Trip to Tübingen

This wasn't a dedicated nature holiday, the main aims being cultural and relaxation in various forms.  Some of the sightings I did make were annoyingly fleeting, making identification tricky.

One day though, I visited the University Botanical Gardens with its impressive array of gardens and trees.  On the way from the nearest bus stop there were a couple of butterflies and an elusive black redstart.

Once there, I had my first sighting of a common blue in an area of rewilding and a spectacular stripey bug on an exotic plant.

Common Blue

Minstrel Bug

Apparently it's an Italian Striped Bug or Minstrel Bug.  Also fleetingly sighted for the first time this year were common darter and marbled white.  On some steps a nomad bee was so active that I couldn't get a picture of it.  This was a pity as all the bees I saw afterwards were honey bees or obvious forms of bumblebee.

On the way to a bike hire place, I had a couple of forays along the River Ammer, where there were a few trout rising and this slightly puzzling duck with a blue sheen on its head feathers.

There is a thing called the Blue-headed Mallard in America and the beak certainly looks mallardy but on balance I think this is probably some sort of hybrid.

Mallard Hybrid?

Another teaser occurred during my one bike ride on a decrepit city bike.  At the edge of a farm field I happened on a couple of large pipits of a long thin body shape and a palish chest marking.  Of course, they moved on soon after I stopped.  It was hard to make them out properly against the light but I reckoned that tawny pipit was likely.

A couple of days later, I caught sight of a butterfly flying along the hedgerow that had all the signs of being a brown hairstreak, my first ever, but of course it did not land.  Later on I was amused to find a pair of Egyptian Geese casually surveilling the punts and  sunbathers by the Neckar.  

Egyptian Goose

I ended up in a Biergarten by the river, feeding fragments of bread to a decent sized carp - almost as satisfying as catching one.

The last day of my holiday was a dedicated nature outing.  I took a bus to Bebenhausen, which offers a number of walks on the southern tip of the Naturpark Schönbuch.  

The first thing I saw, before even leaving the village was a small white butterfly - except something about it struck me as unusual.  I think in fact it was a Southern Small White.  If so it was pretty much right on the Northern edge of its established range but I'm pretty confident about this one.  The giveaway is that the black edging extends slightly down the outer edge of the upper forewing.

Southern Small White

Although the forecast was for very hot weather, it took a while for the clouds to disperse.  When they did, another white appeared by the side of the Fohlenweideweg - a fair number of wood whites, always nice to see as they do not occur in the North of Britain.

Wood White

Their weak, erratic flight means that wood white sites are very precious as the butterflies are unlikely to relocate over any distance.

Ironically the real fun butterflies started when I took a wrong turn and went down a wee overgrown lane.  I was surprised to find that the dominant butterfly here was the pearly heath.

Pearly Heath

I'd seen the pearly heath several times when I was in Bulgaria but did not know it extends across mainland Europe.  

Several expected items turned up including another common blue, and, looking smart, meadow brown and ringlet.

Meadow Brown

Common Blue

Ringlet

I also spent some time confirming that the small skipper I saw was a small skipper, as Essex or Lulworth Skipper were also feasible.  Anyway, it is.

Small Skipper

More troublesome was a very small and worn female blue that kept fluttering around the path track without settling more than briefly.  My feeling is that it may be a Silver Studded Blue but without better images, it's hard to be sure, 

Silver Studded Blue?

Then there was the one that completely defeated me, as I couldn't find anything that resembled this rather smart-looking black moth.  Or maybe it's not even a moth at all?

Unidentified Flying Object

It almost looks like the translucent wing tips are reflecting the treetops above.

Last of all. the most joyful appearance went completely undocumented when a massive purple emperor came down and flattered briefly in front of my midriff.  I waited around for half an hour for it to return but there was no further sign.

Catching Up

Dear, oh dear! I'm well behind with all this, partly because I took the liberty of going on holiday and partly because I've seen some things that have proved tricky to identify.

Let's start in the garden - about three weeks ago.

Sadly my forget-me-nots are now finished but the male bullfinch continued his visits to them and was last sighted raiding very close to the house.

Greedy Bullfinch

The same day, while taking a break in the summer house, I discovered this strange looking wasp crawling around.

Strange Wasp

I believe it is a form of ichneumonid wasp, without being able to identify it further.

The mystery bee mentioned in my last post continued to turn up in the same place and the nearest I can get to labelling it is that it MIGHT be an orange-tailed mining bee where the colouration has been faded by the sun.  One or two sightings suggested an orangey tinge on the tail and it has occurred not far from here.  I also considered a honey bee drone but the abdomen is too solidly black.

Suspected Orange-tailed Mining Bee

A few days before all this, I fitted in a trip to Prestwick Carr in temporarily overcast weather.  I went late in the day, hoping to catch up with a short-eared owl which duly failed to appear.  However I did get a nice view of a wren, and a chance one of a willow warbler, which I had first thought was a whitethroat!  At the feeders there was a willow tit and a tree sparrow I didn't even notice seeing.

Wren	Willow Warbler
Willow Tit	Tree Sparrow

Well I did say the light was poor! It certainly made the only speckled wood butterfly seen look a bit sombre.

Speckled Wood

I reckon Butterfly Conservation NE will record a record drop in Speckled Wood numbers this year.

More about my holiday shortly...

The Known and the Unknown

Malcolm and I took advantage of the opportunity to join an organised Bees and Pollinators Walk at Hepple Estate on Saturday.

In spite of good weather early sightings were few but we soon managed to come across garden bumblebee and early bumblebee (seems to be more of both this year) and Malcolm managed to capture an early queen.

Early Bumblebee Queen

Around the same time I found a mining bee on trefoil, which was identified as A probable Wilkes' Mining Bee.

Wilkes' Mining Bee

Someone else found another mining bee in the hawthorn bushes.  It was also identified but I forgot to write the name down!

Mining Bee

Over lunch, there were a few nomad bees probing the gaps in the steps and wall of the formal garden, but all were very elusive.  One clearly had a red stripe at the top of the thorax, which got me thinking of the flavous nomad bee suspect that was in the garden the other week.

The group headed towards a rougher area around the stream and ponds.  Here I came across the only notable butterfly all day, an absolutely tiny small copper and a pair of small red damselflies in the act of mating.

Very Small Copper

Small Red Damselflies

You have to look hard to see the second damselfly.

Mammals turned up as well in the shape of a frog, and more bizarrely a pipistrelle bat that one of the group found swimming in the main pond.  We speculated that it had fallen in in pursuit of insects flying over the water and it was eventually decided to put it in a tree, where it immediately climbed higher, perhaps looking for somewhere to sleep.

Frog crawling...

Bat climbing...

Shortly before that I had made what was described by some as the 'find of the day' - a bilberry bumblebee. However I have to fess up immediately and say that I misidentified it.  It was the chap next to me who pointed out that the red tail is too big for it to be other than a bilberry bumblebee and proceeded to net it.

This caused a bit of discussion and I wasn't sure I'd got a decent photo of it.  So I tried to take a snap of it on the chap's hand before it flew off, which didn't quite work....

Bilberry Bumblebee escaping

Nevertheless a great spot for me, especially thinking how much time I spent searching for them in the Highlands this time last year.

Another first time sighting was this jewel wasp, but less exciting since I'd never heard of them before.

Jewel Wasp

The same applied for the pregnant yellow fly I found that seemed to be only known by a latin name.

On the other hand I had seen a rust fungus at Durisdeer recently and probably the land bird that was curiously walking on some floater weed in the pond, but it flew off in a hurry.

Rust Fungus

Bird walking on water...

But in a way the most puzzling thing surrounded this mining bee that my normal bee mentor plucked this out of an oak tree and then was unable to identify it beyond that it was a mining bee and neither of our other two experts could identify it either.  It is a rather worn specimen.

Unidentified Mining Bee

I'm not sure if it was this making me less certain or just chance, but in the last couple of days I have found that I have seen a couple of solitary bees in the garden and have no idea what they are.

Here is a selection of what I have found:

The first two are of the same bee.

Mixed Pickings 2

Last Sunday I was out on a walk in the Durisdeer Hills with V&A.

In reasonable weather there were quite a few butterflies around, the predominant species being the green-veined white.

Green-veined White

Even more predominant were large numbers of red kite, which have clearly spread from Loch Ken and a fair few buzzards.

We were really hoping to see a pair of hen harriers that appeared to have mated in the area and merlin, which are known to be present here too.  In fact we saw neither and speculated that the large number of other birds of prey may have discouraged the harriers.

There were however numerous other birds to see, notably meadow pipits as one would expect, wheatear and a few red-legged partridge - hardly surprising as they are bred widely as a gamebird. 

Wheatear

Red-legged Partridge

The wheatear looks to me like a young female. I also noticed that the pipit appears to have some sort of head or eye stripe, so that I briefly wondered about tree pipit but discounted the possibility.

Meadow Pipit

About two thirds of the way along the trail there was some cotton grass and a large expanse of bilberry and I started to wonder what else might be seen here.  However, the bilberry was only just coming into flower.

On the way back through this area, there was a chance sighting of a small heath butterfly, which pleased me considerably.  There was also a single bird's egg on the path - probably that of a dove or pigeon - which we decided to leave alone.

Small Heath

Towards the end a couple of moths appeared.  One I couldn't identify but the other appears to be a brown silverline.

Brown Silverline

A couple of days ago on the way to the doctor's, I did a reccy of Chopwell East Field, a recently declared reserve to see if it is suitable for a Naturewatch Walk.  

It actually proved quite promising.  Quite a lot of flora is springing up.  At one point there are signs of bird's foot trefoil establishing itself, though I suspect it may get overwhelmed by surrounding grasses.  A shetland pony staring at me from a neighbouring horses' field possibly was showing some interest in addressing this issue.

In an area described as wetland, which was actually pretty dry, I was lucky enough to come across one or two small copper butterflies.  Turning to retrace my steps a pair of linnets started singing from nearby trees and bushes.  It looks like they are both male.

Small Copper

Linnets

Meanwhile back in the garden, I've twice been visited by a pair of bullfinches, anxious to hoover up some seeds from the now over-abundant forget-me-nots.

Mr Bullfinch

Mrs Bullfinch

A bit rude of Mr Bullfinch to have his back turned on us.

There's no more news on the mystery black bee, but I did manage to capture this early bumblebee worker.

Early Bumblebee

No more signs of red mason or nomad bees, perhaps down to poorish weather.

On the "Is it a fly or is it a bee" debate, I think I may have missed out when I found a very small item wondering along the kitchen windowsill while cooking.  I didn't take it too seriously thinking it was probably a fly and only got a couple of poor images.

A pity as I think now that it may have been a wee furrow bee and it hung around for ages!

Mixed Pickings 1

Oh dear, I feel like I'm getting a bit behind with all this, and quite a variety of species have come my way over the past ten days.

Around that time I did a bike run from Prudhoe to Blaydon checking out dead nettle for any fork-tailed flower bees.  This drew a total blank but I did find a couple of items that caught the attention.

The first one was a complete puzzle as I couldn't decide whether it was a bee or some kind of flying bug, perhaps more likely the latter.

Mystery Bug

Anyway there was a few of them approaching the area of Prudhoe Pumping Station.

Next I went off piste to take a look in the calaminarian grassland at Wylam, which as usual didn't produce any of the exotic flowers pictured on the noticeboard.  But I did find was this little item in a rather sandy area of the track. I'm pretty sure is a blood bee - maybe a box-headed blood bee - though there are one or two mining bees that look similar.

Box-headed Blood Bee?

In the same area I got the first photo of a speckled wood this year.  Really there should be scores of them around by now in dappled woodland areas, instead of the odd one or two I'm actually seeing.

This specimen was already looking a bit worn,

Speckled Wood

Yet another bee mystery turned up in the garden, appearing to be totally black apart from a very short buff tail to the abdomen.

Mystery Bee

I've seen another one since and seemed to notice a faint hint of a stripe on the upper abdomen, making me wonder about buff-tailed bumblebee, which can sometimes lose its colouration.  But then the tail would surely have been more extensive.

Anyway it doesn't ever hang around for long.