Activities resume...

Immediately following the power, boiler and broadband outages initiated by Storm Arwen,  I sought shelter in Alnwick and we went on a beach walk at Warkworth.

I thought there might be some bird activity but in fact there was precious little.  Just when I thought I might have spotted a couple of greenshank, my friend called me to bring the camera over.

There was a young seal pup sitting on a rocky outcrop and we spent some time wondering how it had ended up there and what to do about it.  There had been some talk from a walker that a chap had returned a seal pup to the area in a wheelbarrow, which indeed we found - but in that case we couldn't understand why it hadn't been returned to the sea.

Seal pup

There was no sign of a mother seal and the two dogs with us were making whining noises to go and play with their new friend, which started to toss its head around a bit but didn't move.  Eventually we recalled that the best thing to do with a stranded seal is to leave it alone.  It must have been quite fortunate in a way as we discovered two larger dead seal pups stranded at the top of the beach on the way back.

On Sunday I decided to take a walk along the Tyne from Wylam to Newburn and back, which proved to be a bit longer than I had reckoned.  

An early sighting was a couple of goosanders sheltering from the current until a rival turned up and they pursued it downstream at high speed.  By the end of the walk I counted nine goosanders in total.

Goosanders

On the section of the Keelman's Way where it is still permitted to walk following a landslip, there was straight away clear evidence of the damage caused by Storm Arwen as some deciduous trees had had branches ripped off.  This area looked like a good place to see willow tits but I didn't spot any.

Damaged tree

There were however a few other birds around.  I tried to sneak up on a jay but it eventually flew off across the river.  Approaching dusk on the way back a volley of long-tailed tits passed through the trees.  A wren skulked through the undergrowth and a single bullfinch showed up.

But perhaps the most interesting discovery was that the meadow area near to the Stephenson Cottage is actually advertised in a notice as an area of calaminarian grassland and home to some rare species of wild flower.  Having never heard of calaminarian grassland before, I resolved to revisit in the summer when the flowers are actually out.

Notice

After a slight delay..

Unfortunately nature activities have been suspended over the past month due to a bereavement followed by a loss of broadband connection, broken boiler and lengthy powercut in the wake of Storm Arwen.

As a result I've seen very little beyond what has turned up around the garden.  I only got out on one trip, a bike ride to Corbridge when, after seeing a single low-hovering kite early on, I spent some time peering into someone else's garden.  Apart from trying to transform a chaffinch into a brambling as someone once amusingly put it, there was nothing of any significance.  

There hasn't been that much in my garden anyway.  A couple of weeks back I glimpsed a queen wasp

Long-tailed tits

passing by the mahonia but no early bumblebees, which might have been a possibility.

I've spent some time thinking about the long-tailed tits and how gregarious and shy they are.  I moved the suet balls they obviously like onto the plum tree to see if they would come closer.  Apart from one occasion they didn't so I put them back near the fence and about six visited shortly afterwards.  It's a case of feast or famine though.

For a while a dunnock with no tail visited the bird table, moving uptypically slowly. The first time it even stayed there motionless for about an hour.  Presumably it had been attacked.

A wren has also visited on a couple of occasions.

My occasional visitors have sometimes noticed tawny owls calling from the trees by the stream.  I don't usually but there was one evening, quite early, when there was one calling from fairly close by.

A sighting of a furtive jay in the same area had me wondering if one would visit the garden again, but nothing so far.

Last butterflies, fox and geese

Although family matters have recently intervened to delay this post by several days, I did manage to keep an accurate memory of late butterfly appearances.

The last one in the garden was the 2nd October, whilst decapitating a huge dog rose, when a damaged small tortoiseshell landed briefly on my green wheelie bin.

On the 7th October, out cycling in cool, windy conditions, there was a single white flying through the Countryside Park at Newburn.  Incidentally, I thought I glimpsed a willow warbler in the trees a bit afterwards on stopping for a break.  Surely not?  They should be out of the country by now.

Anyway, the latest contender for the Last Butterfly 2021 award was a red admiral seen flying into a tree

Cormorant

on a brief visit to Dumfries on Friday 15th.  This wasn't too surprising as the temperature reached 15C for most of the day.

A Naturewatch trip to Big Waters a week ago on Monday was an enjoyable change as I haven't been out with the group for a while.  We were greeted by a large numbers of big black birds and noted that some of them seemed to have a green tinge to their plumage.  We wondered if they were shags but closer investigations suggest all the ones I saw were cormorants, as I think the photo (right) confirms.

Birds I also saw included gadwall, teal, great-crested grebe and little grebe but I missed out on shoveler and, annoyingly, snipe.  I didn't spend much time looking out for woodland birds, but did notice a couple of tree sparrows on one of the bird tables.

Also slightly annoying was that virtually all the photos I took that were any good were of wigeon.  Interestingly all the males were in eclipse, apart from one fellow that still retained some of his summer markings.

This one bird I did manage to capture in a group of others, albeit in profile.  Somewhat out of the ordinary was the appearance of ssssome sort of an exotic pheasant.  I wondered if it was an escapee or an inhabitant of the Washington WWT site.

Wigeon

Strange pheasant

But the best photo of the day was taken by another member of the group, who managed to capture a scene of natural harmony on the other side of the lake.

Fox and Geese

Quite remarkable.  Perhaps it's a bit like the relationship between small fish and pike or barracuda.  They live in perfect harmony - until the predator gets hungry!  

Somewhere there must be a pub called "The Fox and Geese".

Late Summer Sightings

Long-tailed Tits

The long-tailed tits are still very keen on the suet ball feeder. Typically they arrive in good numbers but are clearly nervy and make off at the least disturbance so visits don't last long.  I notice too that they won't come much if the feeder is well-filled, perhaps fearsome of something bigger than them, but prefer to wait for the other tits to whittle the supplies down somewhat.

Up until about a week ago, large numbers of small tortoiseshells were continuing to visit the buddleia, often eight or nine at a time.  As the buddleia blooms gradually died back, it was possible to see as many as four or five clinging to the same sprig, occasionally landing on the shed or elsewhere to warm up a bit when the sun weakened.  In one case elsewhere proved to be my foot.  This was pleasing as about a month ago a red admiral landed on my shoulder.  I got the photo but accidently deleted it and so had no proof. 

Small Tortoiseshell on large foot

On the 20th,  the buddleia also attracted an early bumblebee queen.  I gather there have been a few on the wing and probably saw one a few days before as well.  On the same day I had been on a bike ride in mediocre weather not seeing much at all and certainly no butterflies.  Having also thought I'd already seen my only painted lady for the year it was bit of a surprise when one turned up on the route past Ryton Golf Club, and kindly posed on the track for a few seconds.

Painted Lady

Alex and Vicki visited at the weekend.  On Saturday we spent a good deal of time in the hide at Clara Vale, hoping that a kingfisher would turn up.  It didn't.  We just saw a little grebe and a couple of moorhens and nothing more to add on a tour of the small Nature Reserve.

The day after we made a trip to Holy Island on what was palpably the last day of the September mild spell.  Although a little too early for spectacular sightings we did manage to see a raven, redshanks, rock pipits, sanderling, ringed plovers, razorbill, cormorant, guillemot as well as a school of seals.

Bar-tailed Godwit

Ringed Plovers

Seals

There was also a little brown job that was in the same area as a flock of pipits but I didn't think it was one.  Awaiting identification on that one...

Lastly, on a quick visit to the Gertrude Jekyll Garden near the castle, we stumbled on my third painted lady of the season.  They all looked pretty fresh.  Perhaps there are more around than I thought.

Another Painted Lady

It's getting to the time of year when I wonder what will be the last butterfly I see.  The latest contender on the buddleia anyhow was this red admiral, found clinging to the last decent sprig of flower in the wind yesterday.

Red Admiral

Lincoln and Back Home

After losing out a bit on Day 2 in Lincolnshire, I decided to swap bike for car to make up for a bit of lost time.

I started at Whisby Nature Park, an attractive if somewaht domesticated venue where nightingales can appear.  I didn't find any though and apart from many speckled wood and a fair few tufted ducks, there wasn't much to see.  One thing that did catch my attention was a duck that looked a bit like a misplaced diver.  It turned out it was a juvenile great crested grebe, looking quite different from the adult form.

Great Crested Grebe

Next I finally made it to Chambers Butterfly Garden and Woods near Bardney, not the most heavily signposted place I have ever come across.  By now the sunny periods were becoming less frequent and although temperatures remained high, overall results were also disappointing.

In fact the highlight was a completely chance sighting on arriving at the garden.  While parking the car  I noticed some feeders at the edge of the wood and a bird a little too pale to be a sparrow visiting one of them.  On checking I think my suspicion was correct and I had accidentally managed my first firm sighting of a garden warbler.

Garden Warbler

The garden itself was very pleasant with plenty of flowers and the standard nymphalidae plus what I perceived to be a female common blue.  I found myself wondering about it afterwards as it seemed too plain.  In this case the camera doesn't lie and it's quite clear it was in fact a tatty male common blue subject to a trick of the bright light that made it look darker.

Common Blue

The walk round the wood was pleasant enough but I didn't manage to see the hoped-for brown hairstreak or gatekeeper which had both been active just a week before, just more speckled wood and the occasional peacock or red admiral.  A very enjoyable bike ride through many villages the day after produced the same plus one more common blue.

Lincolnshire reminded me a bit of the continent in that the vast flat areas perhaps mean that the likes of birds are more thinly spread.  It was also noticeable that much of the vegetation was brown with just isolated flowers.  It was only at the Butterfly Garden and Southrey Woods that there were larger expanses of flowers in bloom.  Ideally I would have gone a week or two earlier in the year but was determined to avoid the school holidays.  One strange thing was that I didn't see ant day-flying moths.

Back at home the tortoiseshells are dominating proceedings on the remaining buddleia.  As the blooms decrease in number they are constrained to occupy less space and I have had as many as four on a single sprig.  They have also landed on a flowering chive plant and on this stray sunflower.

Small Tortoiseshell on Sunflower

On Thursday I looked at a large buddleia just before my train arrived at Hexham station and spotted a single painted lady -- the only one I've seen this year.

Yesterday I went fishing at Horton where some sizeable bream and tench have been caught this year.  It proved hard work and no-one caught much.  I stuck to big fish tactics on the leger but sweetcorn wasn't doing anything and bites on worm were none too frequent.  Eventually worm accounted for a fingerling roach, a small skimmer bream and this angry wee tench which at least put up a good fight.  If they'd all been four times bigger, it would have been a good day.

Tench

My time away definitely did me some good and will need to be repeated soon.

Staycation Time

 As if to prove the wisdom of my last post, a speckled wood came sunbathing on the garden furniture on Sunday but departed again without showing any interest in the buddleia.

Speckled Wood

The same could not be said of the small tortoiseshells, who increased in number as a not especially warm day went on. At one point I counted nine in total on the three buddleia bushes in the back.

Small Tortoiseshells

Apart from (mainly large) whites, only one red admiral showed up.

The day after I set off for planned staycation in Lincolnshire,  Apart from a much-needed change of scenery, I was hoping to find some butterfly and bird species not available on my home patch.

The plan got off to a good start when I rode along the track into Southrey Woods in a heatwave and quickly noticed some brimstone butterflies nectaring on blue flowers that looked like snall cornflowers.  At first I thought they were the pale version of the drimstone but his may have been down to the brightness of the sunlight.  There were about 20 seen in the total time I was there.

Brimstone

There also a good piece of fortune when a single silver-wsshed fritillary started to fly around at speed near where I was having lunch.  Unfortunately it never settled and an attempt to video it in flight didn't come off.  Although I had seen brimstones near my grandparents' house as a kid, that was definitely my first UK silver-washed fritillary sighting,  Also observed were a good number of green-veined whites, small tortoiseshells and red admirals - and this time a couple were feeding near to a peacock - a few small white and a single comma.

There was also a very large fly that looked like a hornet with a yellow hood but I think from facebook posts of similar sightings in Dumfries and Galloway, it is some form of horsefly.

All around the drains there are common darters and I managed to get a photo of one that settled at Southrey.

Common Darter

Things went less well later and on the following day when I was looking for two sites that are known to have the brown hairstreak as I couldn't find either of them!  Apart from a lack of signposting, in one case it was down to a major navigational error on my part.

After seeking creature comforts in Bardney, I decided to ride back very slowly along the Witham with my eyes open and was frankly dissappointed by how little I saw,  A couple of whites, a few swallows and very little else.  It was a bit like the Canal du Midi two years ago.

One minor positive was that I managed to catch an example of the larger dragonflies that crazily landed in a hawthorn bush. It's a southern hawker.

Southern Hawker

I'm pleased with this from a photographic point of view, shot from six metres away in dense foliage.

Red Admiral and Small Copper

A few weeks can make a  difference.

Last Saturday I was in Alnwick again, when we started out on the same dog walk we did last time I was there.  All the meadow by the River Aln had been cut back and as a result there were less butterflies around but in a way it was more interesting as I was pleased to see a couple of small coppers around and another two wall brown showed up as well.  All the other species we saw last time had disappeared apart from the odd meadow brown.

Small Copper

I was well pleased about the small copper as I was starting to think I wouldn't see one this year.  Perhaps they do better later on in the season around here.

There were no butterflies around when we took a walk along the River Wear at Chester-le-Street on Monday after the cricket was cancelled because of Covid 19.  However we did see a couple of very pale looking big slugs, which I thought abnormal though apparently variations in colour are frequent in this species, arion ater.

                                                                             

Arion ater

Things have changed a little in the garden too.  The weather has remained cool and overcast but when the sun has appeared, it has been the occasional small tortoiseshell and red admiral that have been visiting the buddleia bush and not the groups of peacocks that predominated last week.  So my theory that red admiral and peacock are infrequently seen together continues.  The only butterfly that doesn't seem attracted by buddleia is the speckled wood, which occasionally lands on the hedge or shrubs instead.

Red Admiral

Also popular have been the suet balls in the cage feeder at the bottom of the garden, which have brought in good numbers of long-tailed tits from time to time.

Butterflies Strike Back

Peacocks

I certainly spoke too soon in bemoaning the demise of the nymphalidae family in my last post!  It just took a couple of days of decent sunshine and they were out in force on the buddleia and gradually outnumbering the whites - first the small tortoiseshells on Sunday and then the peacocks, which were dominant by Wednesday when not a tortoiseshell appeared.  

Red admirals were however not to be seen, reinforcing my perception that they don't appear much when there are large numbers of peacocks, one of which got up close and personal, landing on my shoulder.

Things got even more interesting on Tuesday morning, when I noticed a wall brown nectaring on the buddleia.  I thought I'd seen it the day before but took it for a comma that disappeared when I investigated further.

Not only is wall brown not a common sighting in this area, I had never seen one on buddleia before.

As if to cap it all, the following day, a comma did turn up and spent a great deal of time gorging itself.

Then the whole thing came to an end and the murk descended again.  Today there wasn't a single butterfly anywhere.

Wall Brown

Comma

All Quiet on the Nature Front

By comparison it's been a quiet couple of weeks with no new sightings.  The often dreary weather hasn't helped.

I've been bemoaning the lack of nymphalidae on my now several flourishing buddleia bushes.  Setting off on a bike ride a week ago on Wednesday, I noticed with envy that there were a couple in a neighbour's garden, since when small tortoiseshell, red admiral and peacock have appeared in mine but very infrequently and singly.  I have yet to see a comma.  It may just be that the best is yet to come but my suspicion is that it is a very bad year for these species.

By contrast there has been a larger number of whites, I think possibly more than most years.  Far and away predominant has been the large white with jut occasional appearances by green-veined and small white.  Initially it was mainly females but males have come more into prominence recently.

Female Large White

One red admiral seemed to prefer the flowery pattern on my rather tatty peg basket to the buddleia.

Red Admiral

Otherwise I've been looking out for plasterer bees but haven't seen any.  I haven't been putting out the peanut feeders in the plum trees as much as I want to give the plums a decent chance to ripen without getting pecked.  However, long-tailed tits and a male nuthatch have visited on a couple of occasions.

Yesterday I was out fishing at Brenkley and never had a bite.  It was mainly an attempt to familiarise myself with the tactics of fishing banded pellet so I wasn't too worried and reckoned a good carp could come along at any time.  In fact no-one caught a carp and there were no definite signs of carp activity so it was probably just one of those unaccountable days when they aren't feeding.

Another New Sighting

One of the buddleia on the front garden has flowered early, inspiring a couple of visits from small tortoiseshells but so far nothing more glamorous.  Peacocks have been non-existent lately and red admirals have been seldom apart from four or five seen on a walk in Cumbria.

Somthing I have never seen before is a jackdaw sprawling out on the lawn.  I thought it was in distress but it had flown off when I went to take a look.  Perhaps it was just sunbathing?

Jackdaw

Anyway the frog wasn't too concerned.

For the Big Butterfly Count I decided to return to Wingate Quarry, being aware that I had made no attempt to keep a tally on numbers when I went before looking for the marbled white.

My totals over a 15 minute sunny period around midday were:

• Marbled White 14 (making my guesstimate of approaching 100 in over an hour last time fairly credible)
• Common Blue 6
• Meadow Brown 3
• Ringlet 2
• Geen-veined White 1
• Large White 3
• Small White 2
• Small Heath 11
• Small Skipper 3

Surprisingly, The Big Butterfly Count didn't require the last two to be reported, which was a bit of a shame.  Marbled whites weren't quite as numerous as last time, when it was often possible to see five or six at the same time.

Although looking very blue in flight, the one common blue I tried to photograph was clearly female.

One photo I did get was a poorish snap of a moth that I have found it hard to identify.

Moth

It looks a bit like a feathered gothic but doesn't seem quite right.

A surprising absentee from my quarry visits has been the small copper.  I also haven't seen a dingy skipper this year.  I did however spot a couple of peacocks at distance on my way back to the car park at Wingate.

Yesterday as planned for a while I took a bike ride to Cambois to see if I could catch up with the grayling butterfly.  Luckily I saw one - by complete chance as it landed right near me as I pushed the bike back from the dunes.

Grayling

One other suspect was spotted on the wing.  Identification on the wing was however a little troublesome as there were a large number of meadow brown about.  I was expecting the grayling to be larger but in fact the one I saw was about the size of a meadow brown, whereas some of the meadow brown were distinctly bigger than normal.

There were again several small skipper and his time I did manage to catch up with a male common blue.

Male Common Blue

I noticed that the land right up to the coast has been acquired by the car battery factory, so hopefully it's not the begiining of the end for the grayling at Cambois.

My latest adventure has left me wondering what butterflies present in Northern England I still need to see.  Apart from the marsh fritillary, which is on the hitlist for next summer the obvious answers would be large skipper and small blue.  The former is reasonably abundant and it may be that I have misidentified it as small skipper in the past.

But the small blue would probably necessitate a major expedition to even find it away from a private site in Teesside.

Oh, and I suppose there is still the mountain/northern brown argus.

An Exciting Couple of Weeks

The good weather broke through in the middle of July and I have been taking full advantage by getting out as much as possible.  I'll start at the beginning...

On the 15th Malcolm and I did a fishing trip to Milkhope Pond, determined to put some fish on the bank after our previous blank at Brenkley.  The tactic was to scale down the tackle but using baits that would be big enough to put off the tiddlers.  In the end we had four skimmers and two roach, all from the margins on legered sweetcorn and no tiddlers - but no carp either.

The day after we linked up again for a dog walk through the meadows by the River Aln.  Early sightings of a small skipper and a burnet moth promised much but otherwise ringlet and meadow brown predominated.

Small Skipper

On the Saturday I took part in a bee hunt at Watergate Park organised by the Natural History Society's expert thanks to whom we were able to identify amongst others a vestal/gypsy cuckoo bumble bee (which I fortuitously came across), furrow bee (minute) and male buff-tailed bumblebee.

On the side I also noted a marmalade hoverfly and a shaded broad bar moth as well as several more small skippers, which seem to be very common this year and were to appear at further venues.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Shaded Broad Bar

This Monday I was out hunting hairstreaks and for about the fourth time visited Bywell Bridge only to find overcast weather and little sign of activity in the elms.  By contrast an evening visit to the viaducts at Hamsterley Mill provided two or three strong but fleeting purple hairstreak suspects.  Probably too early though for them to be on the wing in large numbers.

After taking part in a walking cricket session (yes it's come to that!) I went to Wingate Quarry around Tuesday lunchtime hoping to see a marbled white at the only site in Northern England where they are present.  I must have seen approaching 100!  Introduced in the hope that they would spread, they seem to be very happy where they are.  

Marbled White

Also sighted in this very scenic setting were good numbers of small heath, small skipper, common blue (though only 2-3 females) and burnet moth as well as the inevitable ringlet and meadow brown, large numbers of red-tailed bumblebee and I think a white-tailed bumblebee.

Female Common Blue

White-tailed Bumblebee

Perhaps more significant was this latticed heath moth, which I believe is somewhat scarce.  However, I see that I also have a less good photo of one at Watergate Park too.

Latticed Heath

The day after I set off late in the evening to go on a nightjar watch near Slaley.  Nightjars are rare in Northumberland but we managed half a dozen fleeting sightings as the darkness encroached and heard a fair bit of churring.  The most impressive bit was watching one hunting and returning to the same dead tree. There were plenty of toads and midges around plus an orange underwing moth but only one bat.

Thursday was nominally a day off but I couldn't resist this heron fishing on the edge of the marina at North Shields.

Grey Heron

On Friday I was back on the hairstreak trail again, this time with almost completely opposite results.  After some delay I arrived at Bywell Bridge going on on 1.00 pm, having spotted my first red admiral for several weeks on the way.

This time the sun was out and after a few minutes I started to notice suspicious activity in the elm tree at the north-eastern corner of the bridge.  It wasn't too long before I got a positive identification of my first ever white-letter hairstreak.  In the course of the next hour I must have seen 20-30 individuals, coming in little flurries and briefly settling on the tree leaves.  Rather contradicting the advice I had read on the West Sussex Butterfly Conservation site, they were mainly on the sunny side of the tree and not totally out of the wind, which I have however noticed is pretty variable in this location.

White Letter Hairstreak

By contrast my evening visit to Hamsterley came to an abrupt end after sighting just one suspected purple hairstreak when the cloud moved in and obscured the setting sun.

The weather is closing in again so I may not have so much to report over the next few days!

Bishop Middleham Quarry

After a year long covid-inspired delay, a few of us from the Naturewatch group finally managed a trip to Bishop Middleham Quarry, which is one of the highlights of the Durham magnesium limestone belt.

It was indeed a productive habitat and very easy on the eye.  The flora are probably the most outstanding, notably the helleborines and orchids, of which we saw I think four varieties.  The ones not pictured were common spotted and fragrant orchid.

Pyramidal Orchid

Dark Red Helleborine

Bee Orchid

Brown Argus

Of course a large part of my interest was the hope of seeing some less common butterflies but the conditions were rather overcast and our hopes were not high.  Fortunately we got the best of it around midday wheen a number of ringlets started to show and it wasn't too long before I saw the star of the show - my first ever brown argus in this country and it proved to be the first of several.

Distinctly small in size, I was also surprised by the amount of blue on the body.  I also found myself wondering about nomenclature as the Northern Brown Argus is supposed to occur here too. However my European Butterfly Guide talks instead of Mountain Argus but they appear to be the same thing.  As the Northern version of the northern/mountain species has a white not black upperwing spot, I'm confident it wasn't what we were seeing. Never mind the fact there are examples with black spot within a white spot!

Away from the wonderful world of terminology, further butterfly species sighted were meadow brown and small heath.  Thre was just one common blue and no appearance by (perhaps surprisingly) small copper and less surprisingly wall brown (not sunny enough) and dingy skipper.

Meadow Brown

Small Heath

Ringlet

Only two burnet moths were spotted plus one other I needed to research to discover it was a blackneck but there were surprisingly few bees.  The ones that were out were mainly carder bees and red-tailed bumblebees. 
    

Six Spot Burnet

Blackneck Moth

Red-tailed Bumblebee

It's funny how you see things again not long after you've seen them.  While helping out at the tennis club yesterday there were a couple more of the common wave moth I spotted in Cumbria.  And this morning while out for a paper there was another small bumblebee on lilac that had a red tail.  The trouble is it also had a second yellow stripe on the abdomen and I had neither camera nor mobile phone on me.  So I'll have to pass on that one.