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.