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.