Mission Accomplished

It's a pity the weather in the middle weeks of October was so rubbish as one of my junior buddleia bushes actually produced a couple of decent sprigs during that period that could potentially have attracted a late butterfly or two.

Buddleia - the last blooms

Anyway persistent rain meant it wasn't to be.  The last butterfly I saw passed over the car park at Washington Sports Centre on 20th October.  It was brown so presumably a small tortoiseshell or comma, I couldn't tell.

One nice surprise was however a visit from a tree sparrow to the reduced offerings in the feeders.  Not a rare but nevertheless an infrequent occurrence.

Tree Sparrow

As you can maybe tell, it proved to be a bit of a poser.

After various postponements, we decided that the monsoon season was finally over at the weekend and I drove over to Alex and Vicki's for a visit to the massive reed bed on the River Tay between Port Allen and Errol.  The key target, the bearded tit, is supposed to inhabit the area but we didn't really rate the chances of success.  In particular I reckoned bearded tits might not fancy the extreme cold that can be experienced north of the Firth of Forth.  In fact it turned out to be a lovely day.  The trees were at their most colourful and bathed in sunshine.

After a fleeting encounter with a red squirrel, Vicki thought she heard some bearded tits. Then, on a pathway out through the reeds, we hit gold.  I saw one straight away but wasn't totally sure.  A twitcher turned up, himself sporting a magnificent russet beard, and soon they - the tits - were all over the place, at least a good few dozen of them.

We were snapping away busily as they mostly didn't stay in the same place for long.  And I was quite pleased that I even managed a couple of videos with my fancy new camera.

Bearded Tits

I realise there may have been some unconscious gender bias going on there as I seem to have zoomed in on the males, so here in the interests of balance are a couple of shots of the females.

Female Bearded Tit

Female Bearded Tit?

As you can see and maybe would have expected, they are clean shaven.  We did wonder though whether the second one might be a juvenile.  It was the first time I have seen bearded tits since I visited Minsmere 12 years ago.

After a most pleasant session and no sign of a marsh harrier, we gave ourselves the 'job done' sticker,  and spurning the chance to pursue a mandarin duck at Scone, we headed south for Loch Leven.

This was actually a good deal less rewarding as there wasn't too much going on in the first hide we visited and by the time we got to the second hide, the light was getting tricky so that I, at least found it tricky to see the colouration of the ducks.

In fact the best shots I got weren't of ducks at all:

Stonechat

Little Egret

The others we observed were a lot of coots, some teal, wigeon and a few goldeneye.  

I was a bit disappointed not to see any pink footed geese as there had been plenty around but days earlier and, on trying to perform alchemy on some distant greylags with the camera, I can now see that I actually captured a few whooper swans even further away.  The shot is unfortunately too blurry to publish - even on here!

Otherwise I did dryly remark that there was more wildlife on the steps going down to the trails - which you actually can't see on descending them.

The wildlife steps

Another visual did however catch my interest though.  It was a sign on the butterflies and moths present, which included a picture of a small blue.  Clearly a strong case for a revisit one summer...

There's an interesting sequel to our trip of a non-nature variety.  As we got ready to go home from Loch Leven, I wanted to check a couple of sightings on my mobile phone and discovered to my horror that I no longer had it. Vicki and Alex phoned it several times and got a ringing tone and I realised I had probably lost it somewhere on the woodland trail by the Tay earlier.

As we drove back there frantically to beat the dusk, Vicki got a call from Mr Huang, a (we think) Chinese tourist who'd picked it up and were able to meet him as he reached his airbnb in Errol.  Apparently he'd heard the alarm going off that I had set to remind me to text a friend.  

Bearded tits AND getting a phone back you lost on a woodland trail!  How much luckier can I get?

Never Give Up...

Sometimes I'm too much the pessimist.  Although we did not get the summer-like temperatures experienced in the South of England, we did get a warmer than usual murk with occasional bursts of sunshine into the high teens.  The upshot was that I called time too early on the buddleia, the largest bush suddenly producing a decent sprig of flower in its very centre over the last few days.  This managed to briefly attract a fine red admiral on the 8th October, thereby achieving a personal mini-ambition and establishing a record that may not last long in the face of climate change.

Red Admiral

Meanwhile i have a new toy, a Nikon Coolpix camera, bought especially with the idea in mind of boosting my birdwatching efforts.  The wee Panasonic Lumix I have been using is brilliant in many respects but the zoom can be slow and the focus imprecise.

Perhaps understandably the additional camera has brought some technical issues.  There was a good opportunity to try it out yesterday on a Naturewatch visit to Hauxley Nature Reserve.  As on recent visits to Hauxley nothing spectacular was sighted, which didn't trouble me as I was mainly using it to practice my camera skills.

It was therefore disturbing to note that I had difficulty in seeing much through the viewfinder and when focussing on distant birds.  I started to wonder if I was going to get any usable shots at all.  Anyway I persevered and  managed to solve the focussing issue after a bit.

Here is a gallery of the results:

Coal Tit

Bullfinches with Goldfinch

Chaffinch

Shoveler

Goldeneye

Grey Heron

Mallard

Mallow

Obviously the coal tit was taken in the garden and added as my first ever attempt. 

It wasn't until I got home before I solved how to resolve the dim viewfinder.  Easy enough when you know how but with 308 pages of user manual as well as a very intricate looking piece of photo processing software, it could be a long learning curve!

Friday 2nd October

I seem to remember writing some time ago how I was struggling to get my buddleias in Dumfries to continue flowering into September.  Well, with a bit more knowledge and frequent deadheading,  the smallest of my three buddleia has made into October.  Whether there's enough on it to attract any butterflies remain to be seen.

By not putting birdfood out for a time, I seem to have avoided the attention of the local rats and its reappearance earned a couple of lengthy visits from a nuthatch.

Nuthatch

Mole activity has also been reduced but the cheeky squirrel has been fussing around the lawn a lot and apparently trying to dig holes.  At first I thought he was trying to dig up nuts but in autumn it's more likely he's looking for suitable places to hide them.

Squirrel

Yesterday I took a trip to Hauxley Nature Reserve, where a yellow-browed warbler was recently reported.  It obviously hasn't stayed and there wasn't much around at all apart from a selction of known waterfowl, geese and curlew.  There didn't even seem to be anything to interest this kestrel:

Kestrel

I did happen to find another very large flock of goldfinches and wondered if they were the same ones I saw on my bike ride a few weeks ago.  One pleasant surprise was this lone flower which is still under investigation and may be some sort of cranesbill.

Tuesday 21st July

The quest for the white letter hairstreak continues to be unsuccessful and considerably hindered by the inconsistent weather.  The last attempt was in the Aln Valley on Friday, originally forecast to be sunny but in fact dreary the whole day. So the only butterflies we saw much of were the continuing ringlets and meadow browns and, apart from a heron devouring an elver and a couple of rising trout, that was about it.

Meadow Brown (male)

It was possible to identify a fair few wych elms but not so many as around Bywell Bridge, which seems the more likely venue.

A lot of the garden buddleia is now out but so far no butterflies have visited, just the odd white on the michaelmas daisies.  There was just one red admiral on the summer house early on Sunday morning.  I attribute the poor results to the mixed and largely dull weather.  At this rate, it will be hard to find a sunny spot for the Big Butterfly Count before 9th August.  Suggestions of a bumper butterfly year from Butterfly Conservation are not likely to be echoed in the North.

Sunday was also the day I met with Jennifer and Joe at Brimham Rocks, a very impressive and extensive formation.  The morning weather was considerably better and we saw ringlets, meadow browns, red admirals, small tortoiseshells as well as a dozen or so small skippers, the first I have spotted this year.  Or were they? Looking at the photo below again, I'm wondering about essex skippers...

Small Skipper?

Brimham is also supposed to be a venue for spotted flycatchers and redstarts but, in view of the large number of visitors, I wasn't surprised not to see any.

Sunday 23rd September

Painted lady

It's that time of year again.  Summer has gone but it's a little soon for the winter visitors.  What has pleased me most over the past couple of weeks was the arrival of a painted lady on the diminutive sprig of buddleia I imported from Dumfries in March, when I scarcely believed it would flourish at all.  Before it finally gave up the ghost a few days back it was also visited briefly  by a small tortoiseshell, so that all four common nymphalidae have appeared on it and I view that as quite an achievement.

There should be a good deal of buddleia around by next September.

Deer?

Apart from that it has been bits and bobs, a red admiral here and there and a continuing abundance of speckled wood including one in quite low temperatures today.  I did do a visit to the bird hide at Gibside and saw more or less what you'd expect to see around feeders - tits, nuthatch, woodpecker and grey squirrel.

This animal did however give me a bit of a scare when I saw it out of the corner of my eye.  It must have been because the antlers are real.

Thursday 21st August

Following outburst of sporting activity last weekend and resulting knee problems have not been out this week.

In spite of nor painted ladies, buddleia has done tremendously attracting other species this year, Some of the specimens of red admiral and peacock have been oustanding, beautifully marked and strikingly large.

Coal tit and blue tit have visited along with many juvenile sparrows.  Notably I have not heard any swifts for some time.  Perhaps they have returned early this year as temperatures are below average since July heatwave.