The siskins have continued to visit the garden. I thought it was just a pair and so was quite surprised this week to see four of them on a feeder. One couple however fled before my attempt to record the moment.
Also visiting, apart from a few two- and seven-spot ladybirds, have been a number of buff-tailed bumblebee queens prospecting the garden for possible nesting sights. They were really tricky to photograph as they were either on the move or ferreting around in the undergrowth. I thought I was about to nail it when one of them disappeared down a crevice in the decking. I must have waited three or four minutes for it to come back into shot, which it never did. So either it escaped by another route without me noticing or hearing, or I can expect a bumblebee nest in my decking...
In the end I had to make do with a brief video of one visitor:
Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen
Also heard but not seen in the garden and nearby have been a few chiffchaff.
Yesterday I was out for a walk at Geltsdale with V&A together with recent arrival E, who managed to sleep through the proceedings uninterrupted.
I soon saw a curlew on approaching the car park and found a couple of stonechat on arrival. Eventually we headed South nominally hoping to happen upon a whinchat but without much conviction. Instead we came across numerous chaffinches and a reed bunting pair.
Stonechat
Reed Bunting
Further sightings overhead were a couple of kestrel mobbing a buzzard and a possible pink-footed goose.
The weather was quite warm so there were also a couple of butterfly sightings - both peacocks.
Having covered the likely whinchat area, we set off back via the former quarry where short-eared owls have been turning up. We were probably an hour or two too early to be successful. Instead there were several lapwing and on the way a very distant roe deer
Lapwing
Roe Deer
The lapwing seemed to be on the verge of proving a display flight but never quite went through with it.
I always think the rockier sides of the quarry area look good for peregrine falcon, who would be due to nest about now, but none were seen.
On the way back we did however meet up with a decent flock of fieldfare. They saw us and kept on the move. Distracted by another bumblebee queen, I missed the best chance of a photo. They can't be with us for much longer this year.
Yesterday I had planned to head West to Parkhead on the bike, but the cycle path was closed and I didn't fancy the proposed hilly detour. Instead I took a more casual trundle along the banks of the Derwent, which did produce a couple of active goosander.
Goosander
Returning by the Tyne was less productive apart from a couple of cormorants and a brief check at the hide at Clara Vale produced nothing of note at all.
I haven't done any major butterfly expeditions but I did do a recce of the Cambois area to check out possible sites for the grayling - more hopefully anon.
On the way by bike I noted a bird singing very tunefully from the top of a small tree and wasn't sure what it was. It turned out to be male reed bunting but I've never heard them sing so beautifully. Maybe like the dunnock it only happens at key times of the year.
It was just on reviewing the photo I could actually identify it.
The only other trip out was a quick visit to Marden Quarry as I happened to be in the area and had heard there had been some sightings of a night heron there.
Anyway I did a circuit of the lake and didn't see anything of note. So I sat on a bench near the car park overlooking the lake for a rest. After a while I looked from my phone to notice... a grey heron squatting behind some flowers on the island opposite.
Grey Heron
At distance I briefly thought I might have hit the jackpot due partly to the untypical hunched-up pose. My sense is that this is also a young bird with its whitish appearance and streaked breast.
One great advantage of having buddleia rather unnaturally in pots at the front garden is that they regularly attract an early season small tortoiseshell. It was again the case this year, the second butterfly to be seen on them.
Meanwhile the larger bushes at the back are out and have attracted peacocks and red admirals but not a single small tortoiseshell. The time was when they would I'm sure have been the most numerous visitor but clearly they are in decline and have been for a long while.
On the other hand commas have often been in evidence as have all three species of white, although the weather has been inconsistent and some times were much more productive than others..
Comma
But possibly the most interesting sighting was a single meadow brown - obviously a more than common species but not one I've ever seen on buddleia.
The whites have also been showing a great deal of interest in the garlic mustard, fluttering around it and other plants slowly and landing frequently. I think they may be females attempting to oviposit. This is an example of the sort of behaviour I mean.
Green-veined White
Lastly a pleasant surprise one morning was to open my garage and find that a tiny moth was completing a sleepover on my rear windscreen.
It struck me recently that I don't pay much attention to flowers. I really should as recognising flowers is help in finding butterflies and bees in the summer.
The trigger for this thought was the christmas cactus on the windowsill, which is looking particularly smart this year and may even last until the 25th for once. In previous years, perhaps when the heating has been on more, it has often had it by mid-December.
On Saturday, a notably cold and rather windy day, I went to Geltsdale with Alex and Vicki to exchange presents and check for sightings.
Here it
became apparent that I am suffering from increasing bird blindness. Almost immediately after setting off, Alex spotted a flypast by a peregrine which Vicki even manged to get a photo of while I remained blissfully unaware and could see nothing but grey sky.
Peregrine Falcon
Similarly I could not spot the first stonechat they saw skirting the first bit of woodland. I did see the grouse Alex spotted on the horizon once he'd pointed it out and did get a photo against the light.
I fiddled with the result to see if it might prove to be a black grouse but the only difference was a rather apocalyptic background while the bird remained a dark shadow:
Grouse
We reached the lake, where a number of wigeon were having a doze. I got some shots but, like the rest I took on the day, the focus wasn't great. I think the cold may have caused some condensation on the lens and the wind anyway made it different to hold the camera steady and avoid the lakeside reeds in distance shots.
One phot was slightly different and puzzled me briefly but I think it is just an unclear rear view of a mallard.
Wigeon
Mallard
After that it was quiet for a while. There was nothing but a few tits and chaffinches near the feeders at the Information Centre.
It's often the case withe birdwatching that you see nothing for a longish period, and then several things in quick succession. It was probably a full twenty minutes before I (for a change) saw a few birds landing in a tree, which turned out to be bullfinches.
Bullfinch
Then Alex noticed a barn owl hunting early and eventually landing some distance away, and another stonechat showed up on the moorland.
We walked back past the quarry through some attractive countryside but only saw another - or perhaps the same - barn owl, again at some distance.
Barn Owl
While this was going on, a mega rarity was again being sighted at East Chevington Reserve in the shape of a grey headed lapwing, so I decided to try my luck the day after.
I arrived about 11.20 and parked where a lot of other cars were standing. This proved to be next to the field where the bird had been sighted while I was at Geltsdale, but it had flown to a distant ploughed field near which the shapes of standing people could just be made out.
I walked up there, which took longer than expected by a roundabout route, only to be told that the bird had not been seen since 10.20 am. The story was that a marsh harrier had appeared and frightened off the lapwings while the grey-headed version had circled a few times and then resettled not to be seen since.
So I hung around for about an hour, peering into the distance across many furrows of mud and seeing nothing. One of the twitchers, some of whom had come considerable distances, however said he'd managed to spot 64 lapwings in the area I had been surveying!
Eventually, at 1.30 pm with only an hour of decent light left, I decided to look elsewhere. On the walk back it was apparent that all the twitchers were following me, the latest news being that the lapwings including the suspect bird had left en groupe and headed for Cresswell Pond/Druridge Pools depending who you talked to.
So all I got for my efforts was some unusable shots of pheasants and half-hidden curlews, a single female reed bunting and a group of greater twitchers.
Reed Bunting
Twitchers
One of them asked me if I'd seen the birds move on. Well I did briefly see a distant flock on the skyline, impossible to distinguish, but my reaction was that they were too small for lapwings.
It's a bird that has kept returning to the area for over a week now, so who knows...
Last Wednesday I took the bike to St. Mary's at Whitley Bay where a few birds have been reported, notably whitethroat and sedge warbler. Although I've seen both before I fancied reacquainting myself.
Whitethroat was no problem at all as one was singing away merrily from a tree as soon as I got to Old Hartley.
There were a lot of sedge warblers around and they could be heard virtually anywhere but unfortunately i could only get shots of more whitethroats and a couple of reed buntings.
Reed Bunting
I have just started using the merlin app to identify bird song and it claimed it had heard an american duck called the Common Loon. You'd think that was an error however as the hardline twitchers would no doubt have tracked that one down.
L:ast time I mentioned not managing to capture a small nomad bee. Well this week I managed to get one in a bug box and could identify it as a Flavous Nomad Bee. Although it can be confused with Panzer's Nomad Bee - and this discussion came up last year - my inclination on the strength of photos was much in favour of the former. Unfortunately the photographic evidence has been accidentally deleted.
My recently installed bug hotel is now doing a strong trade with red mason bee guests.
Unfortunately they still keep falling into buckets of water and the last one came out so black, I at first didn't think it was a red mason at all. But as it tried back the colour slowly returned from the abdomen upwards until it finally flew away.
Very wet red mason bee
Today I had another brief sighting of a patchwork leafcutter bee sizing up a large leaf and recorded my first definite speckled wood butterfly of the year. Normally I would have seen 20 + by now.
Starting with a bit of bad news, I found this dead great tit in the garden last week.
Great Tit
I sort of assumed that it had crashed into the summerhouse, but on inspection it seemed to have a wound on its upper breast so maybe got nobbled by something.
Yesterday, I went on the first big trip of the year with son and fiancee to Leighton Moss, which provided a sufficient parade of sightings to justify even the £9 entry fee for non-RSPB members.
We saw a good number of marsh harriers flying at considerable height, which surprised me a bit. On previous occasions in the Netherlands and at Leighton Moss before, I'd been used to seeing them flying low looking for prey. Often they were in groups of two or more so I supposed that it was some sort of pre-mating routine, disturbed by occasional buzzards. Anyway, I was delighted to get a photo of one in flight with my pocket camera, even though it wasn't brilliant.
Although we didn't manage to see one, we did hear numerous bitterns booming, which was a first time for me. I must say 'booming' is a bit of a misnomer. As one of the signs pointed out, it sounds much more like someone blowing over the top of an old-fashioned glass milk bottle.
Also not seen was the bearded tit. We hadn't really expected them to show at this time of year although apparently they are still around.
One bird that is present is the ring-necked duck and I thought I might have seen one at distance from the tower. In fact it proved to be just another tufted duck.
Shortly afterwards, heading for lunch I spotted some small red fungi next to the path. I think they are called scarlet elf cups.
At the last hide we visited there was a view over several bits of land sticking out into the water, surrounded by various ducks. A group of twitchers reckoned there was a water pipit working its way along one of them. Unfortunately, try as we might, we couldn't confirm or deny it as a sighting as the photos we took of the wee bird were all too blurry. Apparently it had been identified earlier by someone using a powerful telescope, so presumably correctly.
Overall, there were just too many photos to post individually, so I've amalgamated them together in brief video. Unfortunately there is no background music as that now costs extra from Microsoft!
Last Sunday I was at Geltsdale with my son and his fiancee. Unfortunately there was only a light breeze but we did manage to see a few birds of prey, notably several kestrel, one of which I thought might have been a sparrow hawk and a single buzzard as well as canada geese, lapwing, curlew and a stonechat. Snowdrops are now out and there was a nice wee bunch near the RSPB Visitor Centre.
Snowdrops
The day after I was on a Naturewatch trip to Big Waters, which produced a pleasing variety of species, without turning up any major rarities.
As well as tufted duck and a couple of great crested grebe debating whether the mating season has started, there was a good head of lapwing on the stony island.
Lapwing
There were several teal around and one showed nicely on a sail past.
Teal
Further round we also caught up with wigeon, pochard and goldeneye.
Goldeneye
Wigeon
Pochard
Around the Western hide there were no snipe or water rail this time but several finches on the feeders and a pair of reed buntings, the female of which had a brownish head that kept us guessing for a while.
Reed Bunting
On the way to tennis today, I had a little time to spare at the weir on the Derwent and noticed some more teal that were standing and sliding around in the fast water by the fish run. They appeared to be feeding on grubs in the newly-formed streamer weed.
On the way back there was also a pair of goosander diving away. Usually all you see there is couple of mallard and maybe a heron.
January hasn't been a great month for me healthwise. Having missed the beginning with a cold I lost the end with a nasty chest infection.
In the mean time I managed another trip to Prestwick Carr, which didn't produce anything spectacular but did offer some nice sightings of the regular customers at the bird feeders.
On a chilly day with little wind, I noticed three or four times trees in the distance with a raptor perched in the crown, as if waiting for some reason to get more active. Distance made identification difficult but I reckoned they were sparrow hawks.
Sparrow Hawk
Walking along the subsided road there were no more signs of redwing or fieldfare but around three pairs of bullfinches were scavenging in the hedgerow.
Bullfinch
It's not often that bullfinches stay close but they seemed relaxed, particularly this female. I think you often see them in January, feeding on fresh buds.
There was quite a party going on at the feeders, where someone had added some coconut halves and filled the wee tray with seed. So I managed to get some quite good shots of participants that weren't members of the tit family.
Tree Sparrow
Chaffinch
Reed Bunting
The one that sort of got away was willow tit, which did visit sporadically. It was showing interest in the bits of apple I had spread close to where I was standing and I thought there was a chance of a really good close up. But it never stayed for more than just a few seconds and after about forty minutes, I got fed up of cold fingers and moved on at a brisker pace.
On the way back to the car there were a number of roe deer in the far distance.
Still trying to figure out the lack of non-tit small bird appearances in my garden, I wondered about the theory of a near neighbour that bird flu is to blame.
In this case it would seem to suggest that it has particularly affected the following species here: bullfinch (which normally show up in January), nuthatch, woodpecker, jay and (in nearby trees at least) greenfinch.
However my complaint about poor sightings in Chopwell Woods was contradicted on the way to the doctor's yesterday, when I heard hundreds of small birds chattering high up in the birches near Chopwell East Field. I think they were tits, but I did observe half a dozen chaffinches towards the end of the stoney road.
Last Wednesday I took a slow ride along the Derwent and the Tyne, particularly looking out for any sites that might produce a common blue.
Again the horse meadow at Derwenthaugh produced a small skipper, which continually sat with wings closed but just open enough to allow identification. Although there is now plenty of bird's foot trefoil in the field, there were no common blues but the first ringlet I have seen this season landed nearby and a meadow brown flew past.
Not much turned up along the Tyne apart from a couple more ringlets until I parked the bike and headed up the western Spetchells as the sun started to come out. Here the mining bees were no longer active but there were still plenty of Gooden's Nomad bees around the nest holes, which I suppose makes perfect sense. A good number of red-tailed bumblebees were also to be seen.
Here there was less bird's foot trefoil than I suspected so it was a pleasant surprise when a male common blue (first of the year) flew straight past me shortly after I had disturbed a basking red admiral. As I made my way back along the track more appeared and I saw five in total - all males.
Common Blue
Not seen however were dingy skipper or any Burnett moths.
At home I've been wondering if any of the bumblebees I've seen were were white-tailed bumblebees but mostly concluding they weren't. This one might be so I've submitted it to i-record to see if they confirm it.
White-tailed Bumblebee?
It looks from the hairy legs that it is a male, which apparently makes identification more difficult. Garden bumblebees are still turning up occasionally too.
At the weekend I travelled South to visit Rutland Water with Jen and Joe on the Sunday.
The weather was disappointingly dull and only a small number of ringlets and meadow browns ventured from the extensive flower meadow as we wondered along to the osprey viewpoints on the South shore, plus the odd skipper and chimney sweeper moth.
Here we had good success however as a couple of ospreys showed well during the hour we were there, and a chick can be made out in some of the photos taken.
Osprey
There were a fair few reed buntings about as well as sedge warblers, which however I only managed to hear.
Reed Bunting
Moving between hides it warmed up a bit and butterflies gradually became more active. Mostly these were ringlets and meadow browns but there were about half a dozen skippers. Interestingly, they were mainly large skippers, which I'm not actually sure that I've seen nearer to home though records suggest they are common.
Ringlet
Large Skipper
It happened that the meadow brown I snapped was an already rather worn male. Or I assume that the white patches were signs of wear.
Meadow Brown
One or two more chimney sweeper moths appeared as well as a blue bug I couldn't hazard a guess at. Returning to the visitor centre I also discovered this silver ground carpet moth lurking in the undergrowth.
Silver Ground Carpet
After a pause for refreshments, we decided to check some of the lagoon areas on the Western shore and pretty much hit the jackpot at the Harrier Hide, where it was for some while possible to see little egret, great white egret and grey heron all fishing in the same area.
A particular bonus was the sighting of an Egyptian Goose, a first ever for me as it isn't present further North.
Great White Egret
Egyptian Goose
Next a marsh harrier duly jetted in and passed around either side of the hide before moving away behind the trees. Perhaps just as exciting was the foraging of an early-rising barn owl that was clearly hungry or had young and hunted extensively over the marshland, at one point carrying some prey in its talons.
Barn Owl hunting
At one point it flew in front of the hide so close you could see it giving us the eye.
Afterwards we briefly visited the 'photographic' hide where a goldfinch obligingly sat for well over five minutes.
Goldfinch
Not the most spectacular sighting of the day but an attractive bird that isn't always so easy to take pictures of.
All the time we were in the Harrier Hide, we could clearly hear a cuckoo calling in the distance, which interested me a good deal as I reckoned I'd heard one at home earlier in the week, but discounted it as being too late for a cuckoo. It was calling again today.
The Covid thing left me with an ongoing chestiness and I decided on a concerted activity campaign during last week's good weather involving several bike rides, tennis and walking cricket.
One of the many bike rides was to Prestwick Carr to see what was on the feeders and looking out for any activity en route, having seen a few peacock butterflies (about 6) and a few bumblebee queens on my other travels as well as hearing several chiffchaffs.
Not much turned up until I came to the end of the track out of Ponteland Park, when I was quite pleased to get a shot of a greenfinch up on a telegraph wire after several attempts.
Greenfinch
Both chiffchaffs and greenfinches have been turning up near the garden and hereabouts, usually heard rather than seen.
It was too early in the day for the short-eared owl at Prestwick Carr, but there was a single tree sparrow on the approach to the area and as usual several small birds near the feeders - notably reed buntings and willow tits as well as more greenfinches, other tits and the odd chaffinch. Annoyingly, the sun was in such a position that it was impossible to focus on them without scaring them off and the best I could manage was a brief video of a willow tit in the hedgerow.
Willow Tit
There was another peacock and a small tortoiseshell, a large white (probable), a kestrel and a buzzard.
On Sunday, the last day of the really warm sunshine, Alex and I took a walk up to the the Gairs Viewpoint at RSPB Geltsdale in the hope we might see something interesting, which I said for me would be a grouse and either a peregrine or a merlin.
There were a few curlew near the car park. Afterwards sightings tended once again to be fleeting but we continued well with a redpoll, a greenfinch and a stonechat as we advanced through the tree scrub, having seen a few lapwing in semi-display mode.
Once we reached the moorland, Alex spotted what appeared to be a merlin harassing some passing crows. It looked like it had settled on a distant fencepost with a crow on another post nearby. The trouble was that neither of the photos I took clearly showed a merlin so it was a bit of a conundrum.
Further on we started to hear grouse in the heather and a pair or red grouse flew right over our heads - naturally without posing for the camera.
On the way back more and more meadow pipits lifted off in front of us and more peacocks started to appear along with a single buff-tailed bumblebee. A few buzzards were around and we spent some time working out that another distant bird on a wire was nothing more than a kestrel. There was no sign of a peregrine.
In all of this the best photos I got were a robin and a stonechat!
Robin
Stonechat
Yesterday I took a quick walk in Chopwell Woods in the hope of seeing a few bumblebees. One almost flew into me as I went out the door but there wasn't much doing in the Woods apart from another surprise small tortoiseshell at 10C. As I turned for home more bumblebee queens did start to appear. Several buff-tailed queens were not keen to settle and a suspected early bumblebee queen on some carnations and a possible garden bumblebee couldn't be confirmed.
Strangely the one butterfly that did linger was a lone tree bumblebee that looked a little small to be a queen but presumably was one.
The day after I last posted Mr Nuthatch was again paying fleeting visits to the bird table and I managed to provide the proof.
Nuthatch
With the weather brightening I decided to take a bike ride to Prestwick Carr the following Friday, braving a strong westerly wind in the hope of seeing the short-eared owl again. When I arrived, the feeders by the viweing platform had been filled (apparently someone called Albert fills them) and so it was a cinch to catch up with the willow tits that use it. Long-tailed tit and reed bunting were also about as well as the more common tits.
Willow Tit
Long-tailed Tit and Willow Tit
I rode up and down the track looking about and tried to stick it out on the platform for a while but it was very exposed to the breeze so I gave in after an hour and rode back home.
This weekend I did a slow walk around the bridle path towards Rowlands Gill, when it was again apparent that there is more birdsong there than in Chopwell Woods. Seeing them was another thing as they were mostly high in the the treetops. In the end I saw pretty much what you'd expect to see - coal tit, blue tit, long-tailed tit and red kite. Low flying red kites over the various villages have been a pretty much daily occurence locally.
More of a surprise came yesterday as I rode to Gateshead to buy fishing tackle. Just past the Swalwell roundabout in a temperature of about 10C a butterfly flew up. From the brief view of its underside I thought it was a peacock. As I was half thinking I wouldnt see a butterfly before the end of March this year, I was duly pleased.
Several times I thought I had heard a greenfinch at the back of the garden and elsewhere but I haven't managed to see one.
