Batmen and Bee Grabbers

In spite of fine weather, butterflies seemed slow to start appearing on the buddleia this year and did not come in substantial numbers until the first week in August.  Normally one or two tortoiseshells visit the small bushes in the front garden during July but this year, the first non-white visitor was a comma.  In fact small tortoiseshells have not been at all frequent, whereas commas have become considerably more common - up to four at the same time visiting the back garden.

The predominant species besides have been peacock and large white with occasional small white, speckled wood and red admiral.  There have also been two flyovers by holly blue and I was quite pleased to identify a single green-veined white, a second brood specimen that could easily be taken for a small white at first glance.

Comma

Green-veined White

It's becoming an annual routine to photograph nymphalidae on the buddleia each year so I'm thinking to do less of it.  However, one more irregular occurrence while mowing the lawn nearby was this moth, which I take to be a large yellow underwing.

Large Yellow Underwing

Last Sunday I went on another excellent bee walk led by Charlotte Rankin at the Swedish Bee Garden in Saltwell Park in Gateshead.  As well as all the main species of bumblebee, there were a couple of red-tailed cuckoo bees and a vestal/gypsy cuckoo bee and a few minute furrow bees with a greenish body sheen.  On checking, there are a vast number of furrow bee species but one that seems more common in our area is the turquoise furrow bee.

Red-tailed Cuckoo Bee

With Charlotte's assistance we got into some of the less normal hoverfly species, including the batman hoverfly and swollen-thighed hoverfly and there were even some bee grabbers, flies that attach themselves to bees in flight to lay their eggs in the bee's waist.  I had the good fortune to find a colourful example, which from research may well be the four-banded bee grabber.  Several of us had never heard of bee grabbers before including myself so I can't claim to be an expert..

Four-banded bee grabber?

As we were mostly capturing species in pots for identification, most of the resulting photos unfortunately failed to meet my tough editorial standards.

Lastly I got out for a day's fishing at Brenkley on Wednesday.  In an effort to catch regularly, I float fished maggot close to the surface and must have caught 20-30 roach and perch, almost all of them pretty tiny.  Meanwhile the leger rod I put out for bigger fish did nothing whatsoever.  Apparently a lot of the carp were trying to shelter from the sun under the bridge at the other end of the pond.

I'm losing interest in coarse fishing slowly but surely and think I might try out my late dad's vintage fly fishing gear before winter sets in.

Wednesday 5th May

Last Thursday I decided to brave the weather and take a fishing trip to Brenkley Pond, partly as I still had some usuable maggots from several weeks ago and was happy enough to catch a few smaller fish on waggler in view of the ongoing near-freezing temperatures at night.  That was exactly what I got - 6 small perch and 6 small roach, some of which rivalled the ones at Milkhope for minuteness.

Even on fine tackle bites were infrequent and finicky and had a knack of arriving at inconvenient moments when I was pouring a coffee or fiddling with gear, so I should probably have caught more.  At least the presence of perch is likely to weed out some of the smaller fish over time.

Covid travel restrictions having been relaxed I took the opportunity to meet up with Alex and Vicki at a certain Scottish moorland last Friday in search of birds of prey.  Maximum temperature forecast 9C, actual temperature on arrival 3C, enlivened by strongish wind and a squally shower.

Within half an hour of arrival, we spotted what we thought was a barn owl hunting and soon there were two or three on the go.  Then hen harriers started to appear, both male and female, overall about a dozen sightings though some may have been the same birds returning.  Some of the males were displaying by zigzagging up and down on the horizon.

Not really dressed for the  cold, I was more interested in fiddling with a flask of tea and a pork pie than the camera, so left it to Vicki to provide the photos.  

Male Hen Harrier

Short-Eared Owl

It transpired on closer inspection that the photos were of short-eared owls, though I suppose it's just about possible that both were present.  At one point two owls were together and there was a clear size difference and all sightings were at some distance.  However the habitat certainly makes short-eared owl a good deal more likely.  We had also hoped for peregrine falcon or merlin but neither showed up, not even on returning later in the day.  Still, having only ever seen one male hen harrier before, it was great to see several on the same day.

Meanwhile, on a brief walk up a nearby valley, we encountered numerous meadow pipits, the first two swallows I have seen this year, a few pied and and one grey wagtail.  I had a notion there might have been a white wagtail but it didn't hang about, neither did one larger pipit on the stream which I suppose was a rock pipit.  On the return walk, there were a number of willow warblers around and one reed bunting as well as a pair of stonechats back on the moor.

I suspect this Spring will turn out to have been a disaster for butterflies and there have been remarkably few on the wing these last ten days.  Today a white landed that was either a female orange tip or a green-veined white.  After it departed a male orange tip appeared.  Otherwise there has been nothing apart from a single speckled wood at the tennis club on Sunday.

Orange Tip

Monday 10th August

I went fishing at Dissington again last Wednesday.  Technical problems ensured a poor start when the pole bung came loose on catching an early perch, necessitating a return to waggler tactics.  Further delays resulted through tackle tangles and when it rained and I discovered I couldn't get the brolley up.

In the end it turned out ok.  Using fine tackle. I got two roach and another perch on maggot before things went quiet.  I switched to worm and got a strong run only for the hook to fail.  I suspected a tench but the next cast resulted in a small but hard-fighting crucian carp of perhaps 5oz.  After another perch bites on worm went back.  So I gambled, scaled up to a larger hook with double sweetcorn and caught technically a better fish - a roach of going on a pound.  However the wee crucian was a first for me, so also worthy of note.

Wee Crucian

Decent Roach

It's interesting that changing baits seemed to produce results.  There was a guy who fished at Brooms who reckoned it was an idea to change bait every time he caught a fish, something I've never considered seriously but crossed my mind on the day.  I'm also sure I got a few shot bites even though there was no more than crushed hemp in the groundbait.

The new buddleia bush I put in the back lawn finally produced some noteworthy results in the sun last Thursday.  I counted a total of around 30 small whites, one large white, one comma. four peacocks, three red admirals and three small tortoiseshells.

However the first visitor of the day proved to be the most interesting.  I had to check with an expert (Caroline of Northumberland Natural History Society) to confirm it was a buff-tailed bumblebee.  What I didn't spot was that it is a queen.

Small White	Large White
Comma	Peacock
Red Admiral	Queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee

Since then there has been a single appearance of a green-veined white and, as last year, two flypasts by holly blues.

Monday 6th July

Well my first fishing trip for three years didn't work out too brilliantly.  I fished swim 9 at Dissington Pond on the short pole, so pretty much what I used to do at Brooms near Annan.  It was a bit weird as I couldn't remember how to handle the tackle and was a bit short of bait, not wanting to make unneccessary shopping trips.

After a some while I caught a small perch on worm and could have had more but decided to stick out for better fish on heavier tackle.  It was probably a mistake as all I got was a few nips and nibbles and swirls from an obviously large carp foraging in the swim after I added some old halibut pellets to the feed.

I think I need to get out of the old methods and try different ideas, ideally with less tackle to cart around.

In spite of some iffy weather I did a nature walk with a friend at Big Waters, where we quickly saw a number of ringlets and a couple of fine looking and large red admirals, as well as meadow brown and speckled wood.

Ringlet

Red Admiral

A pleasant surprise was to see a trio of baby swallows as they waited to be fed by the parent bird.

Baby Swallows

Almost better than that I managed to actually identify a flower - agrimony.

Agrimony

Today I made my first attempt to track down the white-letter hairstreaks at Bywell, spurred on by an optimistic weather forecast.  But when I got to the bridge by bike, it was the usual murk tht we are calling summer this year.  I hung around for a while during a brief bright spell. Then it started to drizzle and I decided to push off, cursing the weather forecast.  When I think of the days this year when I've stayed in because rain was forecast that never arrived...

I did however discover that there are also a few wych elm in the Wylam area, one of which was directly opposite a local hostelry. It was open.

Wednesday 25th October

Well into autumn now but daytime temperatures continue to hold up well.

Last Wednesday I stopped off at Lochfoot, where there was a flock of canada geese in the shallows.  It was quite a surprise as most geese at this time of year seem to be barnacles.

Canada geese

The other thing I always notice at the nice viewing platform at Lochfoot is the board with illustrations

Bream or perch?

by the local primary kids showing all the wildlife that can be seen on the loch. Unfortunately one of the illustrations appears to be the result of a confusion as the fish depicted is supposed to be a bream but very obviously has some features of a perch, notably the spiny dorsal fin.  Both fish are present in the loch but there wasn't a separate diagram devoted to the perch.

Anyway, I rolled on down the road and was heading towards Beeswing, when I caught sight of a large bird of prey flying skilfully in and out of the woodland.  It was too nimble to be a buzzard, had a pointed wing shape in flight and a palish appearance.  I suppose the commonsense answer is sparrowhawk but that wasn't my instinctive reaction.  I couldn't say it wasn't a goshawk, just that it would be very unlikely at this time of year.

Almost immediately after there was a fleeting sighting of a bullfinch and a female reed bunting. On the way home I saw a red admiral at Shawhead, but haven't seen one since.

This week, riding to Caerlaverock against the sun I cursed the lack of sunglasses and more especially binoculars as there may have been a few redwing in the trees before the Canine Rescue Centre.  There were however a couple of siskins going up the hill toward the Craigs and another female reed bunting.

Meanwhile back at home, my attempt to attract more interesting birds to the bird table misfired spectacularly, as did that of a young pussy cat.

Probably not the best way to catch a bird...

Wednesday 21st June

Got out on a small fishing trip on Saturday, mainly to use up some of the bait from the earlier trips this month.  I had intended to go to Lochfoot but the north bank has been rendered virtually inaccessible by extended heavy fencing.  So I ended up legering from the north bank at Mill Loch.

At first it looked like it might be another blank as bites were not forthcoming for a while.  Of course, as soon as I set up a second rod, the bites did start to come and I landed a perch, a roach and two more perch in a fairly short period around three to four o' clock.  After that bites got shyer and harder to detect.  I switched to corn on one rod, retaining red maggot on the other and got another three roach before packing up mid-evening.  None of them were any size and there were no bream.

The catch before release

Another angler told me he had been catching good roach and six bream from the western stretch of the north bank, which seems to be the favoured stretch these days.  However it is an awful long way from the road.  I was exhausted enough after carting the gear as it was!

Yesterday, Vicki and I decided on another quick walk at Kingholm Quay.  Once again it was quite productive and there were a couple of pleasant surprises.

It started quietly setting off towards Glencaple with a brief sighting of a female greenfinch and a couple of ringlet butterflies (first of the year) that flew around restlessly without ever settling plus a green-veined white (probable) doing exactly the same.  There was also an extensive pink-flowering bush that may have been some sort of domestic escapee.

Another unidentified pink flower

We then spotted two or three birds behaving very furtively in a group of dog roses.  I got enough of a view to reckon they might be sedge warblers, but it proved impossible despite several attempts to get any sort of a photo.  Then Vicki used her phone to confirm the spotting and actually played the sedge warbler call a afew times, which immediately drew a considerable response from all around!  So we unconsciously found a new means of identifying bird life.

Shortly thereafter I spotted a fascinating section of rough scrub.  I was trying to follow a small flock of birds entering a tree when a redstart showed up in the binoculars as it settled in the undergrowth just in front.  It didn't stay for long but long enough to identify it positively.  I haven't seen one for a few years now.

On the way back there were more similar encounters with warblers and butterflies, including a couple of willow warblers.  At one point a small brown butterfly settled that I expected to be a small copper.  However it proved to be a skipper.  On appearance I thought it might be a small or essex skipper but they are not common here and not yet officially on the wing, so I suppose that large skipper is the obvious answer.  Frustratingly, no photograph was possible yet again but we did rather better with a single red admiral that was nectaring on flowers - the first of the year for me.

Red admiral

You can see how fresh it looks, so I think it must have hatched recently.

Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th July

Two trips to Brooms with Malcolm, first on North side of Queensberry, second on SE corner of F1 pond.

Tuesday 15th: Malcolm v happy with three commons, bream, good perch of 2.5 lb plus 3 lb barbel (which was what I hoped he might catch).  Most fish on ledgered prawn and barbel on bacon in the margin.  I had a lot of small stuff in margin plus a couple of carp - can't remember exactly how many as proceedings were dominated by a long, large mirror which fought strongly for over five minutes and at first estimated at over 10 lb.  The photo doesn't appear to justify this claim but is not taken from a good angle.  My carp came to meat.

There was a lot of movement between pegs 15 and 16 and I clearly saw barbel passing beneath my feet.  Bigger fish were taken in about 2' of water inches from the bankside weeds.  This seems to be something of a big fish area.  Malcolm lost a couple of good fish through heavy handed tactics.

Wednesday 16th: Wind was strong today and swim choice dubious as this once productive area has

been heavily cleared out.  Malcolm could not get bites nearer to corner but I eventually contacted another big mirror, shorter but fatter, just off the remaining reed bed towards centre on meat.  This one fought in a similar manner to the one yesterday - no real long runs but constant resistance under the pole tip and took ages to come up in the water.  I reckoned it at about 8lb - 9lb.  Then got another mirror of 5 - 6lb from the same spot.  Changing to pellet, got a streaming run and a very angry fight but the result was a common of about 4lb that was foul hooked just below the dorsal fin.

I then let Malcolm try the swim and he caught a couple of nice commons on worm - the first time in the two days we managed to fish worm without attracting small perch - before losing a bigger fish.

Monday 22nd July

Fishing trip to Brooms. Fished end swim on Queensberry south bank in still very hot conditions.  A total of around fifteen fish but included mainly roach and what I until now thought were chub but may in fact have been ide, plus a couple of perch and a gudgeon.

Only two carp of not much above 1lb even though one was a very pretty golden mirror, plus a late barbel that was about 3.5 lb.  On last cast elastic snapped as a fish powered across the lake - presumably another barbel but only one other better fish lost.  Small fish dominated throughout and obstructions rendered the end swim unfishable.

I should perhaps have moved. Interestingly a bloke opposite was pumping out fish of a better size on a swimfeeder fished half way out.  Maybe this is the way to go at the peak of hot conditions (25 C) rather than sticking in the margins.