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.

Up in the Highlands 2

On day three we returned for some more eagle spotting.  By now the weather, which had gradually become cooler was distinctly chilly and we spent an hour snoozing in the car when it got heavy.

The cool turn had a decided effect on the chances of seeing butterflies and during the whole trip all we saw was half a dozen ambient whites and a single orange tip.

From the point of view of eagles, it was pretty much business as day one i.e. occasional distant and often uncertain sightings.  Overall we managed around half a dozen firm sightings over the two days and did not manage to convince ourselves that any of them were white-tailed rather than golden eagles.

However there was good compensation in the form of a variety of other species.  There was already some action on the way along the valley when I spotted a chaffinch-coloured bird flying over the road.  Rather baffled by its definite white rump, I eventually worked out it was probably a juvenile bullfinch.  More puzzling was what appeared to be a blackbird with pronounced white flashes on both upper wings and I haven't worked that one out at all.  Another flypast was a female redstart - a pleasant surprise as their distribution in the area is somewhat sparse.

On arrival at the parking area, Vicki spotted a golden plover with chicks by the nearby woods, so I took a wander back to see if I could find them.  I spotted a swallow on the telegraph wires, at which point a female mallard emerged from the roadside undergrowth and scuttled off at pace through the woods towards a nearby stream.

I noticed some movement by the water and decided to investigate.  As I approached two ducks fled downstream, each followed by a number of chicks.  I assumed they were mallards but having seen the photograph I managed to get, I'm not so sure about the second group.  In fact I wouldn't like to say what they are. Possible candidates might be gadwall (not common in Highlands) or female and young goldeneye.

Duck with chicks

As you can just see, they were also accompanied by a sand martin, one of a large number of hirondelles flying over the water at speed.

Back on the eagle spot, there was what looked like a merlin perched on the craggy rocks high behind us. Photos taken weren't entirely convincing but the fast, direct flight when it moved off persuaded me it wasn't a kestrel.  

The presence of swallows was confirmed when a couple perched on a nearby bridge for several minutes.  It's not often they are near enough long enough to see the red face and neck.

Swallow

Less conspicuously, a grey wagtail turned up several times during the day.

Grey Wagtail

Vicki took a little walk upstream towards an area of trees where ring ouzels are said to appear.  I had tried the same area on day one without success but, staying nearer the river, she managed to snap a tree pipit right on the edge of the riverbank.

We also saw red deer on several occasions and I got a glimpse of a mountain hare, but no mountain goats.

In spite of a late change of location to an area where white eagles can occur, we did not manage anything as spectacular as this photo Vicki took she and Alex visited in April:

Golden Eagles

Up in The Highlands 1

 After several attempts, I managed to catch up with a male orange tip visiting the garden - actually a notably small specimen, suggesting it hasn't been feeding well.

Orange Tip

This may however be one of the last orange tips to visit as I have started clearing out the garlic mustard, which had become far too dominant and was starting to die off anyway.

Last weekend I was on a nature break in the Highlands with Alex and Vicki.  We started with a full day at a location known for eagles and managed a few sightings, though all were at considerable distance.  Not long after entering the valley I could see an obviously large bird from the car window and did get one good sighting through the binoculars, when I managed to track a bird across the heather and could make out its tail feathers.

The rest of the day we spent trying to work out whether distant flyers were eagles or buzzards, mostly the latter, some of which may also have been kestrels but mainly to my eye buzzards that managed to hover against the breeze.  I was a bit surprised to find that the commonest bird otherwise was house martin, swooping around in large numbers in the afternoon.  Oystercatchers and gulls were also present in good numbers, as well as occasional lapwing and curlew.

It was a reasonably summer day so I undertook a couple of forages in the gorse next to the river and was pleased to find a first sighting - the bilberry bumblebee.  There was also what I think to be a moss carder bee, rather than a common carder bee.  I reckoned I saw one in Cumbria last June, but didn't get close enough to confirm.

Bilberry Bumblebee

Moss Carder Bee?

A slight doubt on the latter is that gorse isn't listed as a favoured flower.

On the second day, we took advantage of the time of year to visit Loch Ruthven during the mating season of the slavonian grebe.  This is one of the few locations for slavonian grebe and we had instant success as it was the first bird we saw.  Several pairs were clearly visible from the hide, passing through the weed. Again there were a lot of house martins swooping over the water and I think some sand martins too.

Slavonian Grebe

Our afternoon walk around the area of Loch Garten was however a disappointment.  Hoping perhaps for crested tit or crossbill variations, all we saw was a couple of siskins and chaffinches, a couple more bilberry bumblebees and lots of pine trees as well as bilberry bushes that had barely started to flower.

Here the seasons probably played to our disadvantage as we learned later that crested tits and crossbills are a good deal harder to find in the nesting season.  Loch Garten itself is known for hosting birds of prey including osprey and goshawk but it seems you're better off viewing the webcam images rather than trying to see them live.

Friday 11th June

The morning I left Dumfries, I took a walk along the Nith from Nunholm to see if I could spot any kingfishers.  There weren't any but there were good views of sand martins swooping over the river south of the caul.

At home there were a few sporadic visits by woodpeckers (both genders), more invisible greenfinches and equally invisible willow warblers.

One day I spotted was a carpet moth sunning itself upside-down on one of my favourite pots.  To be more precise it was a garden carpet.  I don't usually have carpets in my garden.

Garden Carpet

We went fishing at Brenkley again the Wednesday after but it was astoundingly quiet on two leger rods and one pole line, until a switch to worm on the pole produced a small perch.  Then around 6.00 p.m. there was a strong run on one of the leger rods while I was on my own and I brought in a nice common carp in spite of getting in a tangle with the other rod.  It was taken on glugged sweetcorn.

Common Carp

We were fishing off the peninsular and wondered if it was a good swim.  There appeared to be a bank of weed about half way across.  On the other hand there was no sign of any other carp being taken near us.

We are now debating whether fishing with two rods is a good idea.  I think maybe start with one and put up another if no bites result... or maybe start with two and take one in if bites are frequent...

On the Thursday there was another interesting looking bee on the forget-me-nots.  On trying to identify it though, I wasn't so sure it's a bee at all.  Once again I emailed a friend at the Natural History Society of Northumberland who confirms that it is in fact a Narcissus Bulb Fly.

It's not a bee...

It's a Narcissus Bulb Fly

The forget-me-nots are now past their best and I am starting to see some large carder bees on other flowers around the decking,

This Monday I was out for a short walk along the Tyne from Wylam with my cousin and his wife.  We hadn't got very far when we noticed frenetic activity in the trees by a number of blue and great tits.  We soon saw they were trying to chase off a young-looking jay that had presumably discovered a nest it was trying to rob.

When we got to Hagg Bank Bridge, I noticed what I thought was a pied wagtail on a rock far beneath us.  For some reason I decided to take a photo and it proved in fact to be a common sandpiper. 

There weren't many butterflies to be seen fairly early in the day but while looking for them I rather liked the look of some white flowers amongst the campions.

Common Sandpiper

Maid's Violet

We came back over the Spetchells where a few buffish mining bees were still active and one or two orchids are starting to show.  The bird's foot trefoil is also coming through but not profuse enough yet to attract the common blue or dingy skipper.  Also strangely absent here were the sand martins, apart from a possible couple over the river.

Thursday 28th April

The bee spotting season has been in full swing.

The main event of the week was a trip to the Spetchells in the hope of catching up with ashy or tawny mining bee in addition to the hordes of buffish mining bees I expected to be present.  This certainly proved to be the case with males swarming around in some spots as well as numerous orgies taking place on the paths.

The other two did not make themselves apparent apart from one suspect tawny that was probably a carder bee. It would have been hard to spot them amongst all the others anyway.  However we did catch up with a couple of samples of Gooden's Nomad Bee, very small males, and the odd bumblebee.

Further along there was a single peacock butterfly and a good number of sand martins on the wing though they don't seem to have nested yet as the chalk holes were unvisited when we passed by.

Following the track back down towards the river there were a couple of red-tailed bumblebee queens and a few speckled wood.  Then we crossed over the hill again onto the track by the railway tracks I'd read somewhere that south facing slopes with dandelions are good for ashy mining bees.  None turned up but there were dandelions a plenty and a few minute male mining bees as well as a small tortoiseshell, a green-veined white and a couple of orange tips.

Unfortunately even phoning a friend couldn't help identify the last bee but in the same area I came across another specimen that is thought to be a gypsy cuckoo bumblebee.

Gooden's Nomad Bee	Red-tailed Bumblebee
Mystery Mining Bee	Gypsy Cuckoo Bumblebee

It's amazing what you see when you look.

By contrast things have been relatively quiet in the garden but even there another species turned up on the plum tree blooms - a white-tailed bumblebee queen.  One other surprise was the appearance of a small white trapped inside the summer house, which I hadn't been in for days.

White-tailed Bumblebee

Small White

Friday 6th June

I'm not really wanting to start each post with a review of what happened in the last post but there were again a couple of flowers I didn't manage to identify last time as below:

Self Heal

Red Campion

Can't believe I didn't spot the campion. Meanwhile it does appear from internet research that there is some evidence of dwarfism in butterflies. A study on a species in Queensland showed considerable size reductions after heavy rains in 2011 and was ascribed to malnutrition.  So maybe the item I saw last time really was a minute speckled wood. It did rain quite a lot in February.

Bird visits to the garden have been on the increase.  I was particularly pleased to see a chiffchaff (presumably, since that's what I hear nearly every day) visit the bird bath, now more visible following the collapse of a small tree that obscured it. Lady Woodpecker has come to the nuts quite frequently although not staying for long. And it is once again the feeding season for baby blue tits.  I've seen as many as three demanding food from the same parent.

Bullfinch

Unfortunately there has also been an unwelcome increase in visits from the Rat family, so I somewhat reluctantly decided to cut down the carpet of garlic mustard that they sneak around in and block up all the likely entry holes into the garden. This has understandably resulted in a decrease in visits from orange tip and green-veined white butterflies. The compensation was that a pair of bullfinches turned up to pick the seeds from the remaining few plants.  And garlic mustard was nearly finished anyway.

Incidentally there was quite an interesting confrontation between a member of the Rat family and the Bad Jackdaw gang who had encircled it.  After mutual threatening gestures, the rat finally made off when a magpie decided to intervene too.

The main trip I went on last Thursday was another walk in the Spetchells with Malcolm to see if we could track down the ashy mining bee. The buffish mining bee was still around though not in the same numbers as last month and I wasn't at all surprised that there were a few red-tailed bumblebees around.

I had for a while been aware of the cuckoo mining bee but had tended to dismiss the stripey insects I've seen at Spetchells as hoverflies... until on this occasion several were sighted disappearing down various mining bee holes. Unfortunately they did this rather too quickly for me to get a snapshot but we did finally manage to catch up with a male mining bee.  It was tiny and far smaller than I'd expected.  That's cotoneaster it's on!

Red-tailed Bumblebee

Ashy Mining Bee

A slightly surprising feature was that there was the lack of any butterflies apart from a small tortoiseshell by the river. Oh and of course I managed to photograph several more flowers I couldn't immediately identify.  I did get one though - mouse-ear hawkweed.

Mouse-ear Hawkweed

We finished up by watching the numerous sand martins that nest at the Eastern end of the Spetchells mound.

The day after I was walking around the Havannah reserve with a friend when we alarmed some lapwings who flew around overhead shrieking for a while before we moved off realising they must have nested in the fields nearby. Very rare that I get snaps of birds in flight with my camera but I managed both the lapwings and the sand martins the previous day, so pleased with that even if the quality isn't much.

Sand Martins

Lapwing

I also saw a small tortoiseshell on a brief visit back to Dumfries as well as a pair of goosander and many house martins and on Tuesday the first red admiral of the year as I rode back from the Derwent Reservoir.

Lots of people were out fishing at the reservoir.  It got me thinking that I should give fishing a try again...

Thursday 16th April

I was pleased to see that three tree sparrows spent some time feeding off the bird table yesterday, so it looks like they may become regular customers.  The bird food has been getting low during the virus crisis and I've reduced the amount I'm putting out .  I've also levened it with some leftover cumin seed but it doesn't seem to have proved popular.  Having sampled a few myself, I'm not surprised.  The taste is pretty pungent.

The garlic mustard has been shooting up and the first orange tips have been visiting, five sighted on one particularly sunny day.  It struck me that they are actually quite well camouflaged on this plant with their wings closed.

Orange Tip (wings closed)

Orange Tip (wings open)

There was also a green-veined white on one occasion.

The Garlic Mustard has also been attracting quite a few bees, including the tree bumblebee that is now one of the commonest visitors. There have also been some ressembling carder bees that have struck me as being particularly large, so I doublechecked but I think they are just common carders.

Common Carder

Tree Bumblebee

Yesterday I took my coronavirus exercise in the form of a cycle ride along the Tyne towards Newcastle. The idea was to check out how the flower meadows were developing but it was no surprise to see nothing was flowering as yet.

Around Leamington there were a few butterflies about.  At first it was annoying as none would settle so it wasn't possible to identify any, even though a couple nearly flew in my face.  Gradually it was possible to pick out the recent usual suspects - peacock and orange tip - as well as possibly a couple of other whites.

I continued on to just past Scotswood Bridge and stopped for another disappearing butterfly, when two or three sand martins started looping around in front of me.  Then, just before the stretch where the track runs down next to the main road, there was the first speckled wood of the year in the hedgerow. On the way back a couple of skylarks parachuting down to some waste land just by Scotswood. 

If I'd been looking to see any of these three things, this certainly wouldn't have been where I would have gone to do it.

Speckled Wood

On looking at it more closely, it's noticeable that the speckled wood seems darker than other examples.  I assume this is partly because it is a fresh specimen and that some of the speckles are not yet or only faintly visible.

Wednesday 10th April

I happened to revisit Whittle Dene Reservoir last Monday week on a bike ride and  there were now 30 or 40 sand martins flying low over the Southern Reservoir.  Another group member had to go back to retrieve a lost item and reported the same thing, except that she was lucky enough to see a little owl as well.

Wary chiffchaff

Last Wednesday turned out sunny so I again ventured off over the hills on the bike to Stocksfield.  Returning along the Tyne Valley, there were a number of chiffchaffs showing in the lower bushes and trees between Prudhoe and Wylam. I got the camera out a couple of times before capturing this slightly wary-looking fellow.

More surprising since temperatures were no more than 11 or 12C was to glimpse a couple of butterflies going down a steep path - one brown and one white but impossible to identify.  However, on the way back home from Ryton a couple of red admirals clearly flew across the road.

There was another trip to the Whittle Dene itself this Monday, but frankly last year's visit, a couple of weeks later in the year produced more interesting results.  Apart from a few long-tailed tits, the main event for me was actually managing to see a skylark singing fervently above until it slowly disappeared into the low cloud as it rose.

The most interesting changes have occurred around the garden.  The jackdaws have pretty much disappeared and the smaller birds have taken over. A siskin (a young female I suspect) frequently visits the nyger seed.  A nuthatch and even a jay (first time) have been seen passing through the silver birches and a chiffchaff briefly inspected a bush in flower. I wonder if the jackdaws are finding more to intyerest them in the farm fields round about.

The idiosyncratic features of the garden are still apparent.  Plenty of dunnocks (often chased away by a robin) but no sparrows or starlings.  It was typified when I was surprised to see a chaffinch on the lawn.

Meanwhile the two magpies are still lolloping around the place without any obvious sign of producing offspring or having laid any eggs.

Magpie pair

Sunday 31st March

The magpies have continued their nest building efforts. Though at times I was thinking any of the three little pigs could have done a better job, it does now look reasonably stable though not fully visible through the bushes.  So far there is no sign of chicks.

Perhaps also looking for a nest site, two or three fat tree bumblebees have worked their way through the garden.  More amusing however have been the antics of some of the pigeons as they seek to feed on the ivy berries out the back.  One even looked like it was having an ivy bath.  A wren has also visited and I got a nice shot of it singing from the 'dreadlocks' bush, so called because I don't know its real name.

Pigeon

Wren

On a bike ride last Wednesday I heard my first chiffchaffs of the year as soon as I was out of High Spen and they are now around in the woods at the back of the garden.  Between Wylam and Matfen skylarks were about and on the River Pont in the village there was a dipper that was spending so much time underwater I started to wonder if it was a small duck.

On Friday there was a Nature Walk at Whittle Dene Reservoirs.  Quite a few birds were seen but mostly at very long distance, notably wigeon, teal, goldeneye, curlew, cormorant, grey heron and greylag goose.  

Towards the end of the afternoon the wind dropped and we did get a few better sightings near the Southern Reservoir.  There were a couple of feral pigeons at the farmhouse, a few pied wagtails and a good view of a meadow pipit on the fence.  I thought I'd seen a warbler but others disagreed. The best thing we did see was a quick flypast by a sand martin, the first hirondine of this summer.  From all that, the only decent photograph I got was this heron.

Monday 11th June

Female nuthatch

Of course the day after I complained about the jackdaws yobbish behaviour putting off other birds, a nuthatch turned up on the peanut feeder for the first time, a female.  It hasn't stopped me cutting down on the bird food over the past couple of days, though partly because I've been out most of the time.

I did a bike ride along cycle track 10 to Stamfordham and enjoyed the flatter landscape in the area.  There were some flowers just past Seaton Burn that I at first thought were orchids and haven't managed to identify, again lots of skylarks singing and most pleasingly a male redstart that appeared in some oaks just west of Stamfordham. Plus some sort of maple I wasn't totally sure about.

I held off reporting this as I knew that the Prudhoe U3A Nature Watch trip to Hawthorn Dene near Easington was coming off today, a venue that is known to be rich in wildlife because of the magnesian limestone geology (dolomite).

This inevitably lead to a profundity of less common flowers being seen and frankly I really did find it more or less impossible to keep up with the sightings.  We certainly saw some bee orchids and some mouse-ear hawkweed but eventually all the new names just swamped me. I stuck to what I know more - butterflies and birds.

And there was indeed a fair bit to occupy the attention in those areas.  Having not yet seen a blue this year, it was pleasing to see at least twenty common blues at different times and get a decent picture.  I saw my first small heath of the year and managed to get a picture of a dingy skipper (though it was very dingy) as well as a chimney sweeper moth.  I don't think I've seen as much flower meadow in one place for a long time.

Common blue

Chimney sweeper

Dingy dingy skipper

Ogling female kestrel

We did actually manage to get a glimpse of a skylark and an excellent view of a female kestrel, which some people thought was eyeing us up so it could move in to hunt in the same area once we passed on.  I was particularly pleased to see a whitethroat passing through.  There were also sand martins, a few swallows and pipits, a fulmar and a reed bunting.

The general consensus was the area will produce even more sightings in a couple of weeks in view of the delayed summer.

Maybe I will return.