Friday 26th June

A slightly strange period during which the has got really hot, only to be about to lapse badly over the coming weekend following a few thunderstorms.

I got out to Big Waters on the Tuesday, which was rather as I remembered it from ages ago, expansive and windy.  There weren't too many obvious places to fish.  Several swims looked like they were best fished at distance.  I spoke to a lad fishing just where the reed beds start and he was catching small roach just below the surface while waiting for action on two carp rods. I could also see them turning in the water further round the reeds.  The handbook suggests it is a venue that needs a good deal of study, so perhaps not for me just yet.  You need to park somewhere else to get to the Little Big Water on the other side of the main road, so did not visit there.

What was slightly unexpected was a flower meadow where the water is completely weeded over.  There were a couple of ringlets and small tortoiseshells in the area and quite a few meadow browns.

Meadow Browns

There were a few things I couldn't account for on Wednesday, when I cycled to Matfen. Before I set off, what appeared to be a small skipper tried unsuccessfully to get into one of the foxgloves.  I haven't seen them do that before, nor have I seen one in the garden before and so wondered if I was mistaken.

Going along the cycle track at Wylam, what looked like a large four-winged moth drifted into a hedgerow.  It had more the shape of a dragonfly but without translucent wings so it was hard to say what it was.

There were plenty of small tortoiseshells in the Ovington area but one that flew right by my front wheel looked suspiciously like a painted lady, which would have been noteworthy.  On the way home a suspected orange tip morphed into another moth. And some large, sliver fish splashing out of the Tyne might very well have been salmon.

All of these were fleeting sightings with no chance to check things.  I'm still fairly confident about the small skipper though.  And the salmon.

Another major feature of the day was that yellowhammers were almost everywhere.  I was pleased about the small tortoiseshell. The parasitoid wasp that restricts their numbers must be having a bad year.

Today there was a short walk round the Blagdon Hall Circular where there were numerous ringlet butterflies to be seen. though few settled.  Also a few red admirals.

Ringlet

Saturday 20th June

Rather quicker than anticipated, I have decided to take up fishing again. I think it's too risky to play cricket this season because of the pandemic and possibly ever, judging by the bad reaction from my left knee when I bowl.

So I have applied to join Big Waters Angling Club and did a couple of trips to start checking out their waters.

Throckley Reigh obviously needs some work doing on it as it's heavily overgrown with weed and you can see where individual anglers have pulled out large swaithes of it.  Some swims look quite attractive but it's also quite a long hike from the nearest road.

A much different story at Dissington Pond, which has been well-tended and looks to have potential for the short pole on the South side.  Other swims have been fished at distance.

A pleasant bonus on the way out at Dissington was seeing a small tortoiseshell plus the first ringlet of the year.  Soon there will be hundreds of them.

Small Tortoiseshell

Lady Woodpecker has been making frequent visits to the garden. There was one occasion this week where there were briefly two, both female so I presumed mother and infant. Then the day after there was a lone male. Happy families?

I was a little surprised to observe this juvenile starling on the fatballs.  I don't think I've seen them so young before. Usually I spot them at the dark and shiny stage.

Lady Woodpecker

Juvenile Starling

Yesterday there were reports of an osprey at Whittle Dene Reservoir so I duly headed out there to take a look.  As I perhaps half-suspected there was no sign, so it was probably a young bird touring around looking for a territory.

It was nice to see kestrel hovering, a crested grebe nesting plus two red admirals and a chimneysweeper moth but otherwise there wasn't much doing.

Great Crested Grebe

I moved on to Bywell Bridge on the Tyne with the specific purpose of seeking out wych elm.  I found quite a few.  The idea is that I'll cycle out there in July to check for white-letter hairstreaks, the only one of the three Northern hairstreaks I've yet to see.

Thursday 11th June

Keeping ahead of more bad weather forecast, and very dreary it has proved, I was out on a couple of trips earlier this week.

On Monday, a rather arduous bike ride from Wark to Kielder Dam and back didn't produce many sightings but I did hear a cuckoo quite close by on the South side of the river just West of Bellingham.  It's the first I've heard since returning to the North East.  On the way back I also caught sight briefly of a red squireel running across a forestry track and again I think that was the first I have seen since relocating.

On Tuesday feeling stiff I decided on a very slow walk along the road through Prestwick Carr, partly persuaded by a mention of snipe though I didn't really expect to see any.  As soon as I parked a lot of willow warblers could be heard and I again thought I saw a lesser whitethroat but again could prove nothing as it wouldn't stay still for long.  All I can say was it was behaving the right way..

Another whitethroat showed up in a hedgerow soon after but I don't think the photo is good enough to tell what kind.

Whitethroat

However the most interesting feature on a day that was virtually windless was the number of birds that elected to land on the small number of bare trees along the moss.

This resulted in sightings of linnet, meadow pipit and - sure enough - snipe in similar poses.  I'd certainly not have expected to see the latter two at the top of a tree. In fact I don't think I've seen so many birds do this on the same day.  There were a couple of other examples where photos taken at distance against the light were too indistinct to make out so the birds couldn't be identified.

Linnet

Meadow Pipit

Snipe

Further up the path, the willow warblers were a bit more visible.

Willow Warbler

Once or twice on other trips I've noticed a bumblebee that was too big to be a carder bee and spent quite a lot of effort trying to take one on the way back. Typically it was hard to get a full body shot but I think it was probably an early bumblebee.

Early Bumblebee

I've seen them before but had entirely forgotten about early bumblebees. Put it down to my late age.

Slowly getting tired as I got nearer to the the car, I still couldn't resist chasing up another suspected lesser whitethroat skulking through the hawthorns. As it was constantly moving around I tried to video it.  The pictures were pretty useless but you could hear the consistent 'tec tec' call on the soiundtrack - which I think is decisive. I'm claiming.

Not a bad overall result for a rather hastily planned trip and perhaps shows the value of taking your time!

Friday 6th June

I'm not really wanting to start each post with a review of what happened in the last post but there were again a couple of flowers I didn't manage to identify last time as below:

Self Heal

Red Campion

Can't believe I didn't spot the campion. Meanwhile it does appear from internet research that there is some evidence of dwarfism in butterflies. A study on a species in Queensland showed considerable size reductions after heavy rains in 2011 and was ascribed to malnutrition.  So maybe the item I saw last time really was a minute speckled wood. It did rain quite a lot in February.

Bird visits to the garden have been on the increase.  I was particularly pleased to see a chiffchaff (presumably, since that's what I hear nearly every day) visit the bird bath, now more visible following the collapse of a small tree that obscured it. Lady Woodpecker has come to the nuts quite frequently although not staying for long. And it is once again the feeding season for baby blue tits.  I've seen as many as three demanding food from the same parent.

Bullfinch

Unfortunately there has also been an unwelcome increase in visits from the Rat family, so I somewhat reluctantly decided to cut down the carpet of garlic mustard that they sneak around in and block up all the likely entry holes into the garden. This has understandably resulted in a decrease in visits from orange tip and green-veined white butterflies. The compensation was that a pair of bullfinches turned up to pick the seeds from the remaining few plants.  And garlic mustard was nearly finished anyway.

Incidentally there was quite an interesting confrontation between a member of the Rat family and the Bad Jackdaw gang who had encircled it.  After mutual threatening gestures, the rat finally made off when a magpie decided to intervene too.

The main trip I went on last Thursday was another walk in the Spetchells with Malcolm to see if we could track down the ashy mining bee. The buffish mining bee was still around though not in the same numbers as last month and I wasn't at all surprised that there were a few red-tailed bumblebees around.

I had for a while been aware of the cuckoo mining bee but had tended to dismiss the stripey insects I've seen at Spetchells as hoverflies... until on this occasion several were sighted disappearing down various mining bee holes. Unfortunately they did this rather too quickly for me to get a snapshot but we did finally manage to catch up with a male mining bee.  It was tiny and far smaller than I'd expected.  That's cotoneaster it's on!

Red-tailed Bumblebee

Ashy Mining Bee

A slightly surprising feature was that there was the lack of any butterflies apart from a small tortoiseshell by the river. Oh and of course I managed to photograph several more flowers I couldn't immediately identify.  I did get one though - mouse-ear hawkweed.

Mouse-ear Hawkweed

We finished up by watching the numerous sand martins that nest at the Eastern end of the Spetchells mound.

The day after I was walking around the Havannah reserve with a friend when we alarmed some lapwings who flew around overhead shrieking for a while before we moved off realising they must have nested in the fields nearby. Very rare that I get snaps of birds in flight with my camera but I managed both the lapwings and the sand martins the previous day, so pleased with that even if the quality isn't much.

Sand Martins

Lapwing

I also saw a small tortoiseshell on a brief visit back to Dumfries as well as a pair of goosander and many house martins and on Tuesday the first red admiral of the year as I rode back from the Derwent Reservoir.

Lots of people were out fishing at the reservoir.  It got me thinking that I should give fishing a try again...