, but if so it was a little strange as they all had brown beaks and so must have been females.

Going past the new housing towards Blaydon, there was a smart-looking great-crested grebe, which took me a bit by surprise as I've only seen them on lakes before.

Another legal cycle trip to Matfen produced little apart from lots of singing skylarks - and another stray buzzard.

I managed to get through all of this without getting a decent wildlife photo.  But I did take one of this green fly on the rather mucky window of my summerhouse. I'm not sure what it is but it reminded me of a fishing fly called Greenwell's Glory, meaning it might be some kind of olive - or maybe a lacewing?

Mystery green fly

Monday 23rd March

In spite of the increasing threat of the evil coronavirus I have managed a couple of worthwhile trips out.

Lapwing

The next Naturewatch trip (cancelled) would have been to St Mary's Island so I decided to take a lone bike run there anyway via Holywell Dene, as I had never visited the Dene before.  In fact the best sighting proved to be a number of lapwings on the edge of some flooded land at East Holywell. Unfortunately they weren't displaying.

Just a few minutes later a volley of long-tailed tits landed in a hedgerow, making me realise that they aren't turning up in large numbers in the garden any more.  Instead of the lightning mobhanded visits over the winter, they are now turning up in ones and twos and staying rather longer.

There was a tree sparrow on the way out of the Dene near Seaton Sluice but at St Mary's Island the tide was high, so that there wasn't much to see apart from a few cormorants hanging out to dry. I suspect in any case that walking through the Dene would be more productive as the cycle track doesn't follow the burn very closely.

A couple of days later I was gazing out of the bedroom window when a chiffchaff turned up in the silver birches behind the garden.  Of course both camera and mobile phone were sitting downstairs.  They were also out of reach when a raiding grey squirrel came right up to the back doors and took a drink from the old sink that used to serve as a herb garden.

On Saturday, I decided to visit the quiet (n.b. self-isolation now a priority) Linton Lane Reserve in Northumberland and was really quite impressed with the variety of ducks that turned up on the two ponds, including tufted duck, wigeon and male and female pochard as well as little grebe, great-crested grebe, cormorant and teal.  I was particularly pleased with the pochard, as I haven't recorded seeing one for seven years!

Male Pochard

Tufted Ducks

Wigeon

Reed Bunting

I was just about to decide I had exhausted what was on offer when I noticed that reed buntings were turning up to feed, which they did on several occasions.  Then another chiffchaff (possibly two) occurred in the trees to the right.  Having again missed the photo opportunity on two or three occasions, I waited about three quarters of an hour for a reappearance, which didn't materialise...

Although it was boggy and the Eastern hide had been seriously vandalised, I liked the Linton Lane ponds.  While quite productive, they are narrow enough to allow reasonably easy identification of the birds, a contrast to some venues where your eyesight and binoculars are left struggling to pick up vague shapes half a mile away.

Then yesterday I got another surprise when, in spite of the cool temperature, the first peacock of the year landed on my garden fence.  This time I did at least have my mobile phone at the ready!

Peacock

Saturday 14th March

After various delays and some help on location from a fellow birdwatcher, I made a successful second attempt to track down the Middleton crane.

On the way down to the river, all I spotted was a good cluster of tree sparrows in the hedgerow to add to the heard but not seen skylarks above.

After scouring around the fields along the Wansbeck to the West of the village, I turned tail and headed east along the North bank,  A few hundred yards along from the wooden bridge there was what looked like an old wildfowling area on the other side of the river.  I thought I heard a sort of croaking noise from the area and was saying something aloud about not knowing what a crane's call was like when it was flushed out from behind the reeds and flew off further East at some speed.

Unfortunately it settled at some way away from the far bank so that after a good initial view, I could only get a couple of distant shots once I caught up.  Then it flushed again and I was momentarily surprised to see that there were two birds.  For a moment I thought it was two cranes, which really would have been something as only one wintering juvenile bird has been reported. However it was apparent that the lead bird was in fact a grey heron, the crane as if in pursuit of it from behind.

Common crane

Crane pursues Heron

This concludes a rather fruitful week.  The treecreeper recently observed in the oak tree out the back paid a visit to the mahonia and, after giving it a work over, did the same on the back fence.  There has also been a sighting of a small brown mouse picking up left over bird food, a brief visit from a chaffinch (not particularly common here) and a quick sighting of a jay on the lane near the old school. And there was a kestrel hovering on the way back to Ponteland today..

Wednesday 11th March

Not being that keen on seabirds and waders, I was unsure about whether to go on the latest Naturewatch trip to Blyth, but reports of avocets in the estuary and improving weather finally persuaded me.

After taking a rather long time to spot some isolated sanderling and black headed gulls on the beach, where the main life forms were canine, we got a nice view of several pairs of eider duck in the harbour, where they were clearly begging for scraps as they bobbed around.

I was actually hoping to capture their cooing call which one member of the group aptly described as a Frankie Howerd imitation.

Things got even better when we walked along the estuary as a wide variety of species appeared, notably shelduck, teal, curlew, oystercatcher and goldfinch, as well as a grey seal that popped its head out a couple of times.

Having missed it on the Tyne at Hexham last winter, I was particularly pleased to get a reasonable sighting of a red-breasted merganser once it moved over into the river.

Red-breasted Merganser

This one appears to be imitating Boris Johnson.  

Of the avocets however, there was no sign.

Wednesday 4th March

A prolonged period of low temperatures to end winter plus a couple of domestic inconveniences have set a limit on my recent activities.

Unfortunately the latter have included a couple of nature-related issues. A small garden tree with interesting weepy twigs gave up the ghost during the winter storms and keeled over, so there was nothing for it but to chop it up and take it to the tip.

Slightly more distressing was the sight of fluffy flakes descending from the area of my roof. It proved that some starlings had broken through the cladding and were making merry with my loft insulation.  Fortunately there had been no attempt at nesting so it was simply a case of getting the hole blocked so they couldn't get in. I've no idea what they were doing - just roosting or stealing themselves some material for a nest elsewhere but the resulting mess isn't simple to tidy up.

One walking and a couple of cycle runs on better days having produced nothing of note, the garden has pretty much been the total focus of my attention.

The female blackcap appeared once again on the feeders after the mahonia had wilted, but not again, making it unclear whether the mahonia was the main attraction as is my instinct.

At the end of last week there was a sign of Spring when a pair of bullfinches turned up to steal some of the shoots sprouting by the back fence. The male didn't hang around but his partner was more patient and hung around for a while, breakfasting on the buds.

Bullfinch

I think that is the first time a bullfinch has been spotted from my kitchen window,  Then today there was another first when, at distance I caught sight of a treecreeper shinning up the bald oak tree by the burn.

I think there may also have been a visit from a bird of prey.  Yesterday one of the feeders was found on the grass where it had fallen from the pear tree.  I assumed misbehaviour by jackdaws or squirrels as per normal but on closer inspection I noticed that there were a few small feathers lying around.  So it looks like a tit might have been taken from the feeder by presumably a sparrowhawk, or quite possibly a merlin as they definitely occur here.

As they say, I will never know.