Thursday 28th April

The bee spotting season has been in full swing.

The main event of the week was a trip to the Spetchells in the hope of catching up with ashy or tawny mining bee in addition to the hordes of buffish mining bees I expected to be present.  This certainly proved to be the case with males swarming around in some spots as well as numerous orgies taking place on the paths.

The other two did not make themselves apparent apart from one suspect tawny that was probably a carder bee. It would have been hard to spot them amongst all the others anyway.  However we did catch up with a couple of samples of Gooden's Nomad Bee, very small males, and the odd bumblebee.

Further along there was a single peacock butterfly and a good number of sand martins on the wing though they don't seem to have nested yet as the chalk holes were unvisited when we passed by.

Following the track back down towards the river there were a couple of red-tailed bumblebee queens and a few speckled wood.  Then we crossed over the hill again onto the track by the railway tracks I'd read somewhere that south facing slopes with dandelions are good for ashy mining bees.  None turned up but there were dandelions a plenty and a few minute male mining bees as well as a small tortoiseshell, a green-veined white and a couple of orange tips.

Unfortunately even phoning a friend couldn't help identify the last bee but in the same area I came across another specimen that is thought to be a gypsy cuckoo bumblebee.

Gooden's Nomad Bee	Red-tailed Bumblebee
Mystery Mining Bee	Gypsy Cuckoo Bumblebee

It's amazing what you see when you look.

By contrast things have been relatively quiet in the garden but even there another species turned up on the plum tree blooms - a white-tailed bumblebee queen.  One other surprise was the appearance of a small white trapped inside the summer house, which I hadn't been in for days.

White-tailed Bumblebee

Small White

Tuesday 20th April

Activity has understandably perked up as the night frosts gradually disappear.

I celebrated the opening of non-essential retail on the (glorious?) 12th by cycling to the Metrocentre and saw two goosander on the Derwent and a clear view of a chiffchaff near the Tyne but was too cold to linger.  On the same chilly day it was quite a surprise to see a green-veined white settle briefly in the garden as well as a single peacock.  Subsequent days lead to a couple of flypasts from orange tips.

On the Wednesday a walk to Chopwell Woods at least produced a good deal more birdsong and we returned to increased bee activity in the garden, which I investigated further.  Apart from the expected tree bumble bee queen, there were what I thought were honeybees and something a good deal smaller that proved to be a female buffish mining bee.  Fortuitously I had recently learned about beeflies and there have been a few visit from the dark-edged beefly.  More recently, a buff-tailed bumblebee queens have turned up too.  There's been a couple of ladybirds too but nothing spectacular.

Honey Bee (worker)

Female Buffish Mining Bee

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen

Dark-edged Beefly

Tree Bumblebee Queen

On Thursday three of us did a bike ride from Weetslade to Matfen and back and there was a good number of small tortoiseshells on the wing, notably on the rough track just West of Darras Hall.

Up to this point I hadn't managed to snap any of the butterflies and it was a bit of a surprise when a speckled wood in the garden was my first subject of the year on Friday.  I'd have thought it was a bit early.  None of the other butterflies observed settled for any length of time.

Speckled Wood

Following a resolution to head South more often, I took a walk in Edmondsley Wood on Monday.  It was a very pleasant stroll long an enlarged burn that you repeatedly had to cross by stepping on rocks.  I disturbed the same heron repeatedly as I moved along but couldn't see any sign of fish in the very clear water.

More buff-tailed bumblebee queens were looking for places to nest, and the odd white butterfly began to appear.  When I settled to have something to eat, they also started to settle and I could see that they were green-veined whites.  I would estimate well over a dozen overall, plus a single peacock.

Green-veined White

There was a bit of birdlife high up in the trees and I thought I might have heard willow warblers calling.  On the way back a couple of courting goldfinches largely ignored me.

Incidentally thanks are due to Charlotte Rankin of the Natural History Society of Northumberland  for help with a couple of the bee identifications.

Saturday 10th April

 I noted some while back that spottings in my garden are a bit upside down in that birds that are normally common appear seldom - and vice versa.  A recent surprise was to spot two 'rarities' at the same time last week, a male garden sparrow and a siskin.  A female sparrow also turned up a couple of days later, as did briefly a goldfinch.  Both birds can be seen close at hand but don't usually visit the garden.  You'd really expect more siskins, given the amount of nearby woodland.

Siskin

To cap that I also got the best view I have ever had of a jay, which hung around for a couple of minutes just behind the bottom fence.  This happened while I was getting dressed upstairs, hence alas no photo.

The weather has done a major u-turn putting an end to butterfly sightings but Spring has now sprung and other species are abundant.  

A week ago on Friday Frances and I did a very scenic walk along the Blyth at Humford Mill near Bedlington.  There was wild garlic and other woodland flowers starting to come out all over the place, plus one plant I knew I recognised but needed to check - alternate leaf golden saxifrage.  There was less in the way of birdlife apart from a grey wagtail and a quick flash of a dipper flying downstream.

Grey Wagtail

Alternate Leaf Golden Saxifrage

Although the weather was already starting to cool there were a good few bumblebee queens on the move, one of which seemed to me on the basis of video evidence seemed to be a buff-tailed bumblebee.

One week later it was quite chilly when Malcolm and I set out from Low Newton to the outskirts of Beadnell against a northerly wind.

There were skylarks all over the place with a good number of meadow pipits, one of which posed nicely on a stretch of cut grass near a holiday park.

Meadow Pipit

It was one of those days when the further we walked, the more we saw.  By the time we got back we had also seen kestrels, stonechats, a flock of geese in flight that eventually landed at distance and looked to contain a mixture of greylag and pink-footed geese. there were a good few shelduck around, a couple of which were just about near enough to catch in the camera, though I never even spotted the curlew that was next to them.  A shallow pond produced a couple of gadwall and lapwing as well. however I was most pleased with a quick but unmistakeable view of a golden plover through the binoculars.

Shelduck - and curlew

Afterwards we stopped for a coffee back at Low Newton.  The tide was in and there was a proliferation of sanderling, redshank and oystercatchers on the crowded shoreline and a fleet of eider duck further out.

I reckoned there were some other small birds running around with the sanderling and took a few casual shots thinking to identify them later.  In fact I totally missed the foreshore and got instead a couple of blurred shots of birds in flight above the waves.  One had an upwardly curved beak but wasn't an avocet so I suppose possibly a godwit.  The other was a small wader but from what little I had looked more like illustrations of Temminck's Stint than the dunlin or knot I anticipated.  That however seems rather more unlikely.

If we had visited the foreshore at the beginning rather than the end of the day, I might have paid it more attention.

Thursday 1st April

A lurch into warmer weather has produced an increased level of sightings. 

The day after I last posted, we ventured on a fishing trip to Milkhope Loch on 24th March.  As I was parking the car I heard my first chaffinch of the year.  On a reasonably bright day, Malcolm managed to catch six small roach, although to be honest tiny in most cases.  The first one actually looked more like a rudd but wasn't retained. I stuck out for carp on ledger and short pole with bacon grill baits and had nothing more than a couple of sharp, bait stealing bites on the pole which I attributed to ide but it was more about catching something on this first visit.

On Tuesday this week I went back alone to Milkhope to use up the maggots and again had no trouble picking up small and tiny roach.  I switched to sweetcorn near in on the waggler after lunch in the hope of better things.  One large fish did move through the swim but otherwise it was just tiddlers failing to take the bait.

Bites were continuing on the feeder and the maggots were constantly getting sucked.  So I decided to fine down the tackle, which produced a skimmer bream as well as a couple more roach.  Then just before five I hooked into a much bigger fish which fought well for four or five minutes before snapping the 1lb 14 oz bs line just below the feeder.  Very frustrating as I didn't get a decent view of it, and probably underestimated how heavy it was.

It wasn't much of a consolation that I got a friendly visit from a greylag goose that also ate my apple core.  By this time chiffchaffs were calling all around.

Greylag Goose

Buffish Mining Bee

Previously I spent a windy Sunday afternoon at the Spetchells to see if the mining bees were active and ideally identify the rarer ones.  There were a few dozen buffish mining bees around as well as some garden and red-tailed bumblebee queens.  However I didn't catch up with ashy or tawny mining bee and there was no sign either of the sandmartins over the river yet.  Rather surprisingly, I did see a couple ofunidentified butterflies in an area of trees with dark bark and I wondered if they'd hibernated there.  On the way back along the river a kestrel hovered  enticingly.

Meanwhile I did finally manage to spot a greenfinch high up in a tree at the back of the house.  Stretching the capabilities of the camera, I got a shot which just about showed up the large beak and yellow stripe.

Greenfinch

Yesterday I did a bike run up to Lygett's Junction and a couple of miles up the Waskerley Way.  In considerably sunnier weather, there were quite a few butterflies on the wing.  I wasn't convinced they were all peacocks and red admirals either, too brown and, as I thought not quite right for small tortoiseshells either.  

Skylark

Just past Consett there were a lot of skylarks singing above a meadow and one of them was obliging enough to let forth from the fence of a nearby estate.  Again more of a silhouette but it's rare to get a skylark in the camera lense.

By the time I headed home butterflies were starting to settle in the sun and I caught sight of two peacocks and two red admirals, but none of them were inclined to linger when I appeared.

The extra two miles were worth it though, as there was a chance encounter with an early bumblebee queen as I took a quick break at the halfway stage.

Early Bumblebee Queen