Out for the Ducks

Last weekend during the storms I was convinced I'd seen a white butterfly flattering past my front hedge.  The temperature was 11C but there is no evidence to suggest any whites appear in January so I guess it must have been a leaf.  There have been no surprises on the feeders apart from a female nuthatch turning up on the suet nuggets.  Nuthatches have not been seen here for a while.

One thing that did "turn up" was an explanation for the burrowings in my plant pots and for the fact I occasionally find an acorn or an oak sapling in them.

Grey Squirrel

Malcolm and I decided on a walk from Amble Dunes to East Chevington, which should have produced more interesting bird sightings.  The main thing saw was this dead ray, which I think may be a cuckoo ray although rays are not exactly a speciality with me and the spots have faded.  

Cuckoo Ray

I was expecting a lot of stonechats at least but all we actually got was a heron just south of Druridge, a couple of passing goldeneye as East Chevington Pond and some usual wader suspects as the tide went down on the way back.  

However I was pleased to manage as much as nine miles with the aid of my long-neglected walking sticks and very much enjoyed the concluding ice cream at Amble!

A recent bike ride only produced some audible skylarks and a fleeting bullfinch.

Sometimes the answer lies nearer home and a quickish visit to Killingworth Lake to check out the ducks yesterday proved more successful.  The main interest was reports of scaup and I did manage to see a few although it was hard to distinguish between the juveniles and the many young tufted ducks.  It was also nice to see some pochard again and get a close-up of a male goldeneye.

Pochard

Goldeneye

Scaup

At Killingworth the gulls, ducks, geese and swans are often found close to the bank at the West end because of the number of people who feed them.  Whether this is a good idea is another thing.

Sunday 1st September

Long-tailed tits have made a couple of further brief appearances on the feeders.  Disappointingly, the flowering of the buddleia I replanted after it collapsed in the side passage has only attracted a few whites.  The weather has been quite windy, so visits from painted ladies, speckled wood and others have been fly pasts.

Last Friday I did a slow ride along the Derwent to the gym and back.  The idea was to look out for some interesting areas that might provide sightings.  Perhaps it was a little too late in the year, but it produced distinctly limited success. Just after the cycle tracks split there was a good stand of thistle where there were half a dozen painted ladies nectaring. A little further downhill a several oaks have been planted, which might make it a good area for purple hairstreaks once they have grown a bit.

Stopping along the Derwent above the site of the Crowley dam, a kingfisher went by in a flash, notable for the fact I haven't seen one for a long time, probably several years.

This Friday the Naturewatch group went to Cresswell Pond, Druridge Pond and finished briefly at Hauxley Reserve. At Cresswell there were a few ruff though not in summer plumage and, in the distance, a number of scaup. Most birds were far away sheltering from the wind but some nearby lapwing occasionally demonstrated their flying skills. There was a suggestion of a lesser yellowlegs, but I doubt if this will be confirmed.  To me it looked like a sandpiper.

Tree sparrows - and company

We didn't stay long at Druridge where it was very exposed - but not before seeing some black-tailed godwit and a couple of massive red admirals sheltering in the nettles. At Hauxley there was a good number of tree sparrows visiting of feeders and a few gadwall visible from the cafe, at first confusing us by their dark appearance in the mixed light. I was pleased to be the first to spot a deceased yellow underwing moth, a little egret and a single meadow brown on tree foliage, the few other butterflies being speckled woods. From the west hide we could also see more gadwall, some shovelers nad some brightly coloured little grebe.

These were just the sighting that caught my attention.  There were several others.

Little Grebe

Large red admiral

Sunday 20th February

Things have looked up on the birdwatching front as slightly more pleasant weather reached Dumfries and Galloway over the past 10 days, during which it has not rained at all (!) and some days have proved quite sunny.

I took advantage of the opportunity on Thursday, when I took the train out to Gretna and cycled back at gentle pace to Dumfries hoping to see a few things on the loops off the 'low road' via Cycle Track 7.  I must have missed a signpost as I ended up riding straight to Eastriggs, but on the next loop towards Annan, I noticed a large flock of birds flying overhead and tweeting away merrily before landing on the telegraph wires in the distance.

My first reaction was that they would probably be goldfinches, but on getting out the binoculars I could see that they had nowhere near enough colour about them. Annoyingly they had their backs to me, but I could see they were not chaffinches as they did not have a white wing bar, just a white outline to the tail.  I could see that one bird had some streaking on the side of its chest, and then one of them turned round to reveal a reddish breast.

Linnets On Wire

At this point I realised they had to be linnets.  In another photograph, I could identify that there were 42 on the wire and that was after some had flown off.  This is not untypical for linnets at this time of year but it was the first time I have seen so many together.

From the same place, I had a view of a skylark ascending and on rejoining the tourist route, there was a woodpecker hammering violently in some bare trees but I couldn't get a view of it.

I stopped for lunch near Powfoot Golf Course where a couple more linnets flew over.  After that the wind got a bit more chilly and I rode faster towards home, only hearing some curlew and seeing a couple of buzzards.

On Saturday I was at Cragside House in Northumberland, where there wasn't much active on a still, cool day barring a few small trout.  But there were a couple of duck diving on the same lake and I was able to identify that they were scaup.  If I have seen scaup before I don't remember it or haven't known it, so that was pleasing.

Just before leaving this morning, there was a greenfinch at the top of a conifer, singing his head off.