Staying Close to Home

Finally following a resolution made some time ago, I got out to a couple of locations nearby recently.

Last Wednesday I did a double trip to Thornley Woods and the Far Pastures Reserve.

After wandering around a bit in search of some reported redwing, the hide at Thornley Woods was fairly quiet.

A few tits visited the feeders and I caught sight of a nuthatch and a treecreeper as well as this woodpecker, which was deemed worth a photograph since they don't come to the caged feeders I now use.

Female Woodpecker

At Far Pastures there was a bit more action and I was quite pleased to see a few teal and a family of gadwall, though I think teal is pretty much resident here.

Teal

Gadwall

The first bird I saw puzzled me a little as I took it to be a juvenile little grebe but could not see any parent birds. However it seems to be an adult in winter plumage.

Little Grebe

There was also a good deal of activity around the feeders at the car park.  I hung on for a while in fading light. just in case something memorable turned up.

Today I took a look at Stargate Pond and Beweshill Reserve which was pretty much a total failure as a bird watching trip but interesting in other ways.

I knew that Ryton Angling Club had a location in this area and sure enough there were four or five anglers trying their luck and with some success with the roach, quite impressive in temperatures of only 5C.

On talking to one of them it seems there is a good range of species present including tench and carp. If and when I start fishing again, this may well be where I go. 

It's also not a bad size and, as a former quarry, quite deep.

The positive view was endorsed by this cormorant, the only bird I saw apart from swans and a magpie. 

Cormorant

Sure enough a roach was being landed as I moved away.

My verdict on the venue was that it might be one for the summer.  

In particular the notice boards suggest that a good range of butterflies can be found there including dingy skipper.  Small copper would not surprise me either as they are certainly present at Ryton Meadows a mile or so away.  However I've never seen Stargate Pond mentioned in local reports on butterfly sightings.

I also spent some time on the other side of the main road trying in vain to find further ponds but did spot another marked wildlife area, which may well also be worth investigating.

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.

Mystery Bees and Disappearing Butterflies, Fish and Birds

 Last week I spotted a couple of bumblebees in the garden that I felt I really couldn't identify.  I have sent photos to the Natural History Society to see if they can tell me what they are.

Bee 1

Bee 2

What caught my attention with Bee 1 was the lack of a buff or white tail.  Instead, as can be seen from a second photo, there is the merest tip of white at the very end of the tail.

Bee 1 - side view

After I took the photos I thought I noticed a slight interruption to the abdominal band and so wondered about broken-belted bumblebee.  This seems highly likely however in terms of other factors and it would have to have been far away from its normal local habitat.

Afterwards I did come across some information that Bee 2 might possibly be a late-flying hairy-footed flower bee worker, and not a bumblebee at all.  However I haven't seen one before so it would be interesting to know.

Last Thursday I squeezed in a fishing trip to Horton Grange.  Looking for bream or tench on the swim feeder, I caught just three small roach on worm near in and nothing on corn further out.  The worm bites were fairly consistent if cautious but tackle trouble emerged as the bale arm on the reel started to fly open when striking, thus preventing me catching more.

On Saturday, Alex and I set out to Finglandrigg Wood in Cumbria on a planned mission to track down the marsh fritillary.  In spite of two tours through the suspect area, we were unable to manage a single sighting.  Apart from various speckled wood, ringlet, small skipper, red admiral and meadow brown, the only out of the ordinary sighting was of a small tortoiseshell in pursuit of its mate (presumably).  First seen on a mossy rock in the early afternoon, they were still at it on the nearby boardwalk when we re-visited the area a couple of hours earlier.

Small Tortoiseshells

As when we visited the Campfield Moss a year ago there were some carder bees nectaring on foxgloves.  Last year I thought they were moss carder bees.  On further research I'm more doubtful but they were certainly of a lighter hue that the ones I see here.

Moving on to Campfield Moss for a late visit we again found that the birds had mostly absented themselves apart from oyster catchers, a buzzard and a kestrel.

However it was quite nice to see woodpeckers, tree sparrows and greenfinch on the feeders, amongst others.

Greenfinch

Tree Sparrow

Lincoln and Back Home

After losing out a bit on Day 2 in Lincolnshire, I decided to swap bike for car to make up for a bit of lost time.

I started at Whisby Nature Park, an attractive if somewaht domesticated venue where nightingales can appear.  I didn't find any though and apart from many speckled wood and a fair few tufted ducks, there wasn't much to see.  One thing that did catch my attention was a duck that looked a bit like a misplaced diver.  It turned out it was a juvenile great crested grebe, looking quite different from the adult form.

Great Crested Grebe

Next I finally made it to Chambers Butterfly Garden and Woods near Bardney, not the most heavily signposted place I have ever come across.  By now the sunny periods were becoming less frequent and although temperatures remained high, overall results were also disappointing.

In fact the highlight was a completely chance sighting on arriving at the garden.  While parking the car  I noticed some feeders at the edge of the wood and a bird a little too pale to be a sparrow visiting one of them.  On checking I think my suspicion was correct and I had accidentally managed my first firm sighting of a garden warbler.

Garden Warbler

The garden itself was very pleasant with plenty of flowers and the standard nymphalidae plus what I perceived to be a female common blue.  I found myself wondering about it afterwards as it seemed too plain.  In this case the camera doesn't lie and it's quite clear it was in fact a tatty male common blue subject to a trick of the bright light that made it look darker.

Common Blue

The walk round the wood was pleasant enough but I didn't manage to see the hoped-for brown hairstreak or gatekeeper which had both been active just a week before, just more speckled wood and the occasional peacock or red admiral.  A very enjoyable bike ride through many villages the day after produced the same plus one more common blue.

Lincolnshire reminded me a bit of the continent in that the vast flat areas perhaps mean that the likes of birds are more thinly spread.  It was also noticeable that much of the vegetation was brown with just isolated flowers.  It was only at the Butterfly Garden and Southrey Woods that there were larger expanses of flowers in bloom.  Ideally I would have gone a week or two earlier in the year but was determined to avoid the school holidays.  One strange thing was that I didn't see ant day-flying moths.

Back at home the tortoiseshells are dominating proceedings on the remaining buddleia.  As the blooms decrease in number they are constrained to occupy less space and I have had as many as four on a single sprig.  They have also landed on a flowering chive plant and on this stray sunflower.

Small Tortoiseshell on Sunflower

On Thursday I looked at a large buddleia just before my train arrived at Hexham station and spotted a single painted lady -- the only one I've seen this year.

Yesterday I went fishing at Horton where some sizeable bream and tench have been caught this year.  It proved hard work and no-one caught much.  I stuck to big fish tactics on the leger but sweetcorn wasn't doing anything and bites on worm were none too frequent.  Eventually worm accounted for a fingerling roach, a small skimmer bream and this angry wee tench which at least put up a good fight.  If they'd all been four times bigger, it would have been a good day.

Tench

My time away definitely did me some good and will need to be repeated soon.

An Exciting Couple of Weeks

The good weather broke through in the middle of July and I have been taking full advantage by getting out as much as possible.  I'll start at the beginning...

On the 15th Malcolm and I did a fishing trip to Milkhope Pond, determined to put some fish on the bank after our previous blank at Brenkley.  The tactic was to scale down the tackle but using baits that would be big enough to put off the tiddlers.  In the end we had four skimmers and two roach, all from the margins on legered sweetcorn and no tiddlers - but no carp either.

The day after we linked up again for a dog walk through the meadows by the River Aln.  Early sightings of a small skipper and a burnet moth promised much but otherwise ringlet and meadow brown predominated.

Small Skipper

On the Saturday I took part in a bee hunt at Watergate Park organised by the Natural History Society's expert thanks to whom we were able to identify amongst others a vestal/gypsy cuckoo bumble bee (which I fortuitously came across), furrow bee (minute) and male buff-tailed bumblebee.

On the side I also noted a marmalade hoverfly and a shaded broad bar moth as well as several more small skippers, which seem to be very common this year and were to appear at further venues.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Shaded Broad Bar

This Monday I was out hunting hairstreaks and for about the fourth time visited Bywell Bridge only to find overcast weather and little sign of activity in the elms.  By contrast an evening visit to the viaducts at Hamsterley Mill provided two or three strong but fleeting purple hairstreak suspects.  Probably too early though for them to be on the wing in large numbers.

After taking part in a walking cricket session (yes it's come to that!) I went to Wingate Quarry around Tuesday lunchtime hoping to see a marbled white at the only site in Northern England where they are present.  I must have seen approaching 100!  Introduced in the hope that they would spread, they seem to be very happy where they are.  

Marbled White

Also sighted in this very scenic setting were good numbers of small heath, small skipper, common blue (though only 2-3 females) and burnet moth as well as the inevitable ringlet and meadow brown, large numbers of red-tailed bumblebee and I think a white-tailed bumblebee.

Female Common Blue

White-tailed Bumblebee

Perhaps more significant was this latticed heath moth, which I believe is somewhat scarce.  However, I see that I also have a less good photo of one at Watergate Park too.

Latticed Heath

The day after I set off late in the evening to go on a nightjar watch near Slaley.  Nightjars are rare in Northumberland but we managed half a dozen fleeting sightings as the darkness encroached and heard a fair bit of churring.  The most impressive bit was watching one hunting and returning to the same dead tree. There were plenty of toads and midges around plus an orange underwing moth but only one bat.

Thursday was nominally a day off but I couldn't resist this heron fishing on the edge of the marina at North Shields.

Grey Heron

On Friday I was back on the hairstreak trail again, this time with almost completely opposite results.  After some delay I arrived at Bywell Bridge going on on 1.00 pm, having spotted my first red admiral for several weeks on the way.

This time the sun was out and after a few minutes I started to notice suspicious activity in the elm tree at the north-eastern corner of the bridge.  It wasn't too long before I got a positive identification of my first ever white-letter hairstreak.  In the course of the next hour I must have seen 20-30 individuals, coming in little flurries and briefly settling on the tree leaves.  Rather contradicting the advice I had read on the West Sussex Butterfly Conservation site, they were mainly on the sunny side of the tree and not totally out of the wind, which I have however noticed is pretty variable in this location.

White Letter Hairstreak

By contrast my evening visit to Hamsterley came to an abrupt end after sighting just one suspected purple hairstreak when the cloud moved in and obscured the setting sun.

The weather is closing in again so I may not have so much to report over the next few days!

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

Thursday 1st April

A lurch into warmer weather has produced an increased level of sightings. 

The day after I last posted, we ventured on a fishing trip to Milkhope Loch on 24th March.  As I was parking the car I heard my first chaffinch of the year.  On a reasonably bright day, Malcolm managed to catch six small roach, although to be honest tiny in most cases.  The first one actually looked more like a rudd but wasn't retained. I stuck out for carp on ledger and short pole with bacon grill baits and had nothing more than a couple of sharp, bait stealing bites on the pole which I attributed to ide but it was more about catching something on this first visit.

On Tuesday this week I went back alone to Milkhope to use up the maggots and again had no trouble picking up small and tiny roach.  I switched to sweetcorn near in on the waggler after lunch in the hope of better things.  One large fish did move through the swim but otherwise it was just tiddlers failing to take the bait.

Bites were continuing on the feeder and the maggots were constantly getting sucked.  So I decided to fine down the tackle, which produced a skimmer bream as well as a couple more roach.  Then just before five I hooked into a much bigger fish which fought well for four or five minutes before snapping the 1lb 14 oz bs line just below the feeder.  Very frustrating as I didn't get a decent view of it, and probably underestimated how heavy it was.

It wasn't much of a consolation that I got a friendly visit from a greylag goose that also ate my apple core.  By this time chiffchaffs were calling all around.

Greylag Goose

Buffish Mining Bee

Previously I spent a windy Sunday afternoon at the Spetchells to see if the mining bees were active and ideally identify the rarer ones.  There were a few dozen buffish mining bees around as well as some garden and red-tailed bumblebee queens.  However I didn't catch up with ashy or tawny mining bee and there was no sign either of the sandmartins over the river yet.  Rather surprisingly, I did see a couple ofunidentified butterflies in an area of trees with dark bark and I wondered if they'd hibernated there.  On the way back along the river a kestrel hovered  enticingly.

Meanwhile I did finally manage to spot a greenfinch high up in a tree at the back of the house.  Stretching the capabilities of the camera, I got a shot which just about showed up the large beak and yellow stripe.

Greenfinch

Yesterday I did a bike run up to Lygett's Junction and a couple of miles up the Waskerley Way.  In considerably sunnier weather, there were quite a few butterflies on the wing.  I wasn't convinced they were all peacocks and red admirals either, too brown and, as I thought not quite right for small tortoiseshells either.  

Skylark

Just past Consett there were a lot of skylarks singing above a meadow and one of them was obliging enough to let forth from the fence of a nearby estate.  Again more of a silhouette but it's rare to get a skylark in the camera lense.

By the time I headed home butterflies were starting to settle in the sun and I caught sight of two peacocks and two red admirals, but none of them were inclined to linger when I appeared.

The extra two miles were worth it though, as there was a chance encounter with an early bumblebee queen as I took a quick break at the halfway stage.

Early Bumblebee Queen

Sunday 20th September

 The last  few days of summer, at least a bit better than the end of August...

10 days ago I decided to continue my explorations of Cycle Route 1 up as far as Warkworth.   There was an immediate reward just past the old aluminium smelter at Lynemouth when I stopped to watch a group of buzzards and was distracted by the appearance of a couple of butterflies in a nondescript bit of wasteland.  One proved to be a small copper and the other a rather faded common blue, one of two, my only sighting this summer.

Small Copper

Common Blue

Continuing on into the nature reserves, there were a good number of stonechats around the dunes.  I thought at first there were a few whinchats among them too but on checking I think it was just that there was a large proportion of female stonechats and perhaps a few juveniles.

Female Stonechat

On the way back from what was a very pleasant run on a pleasant day, I happened upon this massive flock of goldfinches, as large as I've ever seen.

Goldfinches

There were a few meadow pipts around too.

On Friday I tried a fishing trip to Big Waters, mainly feeder tactics with sweetcorn.  It didn't work for most of the day until I caught two good roach in succession, probably straddling the 1lb mark.  In the meanwhile, I'd noticed some fish playing in the shallows and managed to pick up a couple of nice wee rudd on worm beneath a light float, plus a roach.

The better fish came when the sun was in.  When it came back out bites became niggly and I only got one more roach.  I fished on til dusk in hope, by which time I had lost all ability to cast straight and it was too dark to get a decent photo.

My attempts to preserve the buddleia for longer this year have worked a bit.  Two out of three plants still have some blooms so that small tortoiseshells have continued to visit.

Small Tortoiseshell

Speckled wood and red admiral have passed through as well but small tortoiseshell and small white are now the main visitors.

Tuesday 25th August

Not so much going on this week...

I did get out fishing last Wednesday to Wydon Water, an attractive venue at Hexham that took me a while to find.

Apparently it has been fishing well but on the day in question was distinctly 'off'.  Two anglers in the end swims did OK in an easterly breeze but everyone else was scratching around.  Slightly further along, my swim basically livened up for an hour around lunchtime when I caught five small roach and a small male tench on more or less in succession but that was about it for the day.  I gambled for more tench in the margins on sweetcorn but didn't get a touch and could see the bait lying untouched when I packed up in drizzle a bit after 5.00 p.m.  The roach were on double maggot and the tench on maggot and caster.  It seemed to me the roach were taking from midwater but nothing happened when I reduced the depth from 6.5' to 4'.

Tench

My initial impression is that Wydon is a small fish water.  Everyone seems to measure success in terms of weight and even the tench I got was nowhere near 1lb.  Still it was the first I've had since the two seven pounders I got at Kelhead Quarry, predating this blog.  And as far as I gathered there were only two caught on the day, so still worthy of minor celebration.  Quite pretty too.

A bike ride followed on Wednesday, when I rested at Ebchester watching several swallows hunting in the fields below.  It struck me how few I've seen this year.  Also it sort of had the feeling they were getting ready to migrate.  I didn't notice much more as I was feeling slightly unwell and headed for home a bit earlier than planned.  Still there were a few peacocks, small tortoiseshells and small whites around.

Small tortoiseshells were in the garden this week too but I haven't seen peacocks for a few days.  Large whites have been around a fair bit, mainly males.  In fact it struck me that I wasn't sure if I was misidentifying the females.  I noticed one in particular and saw it was a bit different to the small whites.  A little research showed it was indeed a female.

Female Large White

One rare gardening side note is that I seem to have rescued  the rhodedendron I was given two years ago.  It was struggling when planted out and getting heavily bitten.  The solution has been to repot it in compost dowsed in vinegar to remove the alkaline content.

I'm afraid though that I'm going to have to give up feeding the birds for a while.  The titbits they leave behind are attracting rats too frequently and I think they must be breeding nearby.

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.