The return of my bike after a wheel replacement has led to an increase in cycling activity.

On the 12th June, I took a brief trip up the Waskerley Way, hoping to see some butterfly species that haven't been showing up so far.  The only result in that direction was a couple of passing red admirals and a speckled wood.  Once up on the moorland, I did find a bank of bilberry not in flower, a good bit of uncut fern and some advanced bird's foot trefoil but no resulting pollinators. Lapwing, curlew and skylark were around but otherwise the most noticeable feature was the impressive view.

Waskerley Way

The most exciting thing was a momentary sighting of a redstart on the path on the way back down, just after I'd had a close up rear view of a red kite.

On Wednesday I set out from Newbiggin to head for East Chevington Pond, where one or two rarities have been spotted.

Going slowly, I again kept a careful eye on the bird's foot trefoil between Lynemouth and Cresswell but again no common blue were seen.  What I did see was a collection of what I was fairly confident were linnets around a house just South of the first caravan site.  A few turned up later coming back along the dunes but in both cases they didn't hang around.  Linnets are nervous birds.

Stopping at the north end of Cresswell Pond, I didn't really expect to see the spoonbill that had been reported a few days earlier. After returning from inspecting the undergrowth and stumbling upon a red admiral, I spoke to a chap who thought he had seen a little egret.  However another chap with a telescope confirmed it was indeed the spoonbill and I could pick it out in a field on the other side, snoozing with its beak tucked in.  There were some avocets around but I didn't spot them, just a lot of gulls including a little gull.

It was only on the way back in the afternoon that the spoonbill was active and I got a good view of it.  Apart from my visit to Minsmere several years ago I hadn't seen them in this country before.

Spoonbill

Little Gull

Compared to that East Chevington pond was a bit of an anticlimax as all I saw beside more gulls was several cormorants.  At least I got the chance to check out where the hides and approaches to them are.

On the way back more individual red admirals were around, none of them settling.  I counted five by the end of the day.  Again there were a lot of skylarks and several meadow pipits around, on a couple of occasions perching quite close.

Unusually I only saw one stonechat but a nice surprise was a whitethroat on a lone bush in the dunes.

Whitethroat

... Or at least I think it's a whitethroat as I'm still not sure when a whitethroat is a lesser whitethroat.  

On a fitness ride on Friday, I think I may have seen a meadow brown or two, but very much in the passing.