Friday 14th May

 As a postscript to my last entry, it appears that the Newbiggin Northern Mockingbird was its first ever appearance in the county of Northumberland.  It was hanging around the town for about ten days but hasn't been reported again for several days now.

After that excitement it was a return to the mundanity of my back garden.  I don't pay much attention to jackdaws these days but one did catch my eye as it was slightly leucistic.

Slightly leucistic Jackdaw

At last there has been a bit more warmth bringing some tentative butterfly appearances, most notably of a female tip that posed for a good while showing both under and upperwing.  This one does have the very faintest hint of an orange tip.

I wondered if it might be laying but on mahonia?  Probably not.

Female Orange Tip

Female Orange Tip - underwing

Butterflies were not too prominent during a rehabilitative bike ride along the Tyne on Tuesday, just a few green-veined white around Blaydon and a couple of peacocks at Prudhoe. There were however a lot of dandelions out and as a result a good number of bees to be seen.

I noted both white-tailed (queen and worker) and garden bumblebee and good numbers of carder bee wherever white dead-nettle could be found.  It seems to be a favourite of theirs.

Carder Bee

White-tailed Bumblebee

More difficult to identify were a tiny Early Bumblebee worker and a tiny Gooden's Nomad Bee.  More help from my contact at the Natural History Society of Northumbria suggests that the size of bees is affected by the amount of pollen they have absorbed.

Early Bumblebee

Gooden's Nomad Bee

On Wednesday Malcolm and I made a trip to Brenkley Pond, very much intent on carp and avoiding small fish.  We legered large stringers of sweet corn or luncheon meat on big hook hair-rigs resulting in only four good runs but four fish on the bank, three nice mirror carp (largest 5lb) and what I thought was a white koi.  In fact it seems it was a pink orfe.

Mirror Carp

Pink Orfe returns to water

So another identification issue but hardly a wonder.  I had never heard of pink orfe before.