A Cold Snap

I returned to Prestwick Carr a few days later, hoping to pick up some more sightings towards dusk. Unfortunately it was already very dark an hour before sunset and visibility was poor. The hen harriers didn’t turn up but had been about and a willow tit appeared a couple of times, as did a sparrow hawk, stonechat and kestrel.

On the way back it was just possible to pick out a flock of redwings in the trees and this time they were accompanied by a fair few fieldfare.

Earlier on I saw a large brown bird taking refuge behind a clump of bushes. It might have been the woodcock reported by others but I really couldn’t say.

A trip to Low Newton as the weather deteriorated didn’t produce very much but it was fun to see hundreds of sanderling running up and down the beach and the waves came and went.

Sanderling

In the garden, a burst of snow a week ago heightened interest in the feeders. Repeated volleys of long-tailed tits has visited twice a day and all three other tit family members have been particularly voracious.

Long-tailed tits

What interests me is the fact that robins have been coming to the feeders over the past year. I don’t think this is particularly rare but I also can’t remember them doing that beforehand.

Robin

The occasional kestrel has been seen during the bad weather,looking out for prey in the cold.

Improving Slightly

Typically, the day after my previous post, there was a minor invasion of long-tailed tits on the suet balls, which was exactly what I hoped would happen when I put them out in the first place.

Long-tailed tits

There have been a few visits since but only in small numbers.

Otherwise sightings have been unremarkable, having been too preoccupied with other matters to chase up some of the rarities turning up at the coast, notably the pied wheatear that hung around entertaining the tourists at Whitley Bay skate park for several days.

Yesterday was better. I took a ride to the Cheese Factory via a very flooded Prestwick Carr. Disappointingly the feeders at the Carr were empty but there were several suspected redwing around, which I eventually managed to confirm with the binoculars though the resulting photos were poor.

Redwing

On the way out I noticed a couple walking along with a tripod and, sure enough, on the way back there was a small group of twitchers clustered on the track.

The main reason for the excitement was a couple of female hen harriers, one of which showed nicely for a while and I tracked it in the binoculars, getting mobbed at one point by a  crow. There were also several stonechats and a distant sparrowhawk but no sign of the short-eared owl. The redwings had also largely moved on.

But the strangest thing I saw was actually this orange peel fungus growing out of the Cheese Factory building edge.

Orange Peel Fungus

I’ve no idea how common these are but I’ve never seen one before. It was so intricate, I even wondered if it had been sculpted by an artist, possibly from Red Leicester cheese…

A pause in the action...

I'm not too sure why but I've seen remarkably little of note recently.  Perhaps the mild weather has meant that local birds are still finding plenty of food without visiting my garden.  Also I'm maybe just not so tuned in to looking out for birds above as more in the habit of looking down for bees and butterflies.  That's not to say there aren't plenty of interesting visitors stopping off on the Northumberland coast and makes me think that I must time my visit to Holy Island a little later next year.

Having failed in an attempt to see the subalpine warbler at Tynemouth on a bike ride two weeks ago, I thought things would change in the garden when I started putting out suet balls again but there was virtually no response when I hung them in the same location as last year.  Even yesterday I noted there were still a couple of bees around but various attempts to find an ivy bee have failed and only produced wasps.

One more promising note is that, for the first time in a while, I have seen an occasional coal tit coming to the feeders, and a robin has started to investigate the suet balls.  Otherwise it's been hedge-to-hedge jackdaws with the occasional blue tit, great tit or dunnock.

A brief walk at Chopwell Woods two days ago produced the usual - i.e. virtually nothing heard or seen apart from three grey squirrels.  

I had been lined up to go on a U3A visit to St Mary's Island today but had to cancel because of a domestic issue.

Slightly better was a bike ride yesterday.  Having got to Hexham without finding in the countryside except a rabbit and a big roost of chaffinches near the Tyne, I decided on a detour via Whittle Dene Lakes on the way home.  Here, alarmingly, two waters were closed because of blue algae, which seems remarkably late in the year.  However, there were a few cormorants, a single lapwing in flight and a kestrel hunting as well as a few canada geese and tufted ducks.

Unfortunately none of these resulted in a successful photo.

Which reminds me that I did very nearly get a good picture of a young kestrel perching in a nearby tree  last Tuesday - until it saw me! 

Autumn in Berlin

So it's been a rather long time since my last post declaring the end of Summer.

I've been mainly preoccupied with writing my "Death in Berlin" article (q.v.) following a very enjoyable return there in the middle of October.

Although not out looking for wildlife and without my binoculars, I did nevertheless happen on a couple of interesting sightings.

While wandering through leafy Zehlendorf, I was a little alarmed when an object from a tree landed on my shoulder and several more thudded down onto the roofs of parked cars nearby.  At first I thought they were conkers but a closer look showed it was a volley of acorns.

Clearly on the lookout for them were a trio of hooded crows and one of them was sufficiently interested to come onto the path near me.

Hooded Crow

I think there must be a lot of hooded crows in European cities.  The last one I saw was in Vienna.

Also pretty common on the basis of internet research was this firebug found on the wall of the entrance to the Gents' toilets at the Haus der Wannseekonferenz.

Firebug

While still in Zehlendorf  I came across what I at first thought was a flower but is in fact clearly a shrub.

Mystery Shrub

It looks a bit like a cultivar but was growing freely at the edge of a woodland area.

I'm still searching for answers on that one...

In spite of temperatures reaching 24C on the day in question, I only saw a single butterfly, a white.

The End Of Summer

It has been an ambition of mine for some while to coax the buddleia bushes into retaining enough blossoms past the end of September to attract a few last butterflies.  This year has to go down as a near miss.

A red admiral managed an appearance on the 29th September and there was a large white on the 30th but by today there are so few flowers left that it looks like there is no realistic chance of further visitors.

The last Red Admiral

Frustratingly I can't know if anything turned up in the good weather yesterday as Malcolm and I decided to go to Holy Island, where there had been a couple of sightings of a rustic bunting..

There it was still pretty much summer weather all day but we didn't see anything of great note - let alone the rustic bunting - and neither did anyone else we spoke to.  In fact we didn't see many birds at all in our wanderings.

There were a few sanderling and turnstone plodging in the mud near the pier, the latter seeming to be between their summer and winter suits.

Turnstones

Further along the bay there was a pair of eiders and a heron, but nothing in the Vicar's garden apart from one cockerel lying on a flower bed.

Male Eider Duck

We paused at a pub for liquid refreshment and shared a picnic bench with a number of crumb-stealing sparrows, the one species we did see a lot of, more in fact than I see anywhere nearer home. It was nice to see them close up.

Sparrows

Walking further around the island produced even more sparse results - mainly a stonechat posing nicely and this oversized owl.

Stonechat

Owl

We stopped at the bird hide where there were a large number of ducks on the shallow lake. However identification was difficult against the light and because they all had their heads tucked firmly down. In fact some of them looked like they were completely stuck in the mud. Definitely present were mallard, mute swan, coot, little grebe and probably teal.

It was pleasing not to see any dead birds but we did see this partly exposed human skeleton on the archaeological dig at the sight of a possible mediaeval monastery.

Skull

Presumably it belonged to a mediaeval monk rather than a twitcher who waited around too long for the rustic bunting.

Chance Autumn Encounters

A week ago on Sunday I set off on a bike ride to Corbridge, thinking as much of getting a bit of exercise as targeting any nature sightings.

It was a bit of a surprise then when I was pulled up short at Bradley Pond by the sight of a terrapin warming itself on a log near where people often congregate to feed the ducks.

Terrapin

I don't think this is particularly abnormal.  I remember a couple of years back a young lad at Killingworth Lake told me he had caught one while fishing for carp and I'm sure they have been reported elsewhere.

Last Tuesday I decided to take a trip to the walled garden at nearby Gibside, where again the results weren't quite as expected.  I'd hoped I might see some less common bees and thought there would be some queens around and almost certainly a number of butterflies - especially when I noticed that some of the flower beds were still flourishing well.

In fact what I got was an unexpected one-off painted lady and no other butterflies until three speckled wood turned up when I moved on from the garden.  There were any number of honey bees, a few carder bees but nothing else out of the ordinary and not a single wasp - very strange for September.

Painted Lady

It seemed hard to grasp when, only two miles up the road, I have had a mini explosion of red admirals on the buddleia bushes.  Three days ago there were as many as five and at one moment six in the garden at the same time.  Other butterflies weren't in evidence apart from occasional whites until two peacocks showed up just before the weekend.

By yesterday the daytime temperatures had dropped to 13C maximum.  Setting out for another bike ride I wondered to myself whether it would still be possible to see a swallow or a butterfly.  In fact I saw one of each but couldn't identify the butterfly in flight.  But two red admirals managed to brave the conditions at home again today.

The flowers at Gibside

Before the Rains Came

This week was forecast to bring steady rain.  In fact it only arrived in bucket loads over the past couple of days and in the meanwhile the sun got out often enough for continued appearances by red admiral, peacock, small tortoiseshell, comma, (mainly) large and small whites.  A couple more queen bumblebees turned up, this time buff-tailed, and the pellucid fly made another appearance.

Last Saturday I glimpsed a large moth joining the diners on the buddleia.  It appeared briefly for the next couple of days and looked very much like a humming bird hawk-moth.  When I got the camera out the last day, it was nectaring on the wing and not settling on the flowers, so attempted photos were not much helpful.  However it was possible to be confident of the identification on the basis of the orangey-brown wing colour and body shape alone.

In the end I attempted a video, which also captured one of the whites by chance:

I think I read somewhere that hummingbird hawk-moths have been commoner than usual this year.

It looks like we may have drier weather again soon, so hopefully there will be a few more butterflies and bees to brighten up the day.

Quiet Days in the Garden

A bit of a quiet phase after the excitements of Saltwell Park.

I know I said that butterfly snaps on the buddleia have been too frequent but there had to be an exception for the lone painted lady that appeared around 10 days ago.

Painted Lady

It's only the second one I've seen this year and I think the first in the garden since the Painted Lady Year in 2019.

A trend in the garden has been the increase in commas and I've wondered if this has been at the expense of the small tortoiseshell.  Pretty much absent at the start of summer, the latter have now started to appear and I did actually have two at the same time last week.  But the commas certainly have the majority, reversing the usual trend.  They did disappear for a time after heatwave but are now back in small numbers, presumably a fresh new brood. 

Most of the whites coming to the buddleia continue to be Large Whites with just the odd small white.

The buddleia certainly attracts large numbers of bumblebees but nothing out of the ordinary i.e. buff-tailed and white-tailed plus occasional carder bees.  Then yesterday a massive tree bumblebee turned up, big enough in fact to be a queen.  I think there is a theory that tree bumblebees can overwinter.

One surprise was an appearance by a hover fly I've never seen before.  It was extremely easy to identify it as a pellucid fly adventuring out from the nearby trees.

Pellucid Fly

A walk in the Alnwick area last week only produced a worn speckled wood.  As elsewhere much of the vegetation had dried up.

Batmen and Bee Grabbers

In spite of fine weather, butterflies seemed slow to start appearing on the buddleia this year and did not come in substantial numbers until the first week in August.  Normally one or two tortoiseshells visit the small bushes in the front garden during July but this year, the first non-white visitor was a comma.  In fact small tortoiseshells have not been at all frequent, whereas commas have become considerably more common - up to four at the same time visiting the back garden.

The predominant species besides have been peacock and large white with occasional small white, speckled wood and red admiral.  There have also been two flyovers by holly blue and I was quite pleased to identify a single green-veined white, a second brood specimen that could easily be taken for a small white at first glance.

Comma

Green-veined White

It's becoming an annual routine to photograph nymphalidae on the buddleia each year so I'm thinking to do less of it.  However, one more irregular occurrence while mowing the lawn nearby was this moth, which I take to be a large yellow underwing.

Large Yellow Underwing

Last Sunday I went on another excellent bee walk led by Charlotte Rankin at the Swedish Bee Garden in Saltwell Park in Gateshead.  As well as all the main species of bumblebee, there were a couple of red-tailed cuckoo bees and a vestal/gypsy cuckoo bee and a few minute furrow bees with a greenish body sheen.  On checking, there are a vast number of furrow bee species but one that seems more common in our area is the turquoise furrow bee.

Red-tailed Cuckoo Bee

With Charlotte's assistance we got into some of the less normal hoverfly species, including the batman hoverfly and swollen-thighed hoverfly and there were even some bee grabbers, flies that attach themselves to bees in flight to lay their eggs in the bee's waist.  I had the good fortune to find a colourful example, which from research may well be the four-banded bee grabber.  Several of us had never heard of bee grabbers before including myself so I can't claim to be an expert..

Four-banded bee grabber?

As we were mostly capturing species in pots for identification, most of the resulting photos unfortunately failed to meet my tough editorial standards.

Lastly I got out for a day's fishing at Brenkley on Wednesday.  In an effort to catch regularly, I float fished maggot close to the surface and must have caught 20-30 roach and perch, almost all of them pretty tiny.  Meanwhile the leger rod I put out for bigger fish did nothing whatsoever.  Apparently a lot of the carp were trying to shelter from the sun under the bridge at the other end of the pond.

I'm losing interest in coarse fishing slowly but surely and think I might try out my late dad's vintage fly fishing gear before winter sets in.

Tales of the Unexpected

In anticipation of a decent plum harvest this autumn, I decided to remove the peanut feeders from the plum tree and hang them temporarily on the washing line to prevent the birds from nibbling at the ripening plums.

They took a bit of getting used to the feeders zipwiring along the washing line and I thought it would be amusing to take a photo of the new set-up in action.

By total chance what I actually got was a shot of a marsh tit sharing one feeder with a blue tit.

Marsh Tit(l) and Blue Tit

That was really quite a chance as visits from a marsh tit are particularly seldom and I didn't see one at all last year.

The loser in this adjustment was the cheeky nut-stealing squirrel who spent a couple of days trying to work out how get onto the feeder and eventually giving up after crashing through the buddleia bush a couple of times.

Last Friday I led a Naturewatch walk around Wingate Quarry Nature Reserve, which I'm pleased to say impressed those present with its variety of butterflies (once the sun got out) and abundant flora.  There weren't as many marbled white about as I had expected but there were good numbers of large and small white, common blue and small heath.  In terms of flowers, knapweed, pussy willow and ragwort but I left it to our resident experts to identify numerous rarities including fragrant orchid.

Common Blue (f)	Common Blue (m)
Marbled White	Small Heath
Small Skipper	Painted Lady

The painted lady was a bit of a bonus, the first one most of us thought we had seen this summer.

Even before the sun came out, bumblebees were plentiful, in particular red-tailed bumblebees of both genders.  I hadn't noticed the males so far this year.  Some bees had been considerably blanched by the sun during the recent hot weather.

I spotted one particularly corpulent bee which I believe was a gypsy or vestal cuckoo bee, remembering that they are hard to separate in the field.

Gypsy or Vestal Cuckoo Bee

Puffins and Terns

I now strongly feel I'm playing catch up on summer events and not winning.

Anyway, just over two weeks ago Vicki, Alex and I achieved a target by taking the Coquet Island boat trip.  On the way we made a brief trip to the Hauxley reserve, which however was somewhat disappointing.  The water was low, species fairly limited and the low sun made it hard to identify what was there.

We did catch up with some female eider ducks and thought we saw some little grebe but others were harder to identify.

Female Eider

? Duck

I was for example uncertain about the bird on the right above.

In fact we had better luck with non-avian species, coming across small tortoiseshell, common blue and common blue damselfly.

Common Blue

Common Blue Damselfly

Of course avian flu has been a factor all along the Northumberland coast but you wouldn't have thought so on sailing round Coquet Island, where there were still birds in big numbers.  Apparently the RSPB warden has been bagging up any dead birds for disposal.  A large number of atlantic seals just off the island suggested they had plenty to be interested in as well.

The main reason for going was to see the puffins for the first time and we saw plenty, even flying across our path when we were still a little way off the island.  There was a bit of a swell on and it was hard to hold the camera steady to get pictures with the boat tossing around.  But perseverance paid off in the end.

Puffin

Puffins

The rare roseate terns were also present and I could see the area where they were supposed to be.  Unfortunately I couldn't get clear photographs at all and could only really identify common, arctic and (without realising it at the time) sandwich tern.

Terns

The sandwich tern is the large, white bird in the centre of the near foreground above.  The arctic terns have lighter tail and trailers than the common terns - or so I understand.

Arctic Tern

But it was the puffins who were the real entertainment.

Dolomites: Scenery and Unidentified Flying Objects

Some leftovers and afterthoughts on my recent holiday...

Firstly it wouldn't be fair to finish without some sort of tribute to the fantastic scenery, so here's a little sequence of different views we  experienced over the week.  One of the slides is of the Marmolade glacier. where there had been a recent unfortunate tragedy leading to several fatalities:

Obviously this isn't a scientific journal but I do try to identify species as accurately as possible and no doubt get things wrong from time to time.  Here is a selection of items that, for whatever reason, I didn't manage to name with any certainty:

Please feel free to add a comment below if you have any of the answers, or disagree with ant of the identifications I have made on other posts over the last couple of weeks.   I'm sure I should have done better with the butterflies at least.

Still to sort out are the moths we saw in the moth trap on days one and two as I'm going to move on to other themes just now.  I imagine myself going through all the moths later on a winter's day but maybe it needs to be sooner than that before I forget...

Dolomites Days and 5 and 6

Day 5 comprised two walks in the Sella Pass, the second of which finished on the scree at our highest elevation of around 2,300 metres.  Day 6 comprised two main stops at Predazzo and the Park Natural Paneveggio, which also ended up on scree.

The photos are in no particular order and reflect a little my guilt at having largely failed to do much justice to the many flowers.

After an early success with a mountain fritillary at Sella Pass, most butterflies were on the wing apart from alpine heath, which was definitely the most seen butterfly throughout the six days.  However the compensation was a rarity later on in the morning - Warren's grizzled skipper, which was found ovipositing on its main food plant.  

Ring ouzels and nutcrackers were spotted on the way up to the scree and I saw the "mysterious" fly.  It had a clear red band on its waist the likes of which I've never seen before but I couldn't find any shots of similar flies on the internet.

The scree itself was a disappointment as the sun disappeared soon after we arrived and only one butterfly was sighted in passing.  However a few from the group did manage a close encounter with a marmot.

Day 6  was notable for the repeated appearance of a couple of apollo butterflies at a layby en route.  Perhaps even more striking for me was the fleeting sighting of a purple emperor at the same location and the carnelian burnet was arguably the star rarity.

Large ringlet was seen a lot at Predazzo with some other wetland species and large grizzled skipper (in numbers) was a first sighting as we moved uphill.  I again found some bug interest in the form of the rose chafer.

There was a lone sighting of a pearly heath (last photo) showing its similarity to the alpine version.

Once more today, the scree was not yielding any major sightings but we probably saw most of the target sightings elsewhere on the trip except for dewy ringlet.  And the marmot was far more obliging this time, turning up near the refugio during our last refreshment stop.

It seemed like a fitting end to a great holiday.

Dolomites Days 3 and 4

Day 3 was again spent at altitude on longish walk to a refugio in the Rosengarten area.  By contrast Day 4 was at lower level in the Eggental valley.  The sightings are in alphabetical order but I can tell you where each were seen if you request it in a comment.

A first sighting for me was the provencal short-tailed blue plus pretty much all the moths and more exotic bugs but it was the chequered blue and the rosey footman that were thought by the guides to be obvious rarities.  The one that got away was meleager's blue, seen only by our Italian guide, Luca.

People in the group were most excited about the scarce swallowtail and the white admiral plus the standard swallowtail that eluded my camera but I had seen all these before at other locations, notably Bulgaria.  The same is true of the valezina variation of the silver-washed fritillary.  The more normal version was also around the Eggental, nectaring on buddleia.  White admirals were all over the place there, flattering through the riverside trees, but it took a visit to the field of a (rather annoyed-looking) farmer to find one that settled nicely on a flower.

I found it tricky to spot identify the mountain green-veined whites which didn't look very green at all.

Although common here in the UK, we saw only a couple of commas and one small copper during the whole holiday.  If you look carefully at the small copper, you will see it has a number of blue spots on the upper hind-wing.  Apparently, this means it was a third brood specimen.

It was ironic that we saw both purple and white-letter hairstreak, both species I was thinking of tracking down in my return home, as Luca revealed that neither species had been seen on any of his previous tours to the area.  Incidentally, the purple hairstreak, best seen here in oak trees towards dusk was happily eating honeydew on sallows at midday.

Indeed we discussed several examples of wildlife behaving differently from country to country. 

Dolomites Days 1 and 2

Venues covered were Tamion where we were staying, the Costalunga Pass, San Pellegrino Pass and the Passa Valles.  My photographs throughout the trip concentrated mainly on butterflies:

Without cross-checking to previous sightings in Sri Lanka and Bulgaria, I reckoned that almond-eyed ringlet, alpine heath, geranium argus, large ringlet, olive skipper, silver-spotted skipper, sooty ringlet and tatania's fritillary were all first sightings for me.

One we didn't get a photograph of was a large blue that appeared towards the top of the San Pellegrino Pass.  Our group leader Luca commented that he'd never seen one there before.

Alpine Heath and Mazarine Blue were to prove the most common of the smaller butterflies throughout the trip, though even they were considerably outnumbered by the chimney sweeper moth.

The marsh fritillary was the glaciegenita variant found in the Alps and much smaller that the ones I saw in Bulgaria.

The olive skipper is the most common of the greyish skippers, which are often hard to distinguish. The number of spots on the lower hind wing can give a strong clue.

One butterfly we couldn't track down was the scarce copper in spite of the abundance of its food plant.

The bees were slightly differently coloured than expected.  The red-tailed bumblebee had faded to orange-tailed whereas the carder bee was as ginger as a tawny mining bee.

Incidentally, the nutcracker shot was the best I have so far managed.

In the Dolomites

Having heard one last cuckoo calling on 3rd  July (remarkably late for up here surely?) I braved the possibility of rail strikes and flight cancellations I set off for Gatwick Airport on the Tuesday to join a Naturetrek holiday "Butterflies of the Dolomites" the day after.  It didn't start too well as a three hour flight delay meant we didn't arrive at our hotel in the Fassa Valley until 11.00 p.m. local time.  However numerous rewarding sightings followed over the six active days that followed and at times the profusion of things to observe was almost overwhelming.

In spite of the holiday title, there was also a strong focus on wild flowers, a good number of bird sightings and a moth trap at the hotel.  One thing that surprised me was the relative lack of bees given there were so many flowers in the alpine meadows, but there were hoverflies and grasshoppers everywhere and some interesting bugs.  Perhaps due to the dry weather during the day apart from one brief shower, we didn't see many dragonflies and another factor was that many watercourses had dried up completely (global warming) and still water levels were low.

It's the photographs that tell the story best so I've arranged them in slide shows with brief commentaries.  However, I've left the contents of the moth trap to another time as it will take me a good while to identify all the species.

And it wasn't all clambering around and identifying obscurities either:

Resting at a rifugio

Damselfly Dilemma

It's official.  I'm withdrawing the peanut feed from the garden for the time being.  Not only is it impossible to locate it anywhere so that the large birds and ubiquitous squirrel don't snaffle the lion's share of the food, I don't want it hanging from the plum tree encouraging the birds to have a go at what looks likely to be a promising harvest this year.  Further, it's starting to be suggested that removing them hinders the spread of avian flu, which is already hitting the Northumberland coastline.

I did a quick run up to Alnwick on Thursday and we spent some time again going through the meadow by the River Aln.  Red-tailed bumblebees were quickly to be seen as were the expected meadow brown and ringlet butterflies, though this time no skippers and no whites, which have gone a bit scarce generally when I've been out and about.

Instead there were a couple of damselflies, one of which I immediately recognised but couldn't remember the name of - a banded demoiselle.  Another damselfly was in the same area displaying a completely different colour scheme and I spent a while trying to identify it.  It turns out it was simply a female banded demoiselle - though in this case it's the monsieur not the demoiselle who sports the wing band.

Banded Demoiselle

Banded Demoiselle (f)

It is however clearly the lady that has the better camouflage.

Mystery Bees and Disappearing Butterflies, Fish and Birds

 Last week I spotted a couple of bumblebees in the garden that I felt I really couldn't identify.  I have sent photos to the Natural History Society to see if they can tell me what they are.

Bee 1

Bee 2

What caught my attention with Bee 1 was the lack of a buff or white tail.  Instead, as can be seen from a second photo, there is the merest tip of white at the very end of the tail.

Bee 1 - side view

After I took the photos I thought I noticed a slight interruption to the abdominal band and so wondered about broken-belted bumblebee.  This seems highly likely however in terms of other factors and it would have to have been far away from its normal local habitat.

Afterwards I did come across some information that Bee 2 might possibly be a late-flying hairy-footed flower bee worker, and not a bumblebee at all.  However I haven't seen one before so it would be interesting to know.

Last Thursday I squeezed in a fishing trip to Horton Grange.  Looking for bream or tench on the swim feeder, I caught just three small roach on worm near in and nothing on corn further out.  The worm bites were fairly consistent if cautious but tackle trouble emerged as the bale arm on the reel started to fly open when striking, thus preventing me catching more.

On Saturday, Alex and I set out to Finglandrigg Wood in Cumbria on a planned mission to track down the marsh fritillary.  In spite of two tours through the suspect area, we were unable to manage a single sighting.  Apart from various speckled wood, ringlet, small skipper, red admiral and meadow brown, the only out of the ordinary sighting was of a small tortoiseshell in pursuit of its mate (presumably).  First seen on a mossy rock in the early afternoon, they were still at it on the nearby boardwalk when we re-visited the area a couple of hours earlier.

Small Tortoiseshells

As when we visited the Campfield Moss a year ago there were some carder bees nectaring on foxgloves.  Last year I thought they were moss carder bees.  On further research I'm more doubtful but they were certainly of a lighter hue that the ones I see here.

Moving on to Campfield Moss for a late visit we again found that the birds had mostly absented themselves apart from oyster catchers, a buzzard and a kestrel.

However it was quite nice to see woodpeckers, tree sparrows and greenfinch on the feeders, amongst others.

Greenfinch

Tree Sparrow