Spring What Spring?

The weather remains largely wet, notwithstanding the odd brighter day, and temperatures a variable.

Anyway I can report a first ever garden sighting following the confirmed appearance of a siskin.

The siskin is of course not an uncommon bird.  Up to now I have wondered whether it was due to elevation.

Actually it's more likely explained by the lack in this immediate vicinity of pine trees, which do of course occur at considerable height, is the causal factor.

I've also mentioned occasional appearances by male and female chaffinches lately, and a couple of days ago both turned up to feed off the ground.

It looks like chaffinches may now be a thing as one or other has reappeared recently.

Chaffinches

A recent visit to Boldon Flats also produced some quite nice sightings, notably a lot of wigeon

Shelduck Teal and Wigeon Heron and Wigeon Unfortunately it didn't produce any birds of prey or migrant rarities.  Just a little egret that, after showing well for a while, made itself more and more scarce.  I spent quite a lot of time grappling with camera technicalities. There have been some further signs of spring.  Last week a probable honey bee hovered around the open garage door.  At the tennis club, a toad was found crawling across court 4 to the river and I tried to rescue an early bumblebee queen, unfortunately on the point of dying.

Home Sweet Home

A curse upon Chopwell Woods!   I keep visiting in the hope that it will produce some reasonable sightings and invariably come back disappointed.

On my last attempt about three weeks back, the main notable event was the almost total flooding of the southern path into the woods from Blackhall Mill. 

I only managed to start the walk at all by scrambling through the puddles next to the bushes and the best thing I actually saw were a few clumps of snowdrops by the River Derwent after getting off the bus.

In spite of wandering around fairly extensively through the western part of the woods, it was pretty much like a desert with hardly a thing to be seen and precious little to be heard - just a couple of blackbirds, the odd pigeon and a few blue tits.

Even when I strayed into Chopwell East Field during a burst of sunlight, the only change was a slight increase in the amount of bird song.  You would usually reckon to see a squirrel or two somewhere, but absolutely zero - just our canine friends and their captive humans.

A couple of bike rides - to Bolam Lake and yesterday to Corbridge produced nothing at all either.

So once again my interest has been tied to what happens in the garden and nearby.

Red kites have been active over the village and on one occasion right over the house as I drove into the front drive.  Coal tits and long-tailed tits have been doing well, the latter being the second most-spotted tit visitor and interestingly both are more prevalent than great tit, which seems to have dropped down the rankings for some reason.  A pair of blue tits inspected the nesting box, but as in previous years, did not pursue their interest.

Robins have visited frequently and I noted that two of them were untypically tolerant of each others' presence.  Then it became apparent that some mating behaviour was starting and one day I suddenly spotted THREE robins on the gravel within an area just one metre square - but of course it only lasted a couple of seconds or so.

As well as the regular dunnocks, a wren has been seen twice. 

Marsh tits have been past occasional visitors - meaning literally once or twice a year - but last week one actually turned up on three days out of four.  After several attempts when it proved nervy, |I finally managed to get a reasonable photo of it on its last visit.

Marsh Tit

It hasn't been seen since, but of course that doesn't mean it hasn't been back.

Overall though, my campaign to up the level of bird sightings this winter hasn't been a great success and I'm now looking forward to the return of butterflies and bees over the coming weeks.

Which reminds me that at by this time last year, I had already seen my first red admiral.  What a difference a year makes!