A Trip Out

On Sunday, I took a trip up to Holy Island mainly to meet V&A+E.  The idea was as much to have a relaxing day while keeping an eye out for birds. In the event it was a pleasant, sunny day, as much late summer as autumn and, with no wind to blow in the migrants, there wasn't too much around of interest.

The unfortunate thing was that we didn't see the birds that were of some interest.

Apparently there were a few redwing in the The Lonnen but we just found sparrows and robins.  More promising was a report of snow buntings around near the track that leads to the East side of the island, but all we saw was a wren.  It wasn't until near the end of the track that we found a couple of nice stonechats - before they flew off.

Stonechat

Stonechat flying off

An investigation of the pool near the hide found nothing but coots, mallards and a prominent grey heron.

Grey Heron

Meanwhile V had gone on ahead and did managed to spot an eider duck just of the rocks, which I however couldn't find on trying.

There were plenty of curlew in the fields nearer to the Village Centre and, after some perseverance, I did manage to get a shot of a nice lapwing.

Lapwing

A bird I spotted on a roof near the coach car park proved however to be a domestic pigeon.

Never mind, it was first and foremost a family occasion so we repaired to a cafe for coffee and cake, the latter attracting the local sparrows.

Sparrows and Cake

We did a last visit to the Vicar's Garden, largely to show V&A where it was. Here there was a twitcher looking over the wall who of course reported that a rarity had been seen nearby - an olive-backed pipit - and that the redwing had been visiting the garden.  Not of course while we were there but I did manage to snap a song thrush.  The only other bird I saw in the garden was a dunnock.

Song Thrush

As we had already eaten there was no need to visit the village chip shop, which was offering takeaway gorilla.

Gorilla

Driving back over the causeway, A spotted a merlin on one of the marker posts, but I missed it.

Today, which is the 21st, I noticed a bumblebee inspecting the first shoots on the garden mahonia.  I have seen on TV that buff-tailed bumblebees can survive the winter in the South of England by nectaring on mahonia.  Could it possibly happen here?

Bordeaux Day 1

Having reached Bordeaux in sunny weather, I noticed that it was far bigger and the River Garonne far wider than I had anticipated. 

My first cycle was to to the Réserve écologique des barails to the North of the city, where the bike proved its use in enabling me to find a large flower meadow relatively quickly.  First sightings were of a number of clouded yellow, this one just about to fly off:

Clouded Yellow

The clouded yellow was to prove one of the most sighted non-whites of the whole holiday and appeared again on my way back via the lake, this time providing a good view of the underwing:

Clouded Yellow (underwing)

The Barails site also produced two first sightings of the year with painted lady (several) and small copper:

Painted Lady

Small Copper

Neither species re-occurred during my stay. Notably almost everything was landing with wings closed, possibly due to the ever-rising temperature which touched 30C as the day drew on.

Thee was a frustration in that I also spotted a number of much smaller blue butterflies and a hyperactive day-flying moth that refused to settle - a theme that was to recur throughout the week.

The day should also have included a trip to the Parc du Majolan which was mysteriously closed, though I did catch sight of a male brimstone and the only peacock I was to see all week in the nearby woddland.

Also closed was a park and woodland area on the Western side of the lake.  And this is supposed to be the tourist season!

I ended up having a much-needed beer in the popular Darwin area of Bordeaux, which led to an interesting variation of thieving sparrow behaviour:

Thieving Sparrow

Rare birds in my garden?

My activities have been somewhat constrained over the past three weeks for various reasons.  Principally I took a tumble from the bike and jarred my shoulder badly but other matters have intruded - shopping for a new car, sorting a minor emergency with the front door, birthday celebration arrangements and getting more involved with the local Amnesty group. 

As a result any sightings during the fine weather were restricted to the garden.

I don't know if it made the difference but I changed the contents of one of the feeders so it contains a mixture of suet pellets and peanuts, but recently a couple of rare birds have turned up regularly over the past few days.

Here I am referring to the house sparrow and the common starling:

Sparrow

Starling

Now of course you immediately think that these birds are not rare at all but, as I have surely mentioned before, they rarely turn up in my garden, and now visit repeatedly.

One can only speculate why...

The starling looks on inspection to be a young bird and maybe doesn't know any better.  However they frequently appear on the rooftops, including mine, without actually visiting. Sparrows can be seen on a daily basis less than fifty yards from my front door but until now have been totally outnumbered by dunnocks. Perhaps both have been intimidated by the number of jackdaws that turn up and the latter turn up less often as I tend to chase them off.  Both species can appear in twos and threes as well as one-offs.

There were also some sightings of bees and butterflies but still quite restricted. 

One white that actually settled briefly was a petite male large white, which surprised me a bit as i associate them more with the back end of summer. 

The most common visitor continued to be the dark-edged beefly but there were still not so many bees - the odd buff-tailed bumblebee queen or worker and a tree bumblebee. The one new occurrence was a common carder bee.  The hairy legs and long whiskers indicate that it is a male.

Common Carder Bee

Elsewhere locally there have been sightings of mining bees, a red mason bee and one very early green hairstreak.

Now largely recovered, I need to get out more.