No Place Like Home

I haven't been out much lately and not at all to observe wildlife.

The weather at home was typically good while I was away and there were a few butterflies around for a few days on my return, although nothing out of the ordinary.  

It's funny how you suddenly notice something you hadn't registered before, in this case the white marking on the lower underwing of the red admiral.

Red Admiral

Peacocks and large whites continued to predominate until wet weather took over, plus one speckled wood that landed on the mahonia.

A couple of individual stories though:

This squirrel has turned up a few times, burrowing here and there, clearly in search of acorns he buried earlier.

Squirrel

Just after I turned the camera off, he found one and scoffed it all right on the path beneath the kitchen window.  No wonder I find so many oak saplings in the garden!

A few days ago, in not particularly bright weather and a temperature of 11C, it was a pleasant surprise to see a small butterfly land on one of my T-shirts on the washing line. 

Speckled Wood T-shirt

I thought it might be a small tortoiseshell but photos revealed it to be a speckled wood - perhaps unsurprisingly,
I've already noted how small some of them have been this year.

The strange thing was that, when I went out again after two or three hours to get the washing in, it was still there.

I disturbed it and you could tell it was having difficulty flying in the cold air, so I captured it and took it into the house to warm up a bit.

I've done this before with a red admiral that emerged one December, deceived by a mild spell.

Generally it's recommended to leave them for about 40 minutes before attempting to release them, but this one was up and away in about 15 minutes, so a pleasing result.

It's now at the stage where each year I wonder if one more last butterfly will appear on the buddleia now October is here.  With still a couple of sprigs remaining, I had hopes for today but the forecast bright weather only obliged in brief spells.

I'm out tomorrow and most of Friday, so I suspect that's it - unless of course we get a prolonged spell of Mediterranean weather before Bonfire Night...

Danube Disaster

My other ploy to extend the summer was a cycle ride along the Danube from Passau to Vienna, of which the first half was a partial success and the second half a major failure.

It started with a couple of days in Munich, during which it was good to see that some areas of the English Garden (e.g. the Werneckwiese) have been preserved as flower meadows.  After a warm day on arrival it had however clouded over and hopes of late butterfly sightings were restricted to numerous small whites, and a fleeting sighting of a possible brown argus.

There were any number of common darters and following the stream southwards, I also encountered a few beautiful demoiselle damselflies and, momentarily re-awakening my fishing instinct, a number of chub, some of which were of a nice size.

Common Darter

Beautiful Demoiselle

Chub

Amusingly, elsewhere in the Garden, a game of coarse cricket was underway.

I also visited the Isarinselfest where there were some mammals behaving in an inappropriate manner.

Mammals behaving badly

Having made it to Passau the next day and sorted out a couple of 'technical difficulties', I set off to the first overnight stay at Schlögen.  The scenery was pleasant but conditions remained overcast I wasn't optimistic about seeing much at all apart some fawns that were in a pen next to the track.

The one flower in bloom that was at all frequent was european goldenrod, which eventually proved productive on closer inspection.  I think the main bee that I was seeing was a furrow bee, though I wouldn't like to speculate as to which kind.

Furrow Bee?

In view of the overcast conditions I was quite pleased to find a common blue nearby, even if slightly tatty.

It rained briefly, but then even then more goldenrod proved a home to a stoical small white waiting for better weather.

Small White

Further along the track, I saw something on another patch that mystified me, having never seen the like before.  Research suggests that it may be form of potter wasp.

Potter Wasp?

As far as I can find out, potter wasps only occur in the south of Britain.

The Danube at the Schlögener Schlinge looked extremely calm as I set out the next day in reasonable weather.  Progress was however halted by a Forestry official who asked me to stop.  The reason for this was soon clear as a medium sized pine tree was felled, partially blocking the road. 

Here she is clearing up the debris:

Försterin

European goldenrod was again productive.  I think this one may be one of the colletes bees, although aware there are other things it could be.

Colletes Bee?

This turned out to be the only sunny day of the whole tour and, after crossing the river at Aschach, I quickly encountered a lovely butterfly meadow with much still in flower.  Here, as well as the small whites that were everywhere (and I don't think I saw any other white species during the whole trip), there were common blues and a number of clouded yellow males, although they never settled.

Most significantly for me was getting some sort of photo of a small blue, having missed out on one in Slovenia in June.

Flower Meadow

Small Blue

There was then a long stretch on the left bank which was bordered by a narrow area of grassland down a bank from the raised cycle track.  Bird's foot trefoil started to crop up and for some while I enjoyed numerous sightings of the same species (though only one more small blue) and a good few appearances by peacock and red admiral, elsewhere infrequent.

Common Blue

It was interesting that all the common blues I saw were males.

European goldenrod managed to throw up another surprise before we hit the outskirts of Linz in the form of (presumably) another obscure wasp and, while taking a break, I thought I had a mini-miner on my knee.  Perhaps more likely it was a flying ant.

Wasp

Ant

So far, so good but by the time I left Linz the next day, it was already raining and it only stopped briefly around the area of Enns, where there was some nice woodland that might have promising.  After that it just got worse and any prospect of nature watching was abandoned as I cycled on determinedly to Tiefenbach.  

The next day (Tiefenbach to Melk) it rained consistently and the temperatures, which had been in the thirties the week before dropped to 9C in some locations.  While I had plenty of waterproofs, it became impossible to dry things overnight.  I had reckoned with the rain but not the low temperatures and frequent coffee stops were essential just to keep my hands warm.

By this time I had decided, by way of a diversion really to see if I could identify at least one bird or butterfly of any kind.  Before Melk I managed one bird - a goosander.

The fifth day was one of increasingly rain and flood barriers had started to appear.  Others gave up the ride altogether and headed for the train stations. I however continued and was amazed to see that there will still swallows flying low over the swollen Danube, which was lapping at some points no more than a foot below the cycle track.  At one point a sculpture I thought I saw above a directional sign transformed into a sparrowhawk and flew off when I was five yards away. 

I eventually reached the destination of Traismauer in a storm, disorientated and struggling to find a poorly signposted guesthouse.  I was so cold I couldn't sign the hotel registration forms before having a shower.  In the evening, my phone received an emergency alert from the Austrian fire brigade warning that the River Krems, which I had fortunately passed, was about to burst its banks. 

What should have been a pleasant ride through attractive scenery had turned into an extreme weather event and survival exercise.  On the last day the cycle route was closed on both sides of the Danube for the final stage to Vienna and it became apparent that no trains were running. It was largely down to the incredibly helpful lady hosting the appropriately named Gasthof zum Schwan,who contacted all the tour organisers, that we managed to hitch a lift via detours to Vienna with the bike rental van.

I think this will be the last long distance cycling tour I do.  As well as this incident, increasing signs of climate change (e.g. also the forest fire that threatened my arrival in Carcasonne in 2019 and the major anticyclone on my trip to Bulgaria) show you cannot rely on predictable weather any more.

Missions Impossible

My efforts to make something of the last days of summer haven't succeeded.

Developments in the garden have at least been interesting, if not particularly rewarding.  A couple of weeks ago, it was still possible to see the odd comma or small tortoiseshell on the buddleia but they have now absented themselves leaving the peacocks and some large whites to dominate, apart from a single red admiral doggedly appearing most days. During the patchy sunny spells, there can be up to ten peacocks at a time.  I haven't bothered snapping them repeatedly.  

In terms of bees, mainly carder and honeybees have visited, though the increasing occurrence of garden bumblebees continued until recently.

Garden Bumblebee

Elsewhere it really has been a bit of a blank.  

I did a ride to the Rising Sun Country Park hoping for some variety, but in spite of expansive meadowland, the best I could muster was a couple of whites and two commas on a hedgerow - so pretty disappointing.  There were a few dragonflies around but not settling. So the most interesting thing I observed was this couple near St Peter's.  They appear to have been conjoined at birth. 

Mercouple

A ride to the Havannah Reserve also proved fruitless as the hot spot for butterflies has now been totally covered in heather eliminating bird's foot trefoil, so no hope of small heath or small copper.  A lady dogwalker observed that the site has now been taken over by a mob called Urban Green who aren't maintaining it properly.   I noted that there was actually more vegetation (producing more peacocks) at the West end of the reserve.  The whole area is slowly being surrounded by housing anyway.

On Friday I sussed out a couple of meadows near Stella without result and cycled along the Tyne before deciding to ride along the Tyne for a last visit to the Spetchells.  There were a few green-veined white and about three speckled wood, which I noticed were of very small size, suggesting under nourishment.

At the Spetchells itself I had hoped for a last chance of a dingy skipper, which aspiration the almost total lack of bird's foot trefoil put an abrupt end to.  I saw one red-tailed bumblebee but was by deceived - a couple of imitators doing a credible job of apeing a sizeable wasp and a mining bee.

Drone Fly

Wasp Imitator

The one (of several others) hanging round the bee holes is some kind of drone fly and the wasp imitator looks like a thing called the yellow-barred peat hoverfly.  But on a chalky hill, who am I to say?

One good thing, since I've bemoaned their absence, was a showing of several speckled wood by the trees, looking a good bit healthier than the ones I'd seen earlier.

Speckled Wood

Yesterday was another hopeful trip to the Harthope Valley where colletes bees had recently been observed but all I managed was a few carder bees and honey bees amongst the diminishing heather.

Here the silver lining was that a single small tortoiseshell turned up while I was having a snack.

Small Tortoiseshell

I suppose all this activity was determined by the notion that the butterfly season had such a slow start that it might go on a little longer.  If anything it's finished slightly earlier and there are several species I just haven't seen at all this year.   On reflection, I might have seen more butterflies if I'd spent the time in the garden.

Call me a Liar would you?

It's often interesting how nature can make a fool out of you.

I'd hardly finished writing the last post complaining about the lack of butterflies in the garden when they gradually started turning up, first of all a few whites and then one by one the common members of the maligned Nymphalidae family.

Meanwhile I managed a couple of expeditions to catch up on other species.  First was a bike ride to the dunes at Cambois in search of grayling where I did manage to catch up with one rather battered individual almost as soon as I arrived.

Grayling

That however was it - any number of meadow brown, small skipper, burnet moths and after a bit of foraging, a couple of small whites and small tortoiseshells.  I rather thought I'd done better on my last visit, but on checking this was hardly the case.

Right at the end of July, I tried the Hamsterley viaducts for purple hairstreaks and over a two hour period saw eight - a rather sparse result and as ever they were flattering around the oaks and impossible to photograph.

A mission to Bywell Bridge the day after proved abortive as there was no sign of the white-letter hairstreak and to my surprise the elms were already beginning to turn brown.

Then on the 31st - a really hot day - the first small tortoiseshell appeared in the back garden and, perhaps even more exciting, a brimstone moth slept over in the large bedroom.

Brimstone Moth

A couple of days ago was when the Nymphalidae began to appear, as well as both large and small whites.

Small White	Large White
Small Tortoiseshell	Red Admiral
Peacock	Comma

I'm starting to see an awful lot of peacocks when the sun shines, perhaps not unconnected to the fact that a woman down the road in Rowlands Gill has been breeding them. 

Two I haven't seen to date are humming bird hawk moth and holly blue.  I'd like to think things have changed for the better but the weather remains patchy and unreliable.

An extra frisson of excitement was nearly provided what seemed to be an obscure ladybird on my car door handle.  In fact it was a variation of the invasive harlequin ladybird, which apparently can take a variety of different patterns and colours.  It was completely different to the one I once found in the summer house.

Harlequin Ladybird

So that's what I also thought it was this morning when a black ladybird with two red spots turned up while I was trimming the laurel hedge.  Unless of course it was a kidney-spot ladybird...  That was one photo I should have taken but didn't!

Where are the Nymphalidae?

It was perturbing to note, while writing up my notes on the Butterflies of Slovenia, that the carefully encouraged buddleia in the pots in the front garden have been in and past full bloom without a single sign of a small tortoiseshell (normally the first to appear), red admiral or peacock.  Entries I'm seeing on social media suggest that others are having the same experience. Since I returned from Slovenia over two weeks ago, I have literally seen two butterflies in the back garden.

In order to improve the situation and record at least some data for the Big Butterfly Count I went with Malcolm to Branton Lakes near Powburn in North Northumberland.

After a quiet start checking out some puzzling tree foliage on the East Lake, we started seeing plenty of butterflies on a circuit of West Lake, though once again no Nymphalidae.  At some points there was quite good coverage of bird's foot trefoil and I hoped in vain for common blue but we did get a number of burnet moths.

The grand tally of sightings was: Ringlet - 20, Six-spot Burnet 12, Meadow Brown 10, Green-veined White 2, Small Skipper 2.

Ringlet	Six-spot Burnet
Meadow Brown	Small Skipper

Green-veined White

Now I'd be the first to admit that I'm not the world's greatest expert in identifying burnet moths but close investigation of the photos I took (which didn't include all twelve) do suggest a separation of the uppermost marking into two spots.

Azure Damselfly

It was also interesting that the ringlets were all of a muddy brown rather than chocolate brown colour. Plus the green-veined white seemed a shade or two greener than the ones in Slovenia.

Other encounters were with several damselflies and one unidentified dragonfly. 

Interestingly again the damselflies were clearly the azure damselfly, said by one website 'not to be found' in the uplands of Northern England. 

We also encountered the blue-tailed damselfly a couple of times, but no photo.

Slightly strange half-light conditions made it difficult to see the plumage of the ducks on the lake apart from a cormorant, but in the distant trees on the East Lake we did make out two or three very white birds that looked rather too big to be seagulls. With some difficulty I managed to get enough of a photo to indicate that they were juvenile little egrets.

Juvenile Little Egret

I had heard of a heronry before but it appears there may be such a thing as an egretry! Notice the yellow legs, which fooled me for a while.

On the bee front the most noticeable event was the appearance of heavily sun-bleached buff-tailed (presumably) bumblebee and a tiny early bumblebee with a missing abdominal stripe.  Seemingly this can happen sometimes.

Early Bumblebee

Bleached Bumblebee

Back home in the garden there has been no very noteworthy action but I did get a nice view of a thrush on a rare visit.

Mistle Thrush

Slovenia Day 7

Our last day in Slovenia was slightly curtailed by the need to get back to Llubljana but still proved productive.

Starting the trail back east we stopped off at a location where there were a series of upland meadows.

The first one was the one where we saw the most, managing to add chalkhill blue to our somewhat diminished list of blues, and Amanda's blue was also active.  Something of a nuisance was a scarce copper that kept flying around without settling much. It turned out there were several of them in the area and so were hard to miss.

Chalkhill Blue

Scarce Copper

The pearly heath was seen so many times we had more or less started to ignore them! A mountain green-veined white was also seen, looking even darker that the example seen yesterday.  Silver-washed fritillaries were present in good numbers and the lesser marbled fritillary was also observed again.

Pearly Heath

Mountain Green-veined White

Throughout the trip we also saw some small heath. One omission I thought we might see but never did was the bath white.

On the bug front, these four-banded longhorn beetles seemed determined to boost their own population:

Four-banded Longhorn Beetles.

We stopped at another place but saw no butterflies we hadn't already seen. by a river I did however find this bee, which we think to be a carpenter bee - possibly the violet carpenter bee.

Violet Carpenter Bee

Scarlet Tiger Moth

The yellow appearance of the thorax is actually a heavy dusting of pollen.

Then as we got back to the van, a scarlet tiger moth was literally on it, just above the wheel hub.

Also seen is the nine-spotted moth, which in the last couple of days became prolific.  At our last woodland stop, it was the only thing we saw but in massive numbers.

Nine-spot moths

Here they have formed a weird crucifix shape.

After that we headed for the airport through a heavy thunderstorm...

Slovenia Day 6

On an early morning walk I got an interesting shot of a green-veined white, looking rather darker than its British counterpart.

Green-veined White

We also got a brief sighting of a grey-headed woodpecker, a species I thought I had seen when I cycled round Lake Constance but hadn't totally convinced myself I'd got it right.

But mainly this was the day we took a long ride over 25 hairpin bends and past many cyclists to find a mountaintop site very close to the Italian border.

Unfortunately the top of the mountain was shrouded in misty cloud and we had to wait for brief outbursts of sunshine to get any butterfly action.

However it did produce a couple of specialities, notably in the form of an asian fritillary that settled down for a good while and a mountain small white.

Asian Fritillary

Mountain Small White

There were more ringlets turning up from time to time but so fleetingly I typically did not get a decent shot of them though I didn't think they were scotch argus.  Otherwise there was another mazarine blue.

Eventually we moved on and tried in vain to find a sunny spot further down the mountain. 

However someone had the idea of trying a small wetland near the hotel before our evening meal and this paid off nicely when amongst others we came across two more new species in the shape of Nickerl's fritillary and lesser marbled fritillary.

Nickerl's Fritillary

Lesser Marbled Fritillary

There were more good views of a purple shot copper and a bonus moth - a gold spangle apparently.

Gold Spangle

Apart from the moth, the asian fritillary and - somewhat to my surprise - the mountain small white were first-time sightings for me.