Tuesday 23rd March

The day after I last posted Mr Nuthatch was again paying fleeting visits to the bird table and I managed to provide the proof.

Nuthatch

With the weather brightening I decided to take a bike ride to Prestwick Carr the following Friday, braving a strong westerly wind in the hope of seeing the short-eared owl again.  When I arrived, the feeders by the viweing platform had been filled (apparently someone called Albert fills them) and so it was a cinch to catch up with the willow tits that use it.  Long-tailed tit and reed bunting were also about as well as the more common tits.

Willow Tit

Long-tailed Tit and Willow Tit

I rode up and down the track looking about and tried to stick it out on the platform for a while but it was very exposed to the breeze so I gave in after an hour and rode back home.

This weekend I did a slow walk around the bridle path towards Rowlands Gill, when it was again apparent that there is more birdsong there than in Chopwell Woods.  Seeing them was another thing as they were mostly high in the the treetops.  In the end I saw pretty much  what you'd expect to see - coal tit, blue tit, long-tailed tit and red kite.  Low flying red kites over the various villages have been a pretty much daily occurence locally.

More of a surprise came yesterday as I rode to Gateshead to buy fishing tackle.  Just past the Swalwell roundabout in a temperature of about 10C a butterfly flew up.  From the brief view of its underside I thought it was a peacock.  As I was half thinking I wouldnt see a butterfly before the end of March this year, I was duly pleased.

Several times I thought I had heard a greenfinch at the back of the garden and elsewhere but I haven't managed to see one.

Monday 8th March

Recent paucity of nature news can be blamed on poorish weather and continuing lockdown, hopefully better is soon to follow.

A slightly bright nore has been offered by several appearances of a male nuthatch in the garden and, on one sole occasion that of a woodpecker.  Yesterday I planted some wild flower seeds at the back of the garden as it is only now that frosty nights are starting to look less likely.  Part of the thinking here is that the copious amount of garlic mustard that used to grow in the same area hsn't yet appeared.  Maybe I was too radical when knocking it back last summer.

I've done a couple more walks in Chopwell Woods, whose main success lay in finding further routes that avoid the heavily-used car park and ice-cream van.  During the first one, there was at least some birdsong to be heard and evidence of jays in the trees, but that was all apart from a grey squirrel, the odd robin and a single wren.  Last week the second one was a return to the baffling near total absence of birds.  I can't understand it.  You'd think among so many trees there'd be treecreepers and even a crossbill or two.

One thing I did come across on the way in was a heron on nearby farmland.  This evokes the question I wondered about often in Dumfries.  Why do herons visit farmland in winter - to seek out worms and insects or because of fishmeal compost?

Heron

This one is obviously next to some flooded land but I can't imagine it would hold fish and it seems to be looking elsewhere.

More interesting was a visit with Malcolm to check out some of the lakes maintained by Wansbeck and Cramlington Angling Club during a brief warmer spell.  Walking up to Milkope Lake there were a good number of skylarks in the fields.  They were flying low in pairs rather than soaring alone and it looked like this was some sort of pre-mating activity.  On actually reaching the pond, a good number of people were fishing and catching small stuff.

On Horton Lake nearby, one elderly angler took about half an hour to land a near 6lb bream on fine pole tackle and a visit to Brenkley Lake established that it had recently produced a 19lb carp.  We've taken out membership and I hope to report on some fishing activity before the end of the month.  I had wondered if it would soon get warm enough for butterflies to be seen early but the weather quickly deteriorated over the weekend

A bike ride the Monday after started in mist temperatures of 3C rather than the anticipated 9C but at least led to the sighting of a group of tree sparrows huddling in a tree,  I was out riding again today in warmer but windy weather and did get a closer than usual view of some tufted ducks at Bradley Pond on the way home.

Tufted Ducks