More Flies and Other Creatures

A rather cold and intermittently wet spell of weather having reduced the number of appearances in the garden, I went back to a little birdwatching with F on Friday at Shotton Pools.

I wanted to see if the avocets had continued to frequent the shallow ponds and this was indeed the case, although numbers were not large. Also about were plenty of greylag geese, a few lapwing and a lot of heard-but-not-seen skylarks.

Avocet

Lapwing

I didn't notice at the time that the avocet has managed to fish something out of the water.

We were a bit mystified by the set-aside crop in a big farmer's field nearby, which turns out to be something called crimson clover.

Crimson Clover

A day after the latest captive in the summer house was a very small, moth-type item that wasn't keen to stay still.  So it was hard to be sure of identification but I'm pretty sure, having had one before that it is a drain fly.

Drain Fly

I think I may have solved the mystery of the fly I couldn't identify in my last post.  This time I managed to get better photos, enabling a remote suggestion of green longhorn moth.

Green Longhorn Moth

Green Longhorn Moth (wings open)

On close inspection the horns, which are indeed very long, can be seen like a length of fine fishing line.

So the moth I thought I saw was a fly and the fly I thought I saw was a moth...

The next thing was that a single large white butterfly (female) turned up from nowhere.

Large White

It's the first I've seen this year and a little surprising that it made its garden debut before a small white has managed to appear.

To complete the pattern of unpredictability, a large red damselfly passed by and another minute wasp (I think) but, more reliably, there was of course a nomad bee as well as a chocolate mining bee I didn't manage to photograph.

Large Red Damselfly

Nomad

I keep posting the nomads to iNaturalist but no-one wants to risk an identification.

Today in not great conditions, I saw my first common carder bee of the year. They'll be back.

A Busy time of Year

Over the past ten days, the number of sightings has really exploded and it's hard to keep tabs on it all.

It started with a ride to Byker and back with sightings of a mistle thrush, cormorant and two pairs of shelduck.  More engaged with the insects, significant for me however was the first sighting I have had this year of a comma butterfly.

Comma

That was on 23rd April.

Over the succeeding days, sightings of bees accelerated still mainly led by red mason bee. I managed to get a video of one of the nomad bees which produced a better than usual image, suggesting it is either a flavous or early nomad bee. 

Flavous or early?

There has also been a couple of smaller bees turning up but proving elusive because of a prevailing wind.  I fancied one might be blue mason bee (which has turned up before) but various photos didn't show good angles and advice suggests that it is Gwynne's mining bee.  The only decent shot of the other one still wasn't great and iNaturalist's lead suggestion of hawthorn mining bee seems unconvincing.

Gwynne's Mining Bee

Unidentified Mining Bee

Around the same time there were no great problems identifying the first female orange tip to visit the garden.

Orange Tip (female)

Confusion however again reigned on a walk at MiltonRigg Wood in Cumbria last Sunday with V&A. It was quite an impressive venue with a good amount of bilberry.

I saw a few bumblebees with a red-tailed stripe and thought I might have found a red-tailed bumblebee queen at one point.  However the one very poor photo I got showed a white stripe on the thorax so I suppose could have been a bilberry bumblebee queen.  Similarly thee were a couple of fleeting visits from carder bees but so brief it was impossible to assess if either were a moss carder bee.

Meanwhile V's merlin app was reporting all sorts of birds, notably including pied flycatcher and redstart (very feasible) as well as ring ouzel (somewhat dubious).  The birds were high up in the well-established trees, and only A managed to see a couple.  All I saw was a pair of mallards on the wetland area...

More successful was double outing with AMG on Thursday.

First target was the green hairstreak at Dipton Woods Corbridge.  Last time I was there the hairstreaks had started to occur in a recently-felled area near the North Eastern end of the path and I had a suspicion things might have developed.

Sure enough, we found them in numbers there, often in groups of two or three.

Green Hairstreak

Overall I counted thirty and that was without re-foraging this new 'hotspot' on the way back to the car. We did also visit the area where they've been seen in previous years but this old 'hotspot' appeared somewhat overgrown and only accounted for two of the sightings. Incidentally someone managed to see as many as 74 somewhere in County Durham.

Other sightings were a peacock, and about six each of speckled wood and small white, in both cases the first definite sightings I have noted this Spring.

The next stop was The Spetchells at Prudhoe, where we fully expected to see vast numbers of buffish mining bees.  But first there was a pleasant surprise when a holly blue turned up next to the path along the Tyne.

Holly Blue

There's been a few sightings of holly blue this Spring (maybe a good year for them?) and one turned up in my garden this morning as I was preparing to write this entry. It flapped around in front of me as I headed for the summer house for about a minute.  Unfortunately, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other, I was powerless to react.

Anyway, the very dry Eastern end of the Spetchells was virtually devoid of buff-tailed mining bees.  Walking west we did manage to contact them but it was the case of a maybe a hundred rather than the thousands around at the end of last April.  Also in attendance were of course good numbers of Gooden's nomad bee, their main predator.

Buffish Mining Bee

Gooden's Nomad Bee

I must say I haven't been too impressed with my Nikkon camera in recent attempts to capture images of insects. It does fine with birds but is often out-performed by my wee Panasonic for close-ups of smaller items. I think I may need to check the settings to see what can be improved.

Approaching teatime we took a quick look for the sand martins but they haven't appeared yet.  What we did see on the way back was a couple of brown shapes that may have been dingy skippers but we couldn't be anything like certain.

So the next day I took a brief ride to Pathhead Nature Reserve and did find a couple of them messing around on the northern bank of the area.  Even with the Panasonic, it was difficult to keep up with them.  They were very small and active and closed their wings almost immediately on landing so they were heavily camouflaged in the brownfield mini-landscape.

Dingy Skipper

I decided to take a tour round the rest of the site, seeing nothing else but when I returned they were still there as before.

I sat down to eat a couple of snacks thinking that one of them would inevitably offer me a better shot - and never saw them again over the next twenty minutes. Odd!

End of Summer Awards

It's become traditional to post something like "End of Summer" at this time of year when frankly I'm prone to early Autumn depression after the the end of the cricket season, and butterfly and bee sightings also become an increasingly rare occurrence.

I've been trying to avoid taking constant repeat photos of the same species over the summer months.  However this year I decided to reflect on which species have been the star features in my back garden and take photos of them before the buddleia flowers came to an inevitable end.

The overall winners were in no doubt.  In joint first place came red admiral, considerably outnumbering other members of the Nymphalidae family.  It was still being seen in good numbers on 16th September and the following couple of days before I went on on holiday on the 20th.

Red Admiral

In equal first place, and the most numerous species overall was the large white, including a big number of males.

Female Large White

Male Large White

The male large white also carries the distinction of being the last butterfly to be seen, studiously visiting the last sprigs of buddleia on 29th September - shortly after which date a storm moved in and effectively called a halt to proceedings.  

This meant that my annual ambition of seeing a butterfly on Buddleia after the start of October once again went unachieved this year.  There's only one wee sprig left now.  Ironically I have seen one more large white since - in Ashington Town Centre on 2nd October in decidedly overcast conditions.

Honourable mentions also go to small tortoiseshell, which proved to be a regular visitor once it got going at the beginning of August, and comma, which after an absence of about three weeks, turned up to surprise me by joining the admirals and tortoiseshells on the 16th.

Small Tortoiseshell

Meanwhile tits and nuthatches continued to visit the sunflower hearts feeders if somewhat less regularly.  Bullfinches haven't been sighted recently but I did catch a brief glimpse of a marsh tit while sheltering from the reduced temperatures in the summer house. I haven't seen one of those here for over a year.

I managed to lengthen my summer experience by spending five days in Berlin in continuing warm weather.  This wasn't at all a Nature trip but of course one or two things did turn up.

It's sometimes observed that bird species have different behaviour patterns in the British Isles compared to Europe.  The hooded crow for example we would need to look for in craggy seaside areas near the coast, but in Europe can be found strutting their stuff in posh residential areas, like this one I found in Westend district.

Hooded Crow

There were half a dozen of them later on in the day on Onkel-Tom-Straße in Zehlendorf. 

On the other side of the road, was a very red red squirrel bounding around in someone's front garden.

Red Squirrel

Near the Gedenkstätte Plötzensee when I visited there was a nice meadow verge where I saw but couldn't get a decent photo of some common carder bees that had a much more gingery appearance than the ones I see here. There were a few small white butterflies too but, in the whole five days, I interestingly in view of the fine weather, did not see another species of butterfly - just a few dragonflies and a hornet at a cemetery I visited.

Hunting For Butterflies

A lot has been going on!..

About ten days ago I took a last trip to Pathhead Nature Reserve for a late attempt to find the dingy skipper.

It was unsuccessful although I did see large numbers of meadow brown, good numbers of small skipper plus a fair few small heath and a couple of (I think) six-spot burnet moths, most of which were to be duplicated in subsequent trips elsewhere.  A notable absentee was common blue and perhaps the strangest sighting was a common carder bee that was so heavily bleached by the sun that it was almost indistinguishable.

Small Heath

Common Carder (bleached)

In the preceding fortnight there had been several sightings of patchwork leafcutter bees and always on the same flower which I'm not able to name but it was an obvious favourite.

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

This turned out to be the start of a good for finding butterflies...

Bumble Bees buzzing butterflies less so...

As the warm weather has slowly tailed off somewhat I have over the past eight days seen all the common species of bumblebee.

This was unsurprising as I started last Sunday with a bumblebee walk with K at Northumberland Park in North Shields.  Here we quickly accounted for buff-tailed bumblebee, early bumblebee, red-tailed bumblebee and common carder, but only one red admiral although there were various whites on flying duties

Early Bumblebee

Red Admiral

There was actually quite an impressive number of early bumblebees, the first I have seen this year.

Also noted were a male red-tailed bumblebee and a single beefly that I cam across while foraging.

We did a short bike ride to Ponteland on Tuesday which took in one or two sightings as we passed by - a single stoat, a tree bumblebee, various further flying whites and, pleasingly a single small tortoiseshell.  Good to know they are still around.

However all the bumblebee sightings were to be replicated more locally  over the past couple of days, mainly in my own garden - but with the eventual addition of garden bumblebee.

I've been struck this year by the big difference in size between male and female carder bees, the females seeming particularly large.

Female Carder Bee

There were some photographic difficulties with tree bumblebee and garden bumblebee though, in the former case because they weren't settling for more than a few seconds and in the latter because they spent most of their time buried in an aquilegia flower.  Eventually I got one in flight and captured the other in the bugbox.

Tree Bumblebee

Garden Bumblebee

I had to go a bit further afield to find another red-tailed bumblebee but found one not far from the Metro Centre of all places.  It was a female an here you can see the difference compared to the males seen at North Shields.

Red-tailed Bumblebee (m)

Red-tailed Bumblebee (f)

Butterflies have not been spotted recently, but I did find this tiny moth on my back patio door yesterday.

Unable to find an obvious match i went down the referral root and the best bet seems to be that it is a faded version of the yellow barred brindle.

Yellow-barred brindle

Events and Non-Events

Cycling along the Tyne for events in Newcastle, I've repeatedly noted a number of shelduck combing the mudflats in the area of Dunston Staithes, on either side of the water.

Shelduck

There was another pair further out.

I think I can safely say that the early broods of speckled wood are doing better than last year as they have appeared regularly when I've been out, not least in my garden.  Even more regular is still the orange tip including females.

Not for the first time I've noticed that the males this year are often small.

Speckled Wood

Orange Tip (female)

I've now had green-veined white and small white in the garden too.  Seeing the speckled wood often reminds how common they were in my first year here, in complete contrast to Dumfries and Galloway.

Last Friday, I reckoned red mason bees were starting to appear, got one photo and, sure enough, there was activity around the bug hotel to prove the point:

Red Mason Bee

More mysterious was the appearance of this hairy specimen with a white face.  Trapping it in the bug box didn't give me any better idea.  However the male red mason bee has a white face, which would suggest I haven't seen one before.

Red Mason Bee (m)

The obvious rival would be the European Orchard Bee, which has so far only been sighted in the South of England.

Otherwise the main visitor has been a rather fat carder bee, so perhaps a queen though very intent on nectaring.

Last Sunday I set out full of confidence to Weetslade Country Park to visit an area where I had seen several butterflies last year and saw - precisely nothing.  The flowers in the target area were simply not out and although there was bird's food trefoil on the hills, it was sparse and not yet in full bloom.

So it was less confidence that I set off to revisit Path Head Nature Reserve, nominally targeting the dingy skipper but in retrospect, I think I achieved my goal.

At first it looked like another no show and I was already half way round before I saw any invertebrate at all.  Then I saw a tiny green thing with wings and antennae and so I thought maybe mini mining bees.

Mini Mining Bee and tiny green things

I wasn't sure and wondered if those on the left were wee wasps.  However a comment on facebook suggests they belong to the Oedemera species - basically flower beetles.  We live and learn!  The larger one on the right might be a common mini-miner but frankly identification of mini-miners is so dubious it's hardly worth the likes of me bothering.

Further round the track it livened up a bit as there were twenty plus sand martins flying around the wetland and visiting the wall constructed for them. They were whizzing around so fast that the camera couldn't cope, but I got a couple silhouetted against the wall at distance.

Sand Martins

A bit further along a white butterfly appeared and inconveniently settled partly obscured in a deep hollow, requiring another photographic chef d'oeuvre to identify it as a green-veined white.

Green-veined White

Then, chasing around unsuccessfully to catch up with the first two red-tailed bumblebees I've seen this month, I disturbed something sandy grey that flew across the path before becoming invisible..  Initially I dismissed it as probably a day-flying moth.  But when I later advanced on a clump of bird's foot trefoil to investigate a ladybird, something else grey flew up from behind the clump and I twigged that I might indeed have hit on two dingy skippers.

Tracking them in flight against the reclaimed brownfield site was however impossible.

And now a homely touch...  Last time I shopped for bird food I mistakenly bought sunflower seeds instead of suet pellets.  But on using them in a feeder I noticed that I was getting visits from a couple of furtive bullfinches.

Furtive Bullfinch

I'm now wondering whether I've seen them on feeders before. Probably not.

Oh and last of all, I found this fly in the dining room the other day, again in the never-seen-one-like-that-before category.  More consultation suggests that it is a footballer hoverfly and as far as I can see from what research I've done, that appears to be correct.

Footballer Hoverfly

What a great name! As I said, we live and learn.

Bees And Not-to-bes

A few further identification issues have cropped up as as improving weather has brought more species into play.

Honey Bee (dark version)

Noting the presence of nomad bees and bee flies quite frequently, I started to wonder when I would see a red mason bee or any of the host mining bees in the garden.

Last Friday I thought I might have managed it but appearance approved to be deceptive as, on closer look it proved to be the darker version of the western honey bee when I finally captured it a a bug box.

The giveaway here is the cylindrical shape of the abdomen, where as it would be more rounded on a mining or red mason bee.

Not so many complications occur with butterflies in the North, although the whites can be a bit confusing if you don't see them close up. It took me a few years to get the female orange tip right because it is so different from the male.

However I did initially misidentify the first green-veined white to turn up in the garden as it arrived so soon after I'd managed to photograph the first male orange tip and visited the same area of forget-me-nots.

Orange Tip

Green-veined White

In this case of course the ideal way of separating then is to get a look at the underwing as they are completely different.  But you forget these things sometimes.

I also spent a good deal of time taking photos of this rather large carder bee (possibly a queen) as I wasn't altogether sure that it wasn't a tree bumblebee and every time it settled, you couldn't get a clear view of the abdomen.  This was the eventual decisive shot:

Carder Bee

I got into even deeper water when I captured another nomad bee and realised it didn't look quite like the Gooden's nomad bee I was anticipating.

Mystery Nomad Bee

Well I was right.  Experts on facebook, having spotted a tinge of red at the top of the abdomen which totally eluded me, confirmed it's not Gooden's and there was one suggestion that it might be a species that I did have under suspicion on the basis of the stripe pattern - the broad-banded nomad bee.  

However the broad banded nomad bee is rare and there have been no confirmed sightings in the North of England. So it has to go down as a mystery - one of several tricoloured nomad bees that are very similar and also very variable in appearance.

Anyway two days later I did finally manage to catch up with at least the red mason bee, if in a somewhat unusual fashion.

I was taking a look at the bug hotel on the summer house when I noticed that there was something struggling ing in a bucket of water directly beneath.  I fished it out and discovered that it was in fact two bees trapped in flagrante delicto, which I transferred onto a stray forget-me-not in a plant pot.  

Identification wasn't easy as a drenched bee looks completely different from a dry one.  They stayed like that for a while until, suspecting it was dead, I touched the male and it flew off.  The female eventually disappeared too.  I was convinced they were red mason bees and, sure enough, ones and twos started to appear on the bug hotel.

Double Red Mason Bees

Single Red Mason Bee (l)