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.

Spain - Day 2

Oh dear, what a catastrophe!

At teatime on day 2 perhaps still jetlagged after getting up at 3.15 am on Monday to make the flight from Stansted, I managed to permanently delete all the photos I had taken during the day including good views of some notable first time sightings.  So all I can do is tell the story of what I saw without the evidence.

The day started well before dawn when we drove a few miles to an observation post at the Southern corner of the lake.  It was still pitch dark but after half an hour, vague shapes could be made out and I used the moon setting on my camera to see lines and lines of cranes in the distance...

The story with the cranes is that they gather on the Laguna di Gallocanta before migrating northwards across the Pyrenees. Each day at this time of year some will make the flight, some will remain and others will move in.  

So as the light improved, they started to move off in increasing numbers, flying straight over our heads in an overwhelming display except for one lone individual that came back.  Someone joked that it must have forgotten something.

We were told that there were around 15,000 cranes in the area on the day but the hotel organised a competition for us to guess how many there would be on the last day of our stay, just before the start of the "crane weekend" when most are expected to make the move north.  The number counted on that Friday was over 27,500, many more than any of us guessed!

Also seen on or the lake were some distant flamingos, shelduck, shoveler and teal as well as calandra lark, merlin and marsh harrier nearby.

Later in the day we travelled around a bit seeing crested lark, several linnets rock sparrow and roe dear. indeed it was going along in the van that led to a spectacular sighting when one of the guides saw two great bustard crossing behind us in his mirror as he drove along!  They disappeared straight away but we caught up with them again by circling around and managed good views. 

Something similar happened not much later when a bird of prey flew out of a tree in front of the advancing van.  Some thought buzzard and some thought marsh harrier but it flew off speedily to a corner of a distant field, where it could eventually be identified as a booted eagle

You can see why I was fed up about deleting the images.

I did manage one photographic capture that evening. In a garden near the hotel there was a bush full of twittering birds, which could only be seen fleetingly as they left and entered the foliage so I tried without much success to video them:

Tree with invisible birds

The Merlin app suggested spanish sparrows but I think not. Bog standard house sparrow is I think the correct answer.  I later learned that spanish sparrow is a more rural species.

Spring What Spring?

The weather remains largely wet, notwithstanding the odd brighter day, and temperatures a variable.

Anyway I can report a first ever garden sighting following the confirmed appearance of a siskin.

The siskin is of course not an uncommon bird.  Up to now I have wondered whether it was due to elevation.

Actually it's more likely explained by the lack in this immediate vicinity of pine trees, which do of course occur at considerable height, is the causal factor.

I've also mentioned occasional appearances by male and female chaffinches lately, and a couple of days ago both turned up to feed off the ground.

It looks like chaffinches may now be a thing as one or other has reappeared recently.

Chaffinches

A recent visit to Boldon Flats also produced some quite nice sightings, notably a lot of wigeon

Shelduck Teal and Wigeon Heron and Wigeon Unfortunately it didn't produce any birds of prey or migrant rarities.  Just a little egret that, after showing well for a while, made itself more and more scarce.  I spent quite a lot of time grappling with camera technicalities. There have been some further signs of spring.  Last week a probable honey bee hovered around the open garage door.  At the tennis club, a toad was found crawling across court 4 to the river and I tried to rescue an early bumblebee queen, unfortunately on the point of dying.

Low Force and High Force Wind

On Saturday I joined up with Jennifer and Joe who are walking the Pennine Way in stages.

We met at Middleton-in-Teesdale to do the section to High Force.  Unfortunately I 'hit the wall' at about four miles and only made it to Low Force, the easy access to High Force from the nearby hotel having closed about 15 minutes before I got there. 

High Force

We saw surprisingly little wildlife during the couple of hours or so.  We thought there was a flock of fieldfares in some trees and there were three butterflies, one of which was a red admiral and a few buff-tailed bumblebee queens.  Birdwise there was the odd lapwing and curlew plus a few pied wagtails.

One surprise though was three completely white mallards that paddled their way across the Tees below Low Force.  Apparently this almost certainly means they were escapees as mallards held domestically are often bred to lose their natural colours.

We actually saw more birds while driving around the moors from place to place: partridge, a possible cuckoo, red grouse and short-eared owl.  And many skylarks.

A buff tailed bumblebee queen finally landed in my garden the other day.  So far they hadn't settled.

Queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee

Due to poor weather I hadn't been out on the bike for a long time apart from a couple of short refresher rides.  Again not much was seen but having got stopped at the level crossing at Wylam, I took a snap of the grey heron that frequently resides there.

Heron

Anyway, on Sunday I took advantage of what had been an excellent weather forecast for a ride up the coast to Cresswell and Druridge - except that the non-stop sunshine expected never happened and I was buffeted all day by a heavy onshore breeze that made me wish I'd taken my winter gloves!

On the Blyth estuary I got a couple of nice views of shelduck and redshank on the mudflats.

Shelduck

Redshank

I've always liked shelduck.

I did a detour around the Newbiggin area in search of Sandy Bay where rarities sometimes turn up - notably a bluethroat recently- but couldn't find it and made a quick exit to escape the Easter festivities.

At Cresswell and Druridge the most notable sighting was my first bar-tailed godwits, which turned up in both locations.  The one of Cresswell has spilled some weed on itself.

Bar-tailed godwit

I had hoped for avocets, which have recently appeared at both locations but unfortunately no luck and the spoonbill at Druridge didn't show either.  

Nevertheless there was a reasonable tally of further sightings recorded including a little egret in the corner at Cresswell, sanderling, lapwing, canada and greylag geese, shoveler, teal, wigeon, lapwing and several more shelduck

Lapwing

Shoveler

Unsurprisingly no butterflies were seen.

New Sightings

Not a bad past ten days even if the bird rarities aren't showing up in the numbers they were last year.

A week ago on Monday I decided to finally walk a stretch near Gosforth Golf Course, where I knew ring-necked parakeets had once been seen.

A few hundred metres after the start, an old chap with a crutch stopped to chat and told me that parakeets are often in the trees in the area where we were standing, but weren't there today as he would have heard them squawking.

I can't have gone on fifty yards before I did hear squawking and could make them out in the trees overhead, about four in total I reckoned This was a fair slice of luck as hardly anyone else I encountered muttered even hallo unlike most areas I visit.

For the rest of the walk I didn't see anything much beyond a few goldfinches even though I ventured into a North Tyneside designated ecozone, which was actually a rather unpromising strip of land sandwiched between the North end of Longbenton and an industrial estate.

On the way back I was wondering what else I had hoped to see and came to the conclusion it was redpolls, which turned up in some number at the end of last January.

Anyway, the parakeets were still in situ in the same couple of trees when I ended the walk and seemed to be pretty static, not crashing around all over the place like when I saw them in Brussels.

Ring-necked Parakeet

This was the first time I have seen a parakeet in this country.  They are in the region but not in anything like the numbers in the South East.

The day after was a bike ride to Belsay, when I heard skylarks for the first time in a while and spotted a yellowhammer in a hedgerow.  There were also a couple of buzzards, a kestrel and a probable sparrowhawk.

I tried a walk round Shibdon Pond at the weekend, an area that always strikes me as attractive but doesn't produce much of interest.  Apart from large numbers of barnacle goose, I did manage to spot some shelduck and tufted duck on the pond itself.

Shelduck

Tufted Duck

The other thing I have noticed in the past few days is that a robin has started visiting the peanut feeders, not something that I've ever seen before as far as I can recall.  I'm wondering if it's something they've learned from the numerous tits..  The winter has so far been mild so you wouldn't think food was in especially short supply.

Saturday 10th April

 I noted some while back that spottings in my garden are a bit upside down in that birds that are normally common appear seldom - and vice versa.  A recent surprise was to spot two 'rarities' at the same time last week, a male garden sparrow and a siskin.  A female sparrow also turned up a couple of days later, as did briefly a goldfinch.  Both birds can be seen close at hand but don't usually visit the garden.  You'd really expect more siskins, given the amount of nearby woodland.

Siskin

To cap that I also got the best view I have ever had of a jay, which hung around for a couple of minutes just behind the bottom fence.  This happened while I was getting dressed upstairs, hence alas no photo.

The weather has done a major u-turn putting an end to butterfly sightings but Spring has now sprung and other species are abundant.  

A week ago on Friday Frances and I did a very scenic walk along the Blyth at Humford Mill near Bedlington.  There was wild garlic and other woodland flowers starting to come out all over the place, plus one plant I knew I recognised but needed to check - alternate leaf golden saxifrage.  There was less in the way of birdlife apart from a grey wagtail and a quick flash of a dipper flying downstream.

Grey Wagtail

Alternate Leaf Golden Saxifrage

Although the weather was already starting to cool there were a good few bumblebee queens on the move, one of which seemed to me on the basis of video evidence seemed to be a buff-tailed bumblebee.

One week later it was quite chilly when Malcolm and I set out from Low Newton to the outskirts of Beadnell against a northerly wind.

There were skylarks all over the place with a good number of meadow pipits, one of which posed nicely on a stretch of cut grass near a holiday park.

Meadow Pipit

It was one of those days when the further we walked, the more we saw.  By the time we got back we had also seen kestrels, stonechats, a flock of geese in flight that eventually landed at distance and looked to contain a mixture of greylag and pink-footed geese. there were a good few shelduck around, a couple of which were just about near enough to catch in the camera, though I never even spotted the curlew that was next to them.  A shallow pond produced a couple of gadwall and lapwing as well. however I was most pleased with a quick but unmistakeable view of a golden plover through the binoculars.

Shelduck - and curlew

Afterwards we stopped for a coffee back at Low Newton.  The tide was in and there was a proliferation of sanderling, redshank and oystercatchers on the crowded shoreline and a fleet of eider duck further out.

I reckoned there were some other small birds running around with the sanderling and took a few casual shots thinking to identify them later.  In fact I totally missed the foreshore and got instead a couple of blurred shots of birds in flight above the waves.  One had an upwardly curved beak but wasn't an avocet so I suppose possibly a godwit.  The other was a small wader but from what little I had looked more like illustrations of Temminck's Stint than the dunlin or knot I anticipated.  That however seems rather more unlikely.

If we had visited the foreshore at the beginning rather than the end of the day, I might have paid it more attention.

Wednesday 11th March

Not being that keen on seabirds and waders, I was unsure about whether to go on the latest Naturewatch trip to Blyth, but reports of avocets in the estuary and improving weather finally persuaded me.

After taking a rather long time to spot some isolated sanderling and black headed gulls on the beach, where the main life forms were canine, we got a nice view of several pairs of eider duck in the harbour, where they were clearly begging for scraps as they bobbed around.

I was actually hoping to capture their cooing call which one member of the group aptly described as a Frankie Howerd imitation.

Things got even better when we walked along the estuary as a wide variety of species appeared, notably shelduck, teal, curlew, oystercatcher and goldfinch, as well as a grey seal that popped its head out a couple of times.

Having missed it on the Tyne at Hexham last winter, I was particularly pleased to get a reasonable sighting of a red-breasted merganser once it moved over into the river.

Red-breasted Merganser

This one appears to be imitating Boris Johnson.  

Of the avocets however, there was no sign.

Wednesday 11th December

Grey Squirrel

Things have been quite lively in the garden as the nights darken.  It has clearly been a good year for grey squirrels, whom I have regularly seen passing along the trees at the back, no doubt commuting to the oak tree just down the burn to collect acorns.

One made a couple of forays into the garden itself and eventually ended up on the bird feeder that contains sunflower hearts.  On closer inspection it proved that one of the holes in the feeder has been considerably enlarged.

There have also been regular invasions of long-tailed tits, sometimes half a dozen at a time. For some reason I was particularly struck by how dark the markings are on their back this winter. In typical fashion, they arrive suddenly and only

Long-tailed Tits

stay briefly before moving on.

Long-tailed tits were even more in evidence at Shibdon Pond yesterday when I took a break from the hide which was full of Naturewatchers.  There must have been at least twenty passing along the south bank.  From the hide, the sightings were pretty much dominated by gulls. Apart from the normal things you'd expect to see (teal, shoveler, etc) there were a good few shelduck patrolling the far bank.

On the edge of the grassy area where there the canada geese like to promenade there were also a couple of domestic ducks - one a hybrid of some sort and the other a muscovy duck.

Shelduck

Teal	Muscovy Duck

I got one bike ride in last Wednesday when the weather looked up and noticed a couple of kestrels hovering - one just north of Wylam and another north of Ponteland on the Morpeth road.  Red kites are also starting to appear more regularly over Rowlands Gill.

Friday 16th November

This is the slightly delayed report on the visit to Low Hauxley WWT reserve on Monday.

Driving by a rather more direct route than planned following my argument with Sally Satnav, we were treated

Tree Sparrows

to a good view of a kestrel hovering on the approach to Hauxley Village.  We duly assembled in the cafe observation area.  Conditions were slightly tricky looking directly into the sun but secerla ducks including little grebe, wigeon and tufted duck were soon spotted.

I sidled off to watch the feeders, which were soon being plundered by a number of tree sparrows, two of whom performed an 'eyes left' routine for the camera.

There was also the first sighting of a red-breasted merganser.  It popped up again later when we were half way round the reserve but, annoyingly for me, it managed to sneak behind an island both times before I could catch it in the binoculars properly.

Female Shoveler

After that we split to visit two hides.  I chose the one facing seawards where there were a few female eider near the shoreline.  Several woodland birds visited the feeders there as well as a moorhen on the ground and a large volley of long-tailed tits passed through, one perching in the twigs right in front of the hide window.

From the other hide there were also reports of a bar-tailed godwit.

Further round past Ponteland Hide, we encountered some gadwall, a shelduck, teal and a pair of female shovelers that seemed to have particularly large beaks - even for them.

Hebridean Sheep

As there had been no substantial frost, there were still numerous plants and trees in flowers.  The ones I noticed most were sea buckthorn, red campion and viper's bugloss.

On the way to the last hide on the western side of the lagoon, there was a group of hebridean sheep, one of which managed to look strangely like a baboon.

Perhaps due to the incoming tide, this was arguably the most productive location and produced amongst others excellent sail past views of a teal and a male goldeneye, while numerous curlew, greylag geese and wigeon could be spotted on the grass upland opposite.

Teal

Goldeneye

All in all a good visit to a well-maintained reserve that had me wondering what rarities might turn up there over time.

Thanks to Ruth of the Prudhoe U3A Naturewatch group for the photos in the absence of my snapper.

Wednesday 21st February

A couple of minor outings this week.

A sudden rise in temperature to maximum 12C encouraged me to take a walk along the Nith south of Kingholm Quay on Monday, where I saw the sedge warblers and the redstart last summer.

Conditions were pretty boggy and the main things that made themselves noticeable were an immense number of oystercatchers, mainly in the fields on either bank.  There must have been several hundred of them, far more than I have seen together at any one time before.

Further down there was another submerged field where there were a few whooper swans taking the air.  On looking more closely at some corbids in front of them, I also noticed that there were a couple of shelduck too.  I did not know they could be found on agricultural land but the RSPB handbook does say "visits farmland near the coast."

Whooper swans with preening shelduck

There were a few mallard, a couple of pipits and some barnacle geese in the distance near Glencaple before I got fed up with the flood debris on the path and turned back with a single whooper swimming up and down the tide flow.

Shelduck

The main group of whoopers took off from the field as did the shelduck pair, the latter turning up again further upstream.

Two days later temperatures were falling but the sun was still bright, so I chanced the bike ride to Loch Arthur over Troston.  There were a couple of song thrushes and a few redwing mixed in with a flock of starlings.  Also a couple more whoopers and a small group of goldeneye (again!) on Loch Arthur itself.  Three woodpeckers could be heard drumming but not seen.

I went back via Kirkgunzeon in the hope of yellowhammers but didn't see any and narrowly missed a flight of geese coming in from the west.

Later, there were also a couple of bullfinch pairs, one male showing well next to road up from the Lochfoot roundabout.

But the main thing about this trip was the tremendous effect the bright, low sun had on my new tinted lenses on the way out.  The sky in the West looked turqoise instead of light blue and Loch Arthur looked blue rather than grey.  The colouration of the trees was also much richer.

There were however some negative results as it was often harder to identify the birds - as well as the existence of potholes in shaded areas!  It even had me wondering if I should leave the glasses off in similar conditions.

Wednesday 11th January

A rather windy bike ride to Castle Douglas a week ago did not produce much.  The most interesting sighting was two red kites playing around right above the town garden centre just as all the cyclists arrived.  Otherwise, the predominant bird was the robin.  Also wrens, a few goldfinches, and a couple of young buzzards sitting close to the road.

Redshank Steps Out

Malcolm in Northumberland is getting more interested in birdwatching, so there were more interesting results on my latest visit last weekend.  A dog walking trip to Alnmouth Beach on Sunday soon produced redshank, turnstone, sanderling, pied wagtail and rock pipit.  A visit to Warkworth a couple of days later also provided a brief sighting of a seal.

Later on Sunday we visited the pond at Low Newton in somewhat fading light and quickly managed to sight a pair of tufted ducks away from the coots and mallard.  A number of ducks on the far side looked like wigeon to me but an experienced bird watcher from Yorkshire thought they were teal. The photographic evidence isn't conclusive.  Just before the onset of dusk there was a single litle grebe (a first sighting for me) and some whooper swans feeding on the farmland opposite.

The Monday found us trying new pastures at Stag Rock just North of Bamburgh.  This time it was the

Purple Sandpipers - I hope!

brightness that caused some confusion and we spent some time trying to identify a group of birds that we eventually decided were just some unusually quiet and rather plump oystercatchers.

My identification skills with ducks and waders are still somewhat uncertain but I'm fairly confident I managed further first sightings of common scoter and purple sandpiper.  Also apparent were turnstone, sanderling, curlew, herring gull and a couple of stonechat on the edge of the beach.

There wasn't much more swimming further out in the sea apart from a small number of eider and one slight disappointment was the non-appearance of any long-tailed duck. Nevertheless, a rewarding visit to the area for both of us.

Later we briefly went to Fenham Flats opposite Lindisfarne around twilight, just as the geese moved off en masse to roost. They were probably pink-footed geese but far to far off to allow any identification.  So the only new thing we saw was several groups of shelduck, but always a favourite of mine

Friday 1st April

Mixed weather has again brought mixed fortunes on the nature front.

On Tuesday I did a tour of Mersehead Reserve in the hope mainly of seeing some lapwings displaying. There wasn't much around in the fields except a couple of flocks of remaining barnacles. There was more action on the ponds where tufted duck (maybe one scaup), shoveller, wigeon, pintail, whooper swan and shelduck were all apparent.

At the reserve building there had been a sign saying the first chiffchaff had been heard that day. I certainly heard one on the way to Meida Hide and managed to capture the song (though not the actual bird!) on this video in spite of competition from the background rookery.

I did manage to see one on the way to the seashore and think there were about three or four birds actively calling.

A couple of stonechats were playing on the fenceposts near the shore, the first time I've seen them there in several visits. But the most numerous bird on the second half of the walk was definitely the skylark, several of them plying the heavens with their songful ascents and sudden plunges that I still do not understand the meaning of.  There were a few pipits and, yes, some lapwings too - but they weren't displaying.

The bike ride the following day was again affected by rain for half of the run, but there were a couple of red kites and a field full of about 50 greylags between Rhonehouse and Twynholm.  I checked them over and could see no other species of goose among them.

Selection of Greylags

Saturday 7th February

Tricked by an over-optimistic weather forecast, I set out on a brief afternoon bike ride to Caerlaverock to check for egrets. In cold, foggy conditions with no hint of the promised sunshine, the emphasis was on staying warm but I did see another bullfinch before spotting four shelduck filtering the estuary mud like flamingos.  On peering through the binoculars, I could see that there were another ten further away as the fog lifted momentarily, so it would be hard to say how many might have been visible in better conditions but there were no egrets.

Later, unsurprisingly spotted a goosander on the Nith by Kingholm Park.

12th March

A couple of walks with Alex this week. At Mersehead saw reed bunting, pipits, curlew, ringed plover and 18 shelduck on shore. Still several hundred barnacle geese. Area behind beach towards Southerness looks to be worth investigating.

Caerlaverock Nature Reserve today.  Heard woodpecker and several skylarks but no sighting.