A Frantic Fortnight of Frustrating Photography

The Covid thing left me with an ongoing chestiness and I decided on a concerted activity campaign during last week's good weather involving several bike rides, tennis and walking cricket.

One of the many bike rides was to Prestwick Carr to see what was on the feeders and looking out for any activity en route, having seen a few peacock butterflies (about 6) and a few bumblebee queens on my other travels as well as hearing several chiffchaffs.

Not much turned up until I came to the end of the track out of Ponteland Park, when I was quite pleased to get a shot of a greenfinch up on a telegraph wire after several attempts.

Greenfinch

Both chiffchaffs and greenfinches have been turning up near the garden and hereabouts, usually heard rather than seen.

It was too early in the day for the short-eared owl at Prestwick Carr, but there was a single tree sparrow on the approach to the area and as usual several small birds near the feeders - notably reed buntings and willow tits as well as more greenfinches, other tits and the odd chaffinch.  Annoyingly, the sun was in such a position that it was impossible to focus on them without scaring them off and the best I could manage was a brief video of a willow tit in the hedgerow.

Willow Tit

There was another peacock and a small tortoiseshell, a large white (probable), a kestrel and a buzzard.

On Sunday, the last day of the really warm sunshine, Alex and I took a walk up to the the Gairs Viewpoint at RSPB Geltsdale in the hope we might see something interesting, which I said for me would be a grouse and either a peregrine or a merlin.

There were a few curlew near the car park.  Afterwards sightings tended once again to be fleeting but we continued well with a redpoll, a greenfinch and a stonechat as we advanced through the tree scrub, having seen a few lapwing in semi-display mode.

Once we reached the moorland, Alex spotted what appeared to be a merlin harassing some passing crows.  It looked like it had settled on a distant fencepost with a crow on another post nearby.  The trouble was that neither of the photos I took clearly showed a merlin so it was a bit of a conundrum.

Further on we started to hear grouse in the heather and a pair or red grouse flew right over our heads - naturally without posing for the camera.

On the way back more and more meadow pipits lifted off in front of us and more peacocks started to appear along with a single buff-tailed bumblebee.  A few buzzards were around and we spent some time working out that another distant bird on a wire was nothing more than a kestrel.  There was no sign of a peregrine.

In all of this the best photos I got were a robin and a stonechat!

Robin

Stonechat

Yesterday I took a quick walk in Chopwell Woods in the hope of seeing a few bumblebees.  One almost flew into me as I went out the door but there wasn't much doing in the Woods apart from another surprise small tortoiseshell at 10C.  As I turned for home more bumblebee queens did start to appear.  Several buff-tailed queens were not keen to settle and a suspected early bumblebee queen on some carnations and a possible garden bumblebee couldn't be confirmed.

Strangely the one butterfly that did linger was a lone tree bumblebee that looked a little small to be a queen but presumably was one.

Small Tortoiseshell

Tree Bumblebee

Spring is Sprung

When I experimented by offering a nyger seed feeder to the local birds a couple of years or so ago, I was a bit surprised that it was all gobbled up by jackdaws and none of the fancy species I had hoped for got anywhere near it.  So when I was offered a bag of nyger seed surplus to requirements in Moffat, I had little doubt that it would quickly go the same way.

In fact the heavy sprinklings I put down on the bird table were totally shunned for weeks and interest could only be aroused by adding other titbits amongst the glut of uneaten tiny black seeds.

Eventually a pair of dunnocks and the odd blackbird have latched on to the permanent free lunch and at least some of the pile is getting shifted.  I would have expected the coal tits to love it and at least the odd goldfinch to take a look, but not even the jackdaws have shown much enthusiasm.  Perhaps the birds just have other things to do at this time of year.  The feeders haven't produced much either.

Finally emerging from Covid confinement, I took a trip to Edinburgh last week for cultural purposes.  I did manage to slot in an hour's walk in Princes Street Gardens but there was nothing around apart from a couple of magpies and pigeons in spite of a nice, sunny day.  The only other animals I saw were the stuffed ones in the National Museum.

On returning home, there was a little more on offer.  On Friday, I briefly saw a small tortoiseshell from the summer house as well as a bumblebee and a female woodpecker paid a rare visit to the peanut feeder.

Greater-spotted Woodpecker

On a bike ride yesterday there was another bumblebee and any number of skylarks singing, giving a strong sense of Spring.  Then today, single small tortoiseshell was resting on the laurel in the front garden.

Small Tortoiseshell

There seemed to be some staining on the left lower wing that looked a bit like bird lime.  As the temperature was around 9C I was surprised to see it at all and hope it has managed to take cover.  It's forecast to freeze tonight.

Staying at home..

Just I was starting to relax a little bit I got Covid and annoyingly could not accompany Alex and Vicki on their visit to Leighton Moss where they got good sightings of marsh harriers and booming bitterns.

I had to put up with more modest fare in the back garden.

Quite amusing was the antics of this squirrel, which attempted to shin up the plum tree but was put off several times when the chicken carcass that was on offer started to flap around in a threatening manner.  Then followed a period of unsure meanderings on the decking before it managed to pluck up courage again.

Squirrel chickens out

Almost immediately afterwards, a male blackcap turned up in the tree but I failed to let it settle before getting excited and it was off again straight away.

A couple of days before this had happened two male nuthatches visited the feeders together, which struck me as slightly odd but they also departed sharply, as did the jay that briefly landed on the back fence.

One more consistent visitor has been a thrush who has been showing some interest in the results of my garden tidy up.

Thrush

I'm thinking it's a song thrush.

So far there has been no sign of any bees or butterflies.

I should get out more but of course it's not advised.

Worth The Wait

On Sunday Alex, Vicki and I visited a certain location in Southern Scotland to see if we could catch up with some goshawks and ideally a better sighting than the very distant one I had at Kielder a few years back.

A location in Southern Scotland

Immediately on arrival we found the first thing we hoped to see - a man with a telescope.

It turned out he had come up from Derbyshire for the week and was able to give us all kinds of tips on goshawks and all kinds of other birds as well as butterflies.  He reported that goshawks were indeed about but that he hadn't seen any for the past half an hour.  So it was a case of waiting to see if anything turned up over lunchtime.

There were plenty of buzzards going up and I remembered being told at Kielder that looking for buzzards is a good start.

Eventually one goshawk appeared briefly but disappeared behind a nearby tree and only our expert companion got a view.

About half an hour later, a couple (I think) appeared but only Alex and the expert could see them.

Another half an hour and another bird was spotted over the treeline to the right and this time we could all see it clearly.  We noted its languid, slow-flapping flight pattern and shape in contrast to the gliding buzzards.  It was in fact the last bird to be identified although the three of us hung on for an hour or so afterwards.  

Certainly better than the Kielder sighting, it was still too distant for the couple of snaps Vicki managed to be usable.

The same could be said for the only other interesting event.   At one point I reckoned to have seen a brambling in the silver birch behind us and Vicki thought the same.  But it moved on sharply and the expert identified a bird landing nearby as a chaffinch.  Not necessarily the same bird though and Vicki and I reckoned the one we saw probably was a brambling.  It seemed to have a double white stripe on its flank and hints of speckling on the underside near the tail.

Apparently ospreys and peregrines can be seen at the same location and the scenery on the way looked fantastic in bright spring sunlight